19 | August | 2020 | tugster: a waterblog

With apologies to folks who aren’t familiar with the sixth boro, here’s a puzzler. If you have been around here for decades, there’s an enormous clue in the second photo. The question . . . where it this?

The two photos come from Jim Murray, retired FDNY and a tremendous asset when Gary Kane and I were doing the documentary Graves of Arthur Kill.

As I understand it, the first photo is the head of a long train of barges, and

this is the tail end, three tugboats and a total of 18 barges.

Jim writes: “I bought a load of old photos many years back and these two were in there. Naturally most of the photos are unmarked, but some are. I believe these photos were taken from another boat.”

But the question is . . . location.

On the back of the second photo the following text: “3 Philadelphia and Reading tugs head to NY going through the B&O bridge at Bayway. PATIENCE (?) on head ASHBURN on left and BERN (?) on right. 18 loaded coal barges for NY from Port Reading”. I can’t vouch for correct spelling.

It’s the B&O bridge between Staten Island (Howland Hook) and Elizabeth. Old steam tug and line of coal barges headed to NYC. I bought a load of old photos many years back and that was one of them. Naturally most of the photos are unmarked bus some are.

So in the second photo, the now-gone Goethals Bridge is in the foreground. The swivel bridge stood from 1889 until around 1959. Here‘s more, including a photo of the swivel and the current lift bridge there together.

Many thanks to Jim for passing the photos and info along.

Now i said there was a big clue in photo #2 above. It was the bridge supports. In my photo from September 2016 below, you see the same Goethals Bridge supports.