More Seth Tane fotos.
Foto #1. It’s 1979, 34 years ago. What I see is no structure on Pier 17 Manhattan, lots of covered warehouses and a ship on the Brooklyn side. Extreme lower right of foto . . . is that the floating hospital? There’s another large white vessel to the left of lightship Ambrose. There’s a vacant lot just to the south of the Brooklyn side access to the Bridge. And a large ATB looking tug in the Navy Yard. What have I missed?
Foto #2. W. O. Decker–in my posts here and here and many other places–comes to pick up a tow, Poling #16. Digression: if you do Facebook, here’s the Marion M (shown in the second Decker link there) updates site with fotos. Lots of intriguing details in the background of the Navy yard here.
Foto #3 Driving Decker here is most likely Geo Matteson, author of Tugboats of New York. A 2013 “reshoot” of this cityscape is a “must do.”
Foto #4. Tied up at Pier 17, Decker remakes the tow to get the tanker alongside.
All fotos by Seth Tane.
If you’re interested in collaborating in a documentation of the changing harbor, particularly the evolving articulation between the sixth boro and the other five, please contact me. See address upper left side.
tugster: a waterblog 
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May 29, 2013 at 1:07 pm
Joe
On the older Navy Yard photo: There’s a bulker loading scrap, a Tarawa Class LSD in DD being repaired/scrapped and a 300+ foot white vessel, perhaps a USCGC (WMEC) on the MR at the south end. There are two tugs there as well, one is an unhitched ABT (ed ATB ?) the other is a smaller white one. A Weeks boat?
May 29, 2013 at 2:10 pm
tugboathunter
The unhitched ATB in the naval yard photo is the Marinette-built “Strong”, which at the time may have been named “J.J. Oberdorf” or “Caroline”.
May 29, 2013 at 2:36 pm
tugster
Here’s a foto of STRONG and its barge, which also appears at its stern in the foto then. http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=1355549 And beyond them, a Seatrain VLCC. Forward of STRONG, is that a Seatrain vessel?
May 30, 2013 at 5:29 am
jeff s
The white vessel closest to Pier 17 is the ROBERT FULTON. Originally the hospital barge ST.JOHNS GUILD and LLOYD I SEAMAN.
She was to fixed up as a floating restuarant…don’t know if she ever functioned as such. i don’t think she was at SSSP much after 1976 or so.
By the 90’s she was lying abandoned in the Masonville section of Baltimore,Md. near the old Fairfield Shipyards and apparently was demolished during a clean-up of the area in 2007.
May 30, 2013 at 10:23 am
Andy
Could you walk on the pier that extends out around the base of the Brooklyn Bridge?
May 30, 2013 at 10:49 am
tugster
i’ll have to crowdsource that question, and i’m eager to learn the answer.