Answer to yesterday’s TugsterTeaser: that BIG tall ship is NOT Peking, which didn’t arrive in the sixth boro until late 1975. Answer is Moshulu, mentioned in the wikipedia site, although if you look at the Moshulu site, it appears she went directly from Finland to Philadelphia. Does anyone remember how long she stayed at South Street Seaport?
Background below: Outerbridge, named for Eugenius H. Outerbridge, first chairman of the Port Authority of New York. Foreground: That’s for you to ponder a bit. Info later.
What unifies the fotos in this post is the background . .. all show a hint of Outerbridge. Inspiration here comes from Hokusai and his 36 views of Mt Fuji, one print of which–Great Wave–everyone knows, just about.
Foreground: Cable Queen. What is her story, anyone? For as long as I’ve been watching, she’s been moored just north of the Moran yard on KVK.
Twin props, shallow draft. Did she get to the yard under her own power?
And the floating clubhouse aka the honorable William Wall (rope maker, US Representative, Williamsburg politician mid-nineteeth century, and who knows what else) also no longer floats for the season.
Elka Nikolas, Croatia-built, heads for sea.
The elegant Little Bear awaits in the bridge’s shadow earlier in the fall.
and a Coast Guard 40′ comes back to life.
ATB Pati R Moran heads north on the Arthur Kill under the bridge.
Foreground: Rae (ex-Miss Bonnie) waits her turn. The blue tug is Ron D. Garner, and the bridge, background.
Scrapped vessels, now disintegrated, await a rise in scrap ferrous metal prices.
Which leads back to this foto, showing the Outerbridge in the background. The year is 1964, and this is one of several thousand Liberty ships, and she’s waiting here to be
scrapped. Anyone know the name? I don’t but I’d love to. Foto comes from the Bob McClaren collection via Allen Baker.
All other fotos by Will Van Dorp. If I wanted to mirror Hokusai’s 36 views, I guess I need 26 more shots. Well, another time, different angles. Or better yet, if you’re on the Arthur Kill, take some unusual shots with the Outerbridge as background and please send them along.
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December 9, 2009 at 6:21 am
jeff s
any clue what that scrap is from? there were a lot of idle barges in that neighborhood….. including the famous ”PURPLE BARGE” houseboat of the Floating Foundation of Photography. she was still afloat in 2004.
old Staten Island ferry DONGAN HILLS of 1929 sat in the vicinity of the Liberty Ship after her sale in 1966. she was still there as a hulk well into the 1980’s.
December 9, 2009 at 9:31 am
tugster
jeff- i’d love to hear more/see fotos of the “purple barge.” all i found was this link… http://www.newpaltz.edu/museum/exhibitions/exhibitions_2.html about the scrap pile, i took the foto in early october this year . . . after scrap prices dropped and it was still there last weekend. would you know the name of the liberty ship?
December 10, 2009 at 5:54 am
jeff s
don’t know the Liberty ship. dozens of them were scrapped at Kearny,NJ thru the sixties. the one on the photo doesn’t look like a Reserve Fleet vessel ….most of which were either in ”lay-up” gray or solid rust in various burnished hues. a few came right from civilian sources, usually foreign flag, but they were rare. Any idea WHEN picture was taken?
PURPLE BARGE shows up on Live Earth aerials of Tottenville….her violet hull is faded but you can pick her out by her superstructure and ,what looks like an anchor, at the top of her foremast.
December 10, 2009 at 7:55 am
tugster
the liberty ship foto was taken in 1964.
December 12, 2009 at 11:41 pm
Norman Brouwer
The MOSHULU story: She had been used as a storage hulk, most recently at Naantali, Finland, and had not sailed since 1939.
Ray Wallace was a naval architect who had designed ships for Disneyland. David Tallichet was a restaurant developer who liked unusual locations. He had done those Lafayette Escuadrille restaurants at airports, where waitresses dressed up as World war I nurses. Ray Wallace told Tallichet he should create a floating restaurant in an old sailing vessel. Tallichet bought the idea and told Wallace to find him one. Wallace went to Karl Kortum, Director of the San Francisco Maritime Museum who told him the former British sailing ship ARRANMORE was being retired as a floating school named the VINDICATRIX. Wallace went to look at her and decided she was in too bad shape. Kortum was disgusted. He believed virtually any surviving sailing ship could be restored, and had convinced several people to take them on, including Peter Stanford (WAVERTREE).
Then they heard MOSHULU was being retired as a storage hulk. Tallichet bought her, and had her towed to Amsterdam for the preliminary work. Wallace designed the rig, and the spars were fabricated in the Netherlands. He also designed a complete interior that was a complete Hollywood fantasy and nothing to do with her actual history. Tallichet had a site on the waterfront of Queens opposite the UN (someone later did a restaurant there). The plans included windows in the side to give diners a view of Manhattan.
As the time approached for her tow to New York, Kortum and Stanford began pondering ways the ship might instead end up at South Street, without the windows. Tallichet finally agreed to berth her at South Street while some decision was reached regarding her future. She arrived in October 1972. The negotiations went on for two years. Tallichet finally said the Museum could buy the ship for what he had spent on her, or he was going to move her to Philadelphia.
I learned that the PEKING was now for sale, initially thinking some things from her could be used in restoring MOSHULU. A Museum trustee, Jack Aron, found out the price of the PEKING was likely to be much less than Talichet was asking for MOSHULU. and said he would buy her for the Museum, have her drydocked and towed to New York, and have the missing spars fabricated. In fact the purchase price of PEKING was much less. Other people attended the auction, but no one else bid. The MOSHULU was towed to Philadelphia, was given Ray Wallaces’ rig and interiors, and had the windows cut in her sides.
The two ships were very similar when built, and both were built for German owners. MOSHULU sailed under the US flag in the 1920s. The PEKING never visited this country during her active career.
December 14, 2009 at 2:13 am
Maritime Monday 192
[…] NY, NY: Scrapped vessels, now disintegrated, await a rise in scrap ferrous metal prices. More news & views from the Sixth Borough on Tugster » […]
December 15, 2009 at 1:17 am
bowsprite
Norman Brouwer, folks.
By the way, Tugster: the Willy Wall is back at North Cove, and floats she still…!
May 24, 2010 at 8:20 am
Anonymous
The “Cable Queen” was sold by I believe by NY Telephone at the time, to a private party who was going to contract it out to do submarine cable.
Looks like it didnt work out.
I would bet it got there on its own power.