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.
tugster: a waterblog 
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August 19, 2020 at 11:02 am
tugster
I forgot to ask . . . does anyone have photos of the effort to remove the bridge base from the center of the Arthur Kill?
August 19, 2020 at 11:22 am
urbie
Thanks for posting! The part that got my attention was actually the old swivel bridge — I kind of geek out on those, having spent a lot of time as a child in my Dad’s home town of Newburyport, MA and heard my Mom talk about taking the B&M down from Maine as a college kid in the ’40s, crossing the Merrimac on the bridge that’s still there but has been dormant since, I think, 1967. Taking the Southwest Chief from Flagstaff, AZ to Chicago included crossing the Mississippi at Ft. Madison, on the complicated bridge that carries both highway and rail traffic!
August 19, 2020 at 1:19 pm
tugster
I think I recall seeing that RR bridge over the Merrimack in Nb’yport. It’s been too long that i last visited there.
August 19, 2020 at 11:47 am
asrdriver
Brings back some memories for sure. As a very small boy my family lived in Manhasset, 1950 and ’51. I remember being down at the Sixth Boro with my Mom near Battery Place, where the tugs tied up when idle. There was a barge there with crew quarters like those shown in the picture, and a very old salt sitting on the fantail. Thanks for putting these up.
August 19, 2020 at 12:54 pm
tugster
eBay recently sold a negative with a steam tug called Patience towing coal barges: https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-15-36-Tugboat-Patience-Tug-Boat-Ship-Coal-Barges-Old-Photo-Negative-315B-/192814660768
August 20, 2020 at 1:38 pm
William Lafferty
“Ashburn” should be Ashbourne, built 1895 at Philadelphia by Neafie & Levy, as was Bern in 1907. Patience was a 1901 product of J. H. Dialogue & Son at Camden.
August 20, 2020 at 1:49 pm
tugster
William– Bravo for filling in those names, dates, and shipyards. As I said, I could not vouch for the spelling. Maybe closeup photos photos of those tugboats can be unearthed somewhere. Again, thank you.