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This post, beginning with Miriam Moran juxtaposed with downtown Newark NJ, is intended to demonstrate just how diverse the sixth boro is, in terms of vessels and shorelines. Has Miriam been in the sixth boro all of its 40-year career?

Ernest Campbell is 10 years older than Miriam, and did the better part of a decade up in Alaska.

Sapphire Coast, stemming here in the East River just off Rockefeller University, was launched in 1982.

In the KVK, Stephen B, 1983,  is trying to pass as Hen B.

Pacific Reliance, launched in 2006, was designed for long hauls.

Kenny G, in its distinctive blue livery, has appeared on this blog several times, but I’ve never learned where and when she was built.  Here she’s working on refurbishing to Pier 40.  Check out this link to Pier 40 as a prep to a series I’m starting in a few days.

At one point, C. F. Campbell was in the same fleet as the vessels that became DonJon’s Atlantic Salvor and Atlantic Enterprise.

And finally, it’s Harbor II, as before, in the Harlem River with the 44th precinct NYPD station in the background.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

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I’m guessing Eric R Thornton is off in search of some scrap waiting in

the Bronx maybe?

It’s been a long while since I’ve seen Penn No. 6, and here she and Normandy are made up to Penn No. 121.  See those four shore cranes against the sky?  Here’s a post I did on them almost a decade ago.

 

Here’s B. No. 250 eastbound for the Sound, with

Evening Star in the notch.

Some people would be pleased with this juxtaposition: MTA’s Highbridge Yard, with Harbor II, MetroNorth, and the 44th Precinct Police Station!

Barbara Ann holds station at the University Heights Bridge, with the unmistakeable Hall of Fame for Great Americans dome over the treeline.  That’s a place I’ve yet to visit, one of many places in the five boros.

Ditto . . . Ireland on the north side of that bridge.

 

And to conclude for another day . . . it’s Penn No. 91 with

Skipjack in the notch.

Oops!  All photos by Will Van Dorp . . . from aboard Manhattan II.

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Random means random, and I challenge you to come up with a more random set . . .

Let’s start with a Gmelin photo from 1930.  I’ll give the name of the tug later in this post so that all experts of arcane sixth boro history can play.  Since today is the V-Day, let me mention that Herbert Hoover was POTUS, and not very popular at that time, post-crash, in spite of his 1928 campaign slogan “A Chicken in Every Pot and a Car in Every Garage.”  Well, that did not work out so well.  A few things impress me about Hoover though, like . . . in what language would he and the First Lady–Lou–converse privately when guests were in the White House.  By the way, why is the 2nd Tuesday in November Election Day?  Answers at the end of this post.

Here’s a photo from my archives, Surrie Moran (2000 built) assisting with a big south-bound Crowley barge El Rey (1979) in June 2013 on the Delaware River.  I was shooting against the morning sun.   You see a little of Cape Henry (1967) on the stern also.   Any guesses which Crowley tug was towing?

And another photo from 2013, January,  in the KVK.  It’s Rebel, built 1976, with her odd hull.  Is she now scrapped?

So now a few from the past week . . . James D. Moran (2015) passes the KV buoy heading for the North River.

Genesis Victory (from 1981) heads into the Kills.

The 2002 Labrador Sea comes in from somewhere out east.

And over on a waterway I don’t get to see that often, I stumbled onto the 1940 Ireland,

1958 Bergen Point, and

the 1947 basic Harbor II.

And since a lot of things are cyclical, we’re back at the mystery tug.

With my magnifying glass, I read enough to make me think this is Richard J. Barrett, which would have been 11 years old in 1930.  Here’s Birk’s info. The ship is the 1925-launched MS Gripsholm, significant as the first transAtlantic liner powered by a diesel engine.

And Hoover and his wife spoke Mandarin for their secret asides when guests were in earshot.  I’m impressed.

And towing El Rey, here’s Sentry  (1977).

And we have our 19th century agrarian roots to thank for the 2nd Tuesday being election day . .  . here.