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Here’s something to celebrate: the 90th anniversary of fireboat John J. Harvey. There’s a party, and you can get your tickets here.
From the 1931fireboat.org site, the fireboat was “the boat was launched in Brooklyn on October 6, 1931. and commissioned on December 17..” with many superlatives “the first fireboat powered by internal combustion engines and the first that could pump and maneuver simultaneously… the largest, fastest fire fighting machine of her time, capable of pumping 18,000 gallons per minute, roughly the equivalent of 20 terrestrial fire trucks. The innovations of her design influenced all subsequent fireboats.”
Who was John J. Harvey? “Firefighter John J. Harvey was pilot of the steam fireboat Thomas Willett. In February 1930 a fire broke out aboard the North German Lloyd Lines ship Muenchen. Willett came alongside and her crew started working aboard the burning ship. The fire could not be contained and a series of massive explosions rocked Muenchen. The largest explosion sent a section of steel plate through the pilot house of Willett, killing Pilot Harvey instantly. All except for John J. Harvey survived the disaster. John J. Harvey was the first New York City fireboat named after a member of the department.
In early October 1937 Mayor Fiorello inaugurated the two-way radio system, linking all nine FDNY fireboats.
The Harvey/Normandie story is complex; even more so is the Harvey/World Trade Center story.
FDNY retired her in 1995, and “placed up for auction and bought by her present owners on February 11, 1999.” Note the condition of her starboard propeller in drydock in 2000. Refurbished, she made her first voyage on August 4, 1999. She performed and pumped well, signaling the first of many new trips as a preserved historic vessel.
She appears in many maritime festivals outside NYC, as here in Oyster Bay, and
here at the Waterford Tugboat Roundup.
To close out, here are some of my photos of Harvey, dazzled in memory of the camouflaged vessels of WW1.
She not only looks good: she also moves, her bow slicing through the river as here in September 2013.
I once rode as guest on Harvey years ago . . . July 4, 2009, from Manhattan to Poughkeepsie, as reported here.
Happy b’day and long may she sail.
I’m at a quo vadis point myself. I appreciate the feedback you’ve given on the virtual tour. I could do more, e.g., guide to the Welland Canal, the Saint Lawrence Seaway, and four of the five Great Lakes. As to the Erie Canal, which was/were your favorite leg? What info specifically did you find most interesting or startling? As for myself, learning about the loyalists . . . that’s topic I could dig into more, not on the blog but in my personal reading. Three Rivers Inn nightclub is one of my favorite details.
Let’s have a look at small boats and their seasons. Below, that might be Emily Miller, black and white alongside the monolithic hull of USNS Watkins. She’s acrew boat that operates all year ’round.
Savitsky is one sweet fish boat. Fishing is a year round activity in the boro.
Emergency vessels are here year rund. NYPD has a number of these fast 70′ tactical response boats. One I caught soon after arrival in the sixth boro exceeding 40 knots can be seen here.
Side by side, here’s a serious USCG 45′ nearer and a NJ State Police RIB farther.
And the 29′ Defiant looks like it’s made for
maneuver-
ability!
Marine 1 FDNY has the big boats, medium, and small boats, although I’m not sure the length and other specs of this one.
And finally, the North Hudson Firestorm 36 is a rare sight on the KVK. I first saw her here on her delivery from Canada.
All these photos I took in March or earlier. As we move farther into spring, covid-19 notwithstanding, different types of small boats will be moving around the sixth boro.
More Great Race tomorrow.
Let’s finish up Whatzit 38, which started here with a plain white canvas. Below is a photo I took during the tugboat race in September 2015 of John J. Harvey, an FDNY fireboat in commission between 1931 and 1995.
And here’s one I took in April 2010, making an up-to 18,000 gpm water display to welcome the 343 into the sixth boro. Pumping water, which makes these designs in the sky, is the whole point of a fireboat. So . . .
check out her summer 2018 look.
This is a thorough
thorough dazzle paint job, white spray all over the boat, including the decks.
From this angle below, she really looks like a WW1 Norman Wilkinson production.
I can’t wait to see her in glass calm water . . . to enjoy the reflections.
I believe this is the current John J. Harvey website.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Remember tug Hackensack about ten years ago? I’ve read some negative opining about the paint job on FB . . . here’s the concept.
