Know this water, more of a waterway than a harbor? The distant buildings are a clue. See the one just left of the center of bridge center, needle thin?
Here’s another clue . . . the structure near the right side of the photo, like an old time gas station pump?
Or this one left of the crane, looking like the business end of a blue crab whose pincers are down?
Or this wreck? What WAS this boat? I’ve asked a million people who all say they also asked a million people. Anyone know?
And seriously, the first photo showed the Throgs Neck Bridge, the second the LaGuardia airport traffic tower, and the third . . . Arthur Ashe stadium. The photo above with the mystery wreck in the Whitestone Bridge . .. the second one in when you travel from Long Island Sound into . . . the East River
And that needle thin tower in 432 Park, said to be the tallest residential building in the hemisphere. Click here for views from the tallest bathtub in that building. And in the foreground of the photo below, truly a place of superlatives . . . . Rikers Island, i.e., one of the largest incarceration places in the world. No gunk holing is tolerated anywhere near this place.
Rikers has literally overflowed its banks. This is the off-Rikers portion of NYC Corrections, the Vernon C. Bain Center.
Click here for a tugster photo of part of the Rikers fleet. And here for Bain’s NYC floating prison predecessor.
By now, most of you know this is the East River and we’re traveling west. Here the DEP sludge tanker Red Hook prepares to depart the Hunt’s Point wastewater treatment plant. Click here for some tugster posts on treating waste and keeping sixth boro waters as clean as possible despite the teeming millions that live along the banks of these waters. And if you’ve never read my Professional Mariner story on the latest generation of these tankers, you can do so here.
Between Rikers and Hunts Point, there are the North and South Brother Islands; see my post from South Brother here from a long time ago. The safer channel goes around the north of North Brother, but in daylight, most vessels can shoot between the two.
I’ve never set foot on North Brother, but I imagine it a terrestrial version of the “graveyard” on the Arthur Kill.
A “night wharf” on Wards Island for the sludge tankers lies here just east of the Hell Gate and RFK bridges there.
This strait–between Roosevelt Island and the upper east side of Manhattan–in the tidal strait that’s known as the East River can see some fast currents. Somewhere off to the right is the vantage point Jonathan Steinman takes his East river pics from.
This is not a cargo pier. These vessels are repairing the bulk heading.
Anyone know the identity of these two “houses” nestled up there in the eastisde of Manhattan cliffs?
These barges called the Water Club . . . I’ve never been there. Any personal reviews?
Newtown Creek awaits its fate here at a dock in Wallabout Bay right across
from the rock wharf where Alice Oldendorff has discharged millions of tons of crushed rock over the years.
After we duck under the Brooklyn Bridge, we near the end of the East River,
where South Street Seaport Museum has been fighting the noble fight to
preserve ships and the upland including the wharves.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
tugster: a waterblog 
7 comments
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November 27, 2015 at 2:41 pm
Jonathan
Hi Will…Great posts as always and thanks for the shout-out. As far as I know the Hughes barge is not repairing the bulk heading. Rather, it is participating in the first steps of constructing the Rockefeller River Campus extension, which will extend Rockefeller University out over the FDR Drive.
See more here: http://rivercampus.rockefeller.edu/
Cheers,
Jonathan from the East River Perch
November 27, 2015 at 4:59 pm
tugster
jonathan– thanks for the correction/clarification. and with the impending opening of Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island, might there eventually be a covered hallway over the East River between Rockefeller U and Cornell Tech?
November 27, 2015 at 7:56 pm
Jonathan
We in the Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan Kettering community certainly hope for one and talk about one, but I haven’t heard of any plans in the works.
-Jonathan
November 28, 2015 at 5:33 am
Anonymous
wreck off Westchester Creek is reportedly CHRISTINA. a failed floating restaurant project. originally the ferry WELFARE of 1930, extensively converted.
November 28, 2015 at 7:58 am
tugster
Ferry WELFARE–named for its island destination of the same name–now Roosevelt Island–was built in 1930 in Kearny. Here’s a record: http://www.shipbuildinghistory.com/history/shipyards/2large/inactive/bethelizabethport.htm Even better, here are some photos, that show a bow and wheelhouse that’s similar to those of the wreck: http://sshsaimageporthole.org/index.php?route=product/category&path=126&sort=pd.name&order=DESC&limit=12&page=17
November 28, 2015 at 7:55 am
tugster
anon– thanks for this. however, here’s part of the thrill of this search. by email and FB, i’ve also had the wreck identified as BRONX QUEEN and a former offshore pirate radio. BRONX QUEEN is the right size, but here’s a NYTimes story from Dec 1989 reporting that BRONX QUEEN sank in the Ambrose Channel: http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/08/nyregion/no-cause-found-for-the-sinking-of-fishing-boat.html of course, it could have been raised as is alluded to at the end of the Times article and abandoned where it currently lies. it COULD be but that’s not typical MO for the USACE, is it? as to the words BRONX QUEEN reportedly painted on the bow and once still legible, that could just have been a graffiti reference to the party boat that sank in Ambrose?
as to “pirate radio,” it is possible that one of several “second lives” of WELFARE could have been as a pirate radio. i’m just looking for a record in the newspapers or books.
November 28, 2015 at 8:34 am
tugster
hmmm . . . i just noticed in photo #12, Amtrak’s ACELA northeast bound on the Bronx side of the Hell Gate RR Bridge.