Random Sixth Boro 4

Here was 3, about a year ago.

These fotos were all taken yesterday afternoon and evening.  Shannon McAllister . . . a new one for me, an ex-Winslow boat, although here’s a sister Winslow boat that appeared here more than five years ago.   Yes, the Colgate clock is in the process of being reconstructed.

It’s yacht Manhattan, heading for the Statue under a glorious crepuscular sky.

While waiting for the appearance of the holy grail, I chanced to looked at all the lights in the Manhattan sky, including this one which I

documented arriving and positioning a little less than a year ago.

And here, transporting Bakken crude down and out the Hudson, it’s

Afrodite, which recently appeared here.   While on the subject of names, my sister recently passed King Coffee, and a tanker currently in the sixth boro goes by Chance.  Might there be a vessel out there somewhere named Random?  Here’s the closest I could find.

And here–with many thanks to Dock Shuter–who credits the links to Patrick Landewe, keeper of the Saugerties Light, something rare special also pictured here the other day, Cheyenne pushing a BLUE 737 upriver to Albany a few days ago!!!  Here and here are parts of the story.  Many thanks to Dock and Patrick.  Here are some previous Dock fotos.

Since Shannon McAllister is new to me, let me end this post with her passing Shelby between lower Manhattan and Jersey City late yesterday afternoon.   Here’s Shelby with a unique cargo a year and a half ago.

Unless otherwise attributed, all fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Unrelated:  In fall 1997, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree traveled down river from Stony Point  on a truck  ON A BARGE.  Does anyone know where/how I can find any photos of this event, this trip?  Here’s the kids’ book version.

Sixth Boro Fifth Dimension 10

Foto #1.  Seth Tane took this from the WTC in the early 1980s.  From L to R, that’s the Statue, Ellis Island, and Communipaw Terminal of CRRNJ . . . with a lot of vacant space behind.  NOT shown but just to the right would be the Morris Canal and the Colgate Clock.

Foto #2.  I took this grainy foto from the WTC in late December 2000.  NOT shown but just to the left is the CRRNJ terminal.   Notice the Morris Canal and the first set of high rise condos of Jersey City.  Anyone know the name?  Also notice that Goldman Sachs is not there yet.

Foto #3.  Beyond QE2 leaving the sixth boro for the last time in October 2007, you see the CRRNJ terminal, Morris Canal, Colgate clock, and the Goldman Sachs with additional buildings to the right.   Foto taken by amica.

Foto #4.  I took this foto in September 2009 from North Cove.

Fotos  #5 and 6.  Amica took these in 2010 and 2011.

Foto #7.  I took tis one last week from just north of North Cove, 18 floors up.

Click here for some great views of Jersey City, mostly Morris Canal area, mostly in the early 80s.   Here for aerial shots emphasizing rail.

Click here for lots more . . . dating way back.

To reiterate what I said in part 9 of this series, the margins of the sixth boro have experienced a sea change from 30 years ago to now.  And stormy Sandy of seven months ago intimates that all this relatively rapid building on reclaimed land at sea level will again change.  But the difference is that since humans have walked and waded and floated here, we’ve never had construction of this scale.

Foto #8.  Shifting focus a bit, Seth took this shot of–I believe–South or North Cove from the same vantage at the same time as foto #1.

Click here for images of the same, but from the mid 70s.  And still more here looking across what was then the plains of Battery Park City.   And the last one for now crediting Nelson Rockefeller for the concept.

As I did before, I’m inviting a sharing of more fotos showing the tremendous changes on the edge of the sixth boro.

Afterthought . . . if you want to witness further changes to the sixth boro margins, be in a viewing location that’ll show this building between 0700 and 0800 tomorrow morning.  The structure below might just implode . . .

Two If By Sea

My mother clearly recalls two sights of the harbor that April morning in 1949 when her ship steamed into New York: the Statue of Liberty and the “big clock,” as she calls it. Little did she know that almost 60 years later the big clock would still be there, carrying the same logo as the toothpaste on her bathroom sink.

 

This clock has been roughly in the same location since 1924 although most everything around it has changed. Most people enter the country today by air, and airports are places of intense branding. The clock has stuck so firmly in my mother’s memory, possibly, because the port is quite pristine in this respect. This is one way in which the perspective from the water–any water and not just the sixth borough–differs than that by land.

 

This warehouse just south of the new passenger terminal in Red Hook is more mural and only slightly advertising. It’s much more artful than a billboard. I’d be grateful for someone’s explanation for this mural.

More than half the sugar consumed in the United States was once produced in this Williamsburg plant , a branded building now idle awaiting transformation on the Brooklyn waterfront.

 

The logo on this massive manufacturing plant in Elizabeth, New Jersey once made sense in a time of deliveries by water. When it opened in 1873 this Singer plant was hailed as the largest factory in the world producing a single product: sewing machines. This was a business of superlatives, like this skyscraper that has since disappeared. During both World Wars, like many factories, the Elizabeth plant was repurposed to manufacture weapons. Any guess what?  Answer is found in the “weapons” link.  I’ll come back to the Elizabeth waterfront in the next post.

Any waterside logos your favorites?

All photos by Will Van Dorp.