The little-used adjective fleet is appropriate here. And when something goes amiss in the diverse workplaces of the sixth boro, it’s great to have the fleetest responders there are. The amusement park on the beach in the background identifies the location as Coney Island. In fact, the responders towed the vessel out to deeper water while dewatering. No passengers were on board at the time of the emergency, water ingress portside engine room. All’s well that end’s well.
MV Zelinsky worked in San Francisco waters from at least 2007 until last summer. I’m guessing it arrived in the harbor aboard a ship . . .
Many thanks to New York Media Boat for photo and information. And hat’s off to the responders from USCG, FDNY, and NYPD.
Here are previous fleetest posts.
Here’s a post I did on McClintic and another I did on Cotter.
Today’s post comes out of a response I received yesterday from retired FDNY dispatcher and historian, Al Trojanowicz, who wrote, “The full photo is fire aboard SAUGUS, American Export Lines (1919) with fireboat WILLIAM F GAYNOR (1914) alongside, and a mystery vessel off to left. Appears to be similar configuration to the quarantine tug, and original print shows and what looks like a government pennant displayed with a circular or ships-wheel design. The information below is all I have found on this fire, and was the caption pasted to the back of the print. Those ladders seen on forward well deck may be accessing the hold – or from another vessel rafted on the port side.”
The caption pasted on the back reads: “10/2/1926 Fire in freighter Saugus. Photo caption READS “FIREBOATS STAGE SPECTACULAR BATTLE AND SAVE FREIGHTER!” Fireboats fought a brilliant battle, October 2nd, and saved the freighter Saugus from burning to the water’s edge in the East River, New York. The cause of the fire is unknown, but the rolls of thick black smoke issuing from the hold, attracted passing craft, and fire patrols. This photo shows the ship which was loaded mostly with cotton, removed frantically by the hands, off New York City.” (10-2-26) [Photo shows fireboat William J. Gaynor alongside Saugus. An unknown launch is rafted outboard of Gaynor, and an unknown vessel to the left.]
The caption says . . . East River, but the background to me looks like Staten Island seen from mid-Upper Bay.
So here’s a closer up of that unknown vessel. Is it flying the USPHS flag?
I’d speculate that this is a US PHS cutter. I’ve been unable to find a listing of these–like McClintic–based in New York. Also, although today’s FDNY boats have medical response equipment on board and FDNY personnel receive first responder training, back in 1926 they probably did not. And this raises another whole set of questions like, what was training like in the 1926 FDNY, what medical equipment if any was there on board FDNY vessels, and would USPHS vessels have a role in assisting during fires on the water and along the shores and docks? It ask strikes me that–given the amount of smoke emanating from the stacks of these steamers made a fire on the water look very different from one today, where all the smoke you see is from the emergency, not the routine use of fuel. Finally, I’m guessing this fire was not catastrophic consequence given that no story appears in the NYTimes archives and SS Saugus continued in service until 1946, when it as scrapped.
Al also sent along this photo of the Buffalo fireboat Cotter (1900), still in service. Here is a photo of it in 1924, probably in Buffalo. At that date it was still known by its original name, William S. Grattan. In 1928, while fighting a fire on the Buffalo River, it was heavily damaged and rebuilt.
Many thanks to Al Trojanowicz for these photos and questions. Click here and scroll for more information from Al on FDNY Marine division.
Note: This is day 13 of December, tugster’s classic/historic vessel month. If you have photos/stories to share that fit the “classic” parameters, please get in touch.
Here are the previous ones.
This FDNY boat has never floated in the sixth boro, although it should be here this coming Tuesday.
I wanted to catch this vessel in the resplendent colors of October along the Erie Canal.
Watch here for sixth boro harbor news for the time of a welcome ceremony at the Statue of Liberty. William M. Feehan and all his loved ones should be proud.
All photos here by Will Van Dorp.
I’ve long subscribed to the notion that getting there should be as thrilling as arriving, so . . . let’s continue the ride backward past this 1914 post . . . to . . . 1910.
Below . . . it’s the Statue cruise of the day loading where it does today. Notice a roofed Castle Clinton–formerly fort, immigration center, music hall– in the background left.
NYC tug Manhattan . . . built 1874! Now where do her bones lie?
Steamer Brighton assisted by New York Tugboat Company’s Geo. K. Kirkham.
Front and center here is Celt (scroll through) , the yacht with many reinventions that now languishes in a creek west of Cincinnati, waiting for me . . . There’s lots of intriguing traffic in the background.
Thomas Willett built in 1908 by Alex Miller of Jersey City for a fortune in the amount of $335,000.
And finally . . . a 1911 photo of a a vessel captioned as SS Momu . . . . Tug and pier are also unidentified. The logo on the stack should help someone.
That’s it for today. I hope group sourcing can teach us more about these photos.
Along this stretch of . . . bird habitat, Meow man has signed in . . .
and an official boat might just be verifying the authenticity.
Meanwhile, I’m just over two miles off the center of the VZ Narrows bridge . . . doing some of my own verifying. Those round objects . . . half a dozen of them . . . are they . . .
. . . could they be . . see that one splash . . .
harbor seals? This one seems to negotiate for that rock with . . . a ruddy turnstone . . . ?
See the press release here for the NYC Audubon tours here.
Read here about the seal scientists who were on board yesterday also.
What is that canoe-shaped object in the upper left side of this photo?
Anyhow, forget about the cold and book a seal and bird tour . . . on only a few Sunday trips left.
Thanks to bowsprite who suggested this as a birthday present. I may go out and take this trip again to get the photo I missed of a squadron of long-tailed ducks circling our boat.
We stayed on the west side of Swinburne Island (it should be renamed Seal Island.) as MOL Endowment arrived with a delivery along the east side.
All photos by Will Van Dorp. Nearly three years ago I reported on a seal I interviewed on Fire Island.
Somehow . . . don’t ask me how . .. meow man seems to have “signed” what used to be a white ceramic mug that usually occupies my desk. How DID he deliver that? . . . !@#@!!
The last post in this series–24–was quite obscure. And this one . . . could be called ex-government boats.
The foto below comes thanks to Scott Craven, who caught the vessel upbound on the Hudson near the Bear Mountain Bridge. At first I thought it was a re-purposed 65′ WYTL. With a bit of research, however, I learned it’s the retired Massport Marine 1, Howard W. Fitzpatrick (scroll through to the 8th foto). Note the traces of removed signage along her port side. She’s now replaced by American United. Again, scroll though, and you’ll see the folks on Windermere posted a foto of American United high and dry at the Canadian shipyard here. Click here for more info on Massport. Fitzpatrick launched in 1971 from a now inactive shipyard in southern Illinois, just north of St. Louis. So does anyone know where Fitzpatrick is headed? Great Lakes? the Mississippi system? Maybe a reader upriver can report?
On a rainy day back in mid-April, Gary Kane caught this display on the East River, just south of Roosevelt Island.
It was the John D. McKean, a retired FDNY fireboat. McKean was Camden, NJ built about 60 years ago. Anyone know what her future may be?
All this talk of retired fireboats and mention of Gary Kane give me an opportunity to suggest you buy the documentary produced by Gary Kane and myself called Graves of Arthur Kill. One of the major voices/story tellers in that documentary is a retired FDNY engineer.
Thanks to Scott Craven and Gary Kane for use of these fotos.
From John Watson: When I saw Explorer of the Seas (EOS) leave the dock, I turned on the NY Harbor webcam to be able to watch it leave port after it exited my window view. Carnival Glory had not yet left, so I kept the webcam feed up. Thirty minutes later I checked on Glory’s progress only to find EOS on her way back in. No cruise is THAT short , I thought, so I turned on the marine radio. The pilot said, “…there were waiting on the pier.” Late passengers getting VIP treatment? It turned out to be medics for a sick passenger. EOS went nose in instead of stern first, as it usually does.
Meanwhile Carnival Glory was outbound. Waiting for Glory south of the Statue was Firefighter II spraying water . . . I heard …
…for a couple on Glory. The couple must be special in order to get a water display.
Thanks, John. My addition . . . passengers on Explorer of the Seas got a special treat: three times exploring the underside of the Verrazano Bridge on one leg bound for sea. Also, in the first foto, notice Meagan Ann pushing a scow? Time elapse from the first to the fourth foto was less than an hour.
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