Graves of Arthur Kill: the World Premiere

Here just over a year ago was the release information about the documentary.

And here’s the BIG announcement:  the world premiere of the documentary will happen Wednesday, May 7 at 7 pm at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema and tickets for that evening’s fare . . . including ours are now on sale.  Click here for directions to Brooklyn Heights Cinema on Henry Street.   If you haven’t seen the documentary, we DO turn back the clock on some of the skeletons in the yard.

Just over a week ago, I stopped to look at the yard from outside, from the muddy margins.  Some photos are below.  In 2011, Gary Kane and I had permission to film inside the yard from a leaky rowboat, and the footage of “beautiful ruins” comes to you directly from the leaky rowboat.  By the way, I had a hand-powered bilge pump that kept our equipment dry.

Fragments with a wading bird,

disintegration with graffiti,

commingled wreckage,

terminally rusted disrepair,

debris still morphing but identifiable,

ravaged whole machines juxtaposed with live ones.

Here was the 2010 end of the “graveyard” series . . . all photos shot in the ship graveyard.  Use the search window to see  segments 1 through 3.  And here is the end of the “ghost puzzles” series, all photos I shot while we were filming the scrapyard portion of the documentary.

I hope to see you at the May 7 showing at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema; here again is the link for details.  Also, if you do Facebook, please go to the Graves of Arthur Kill page and click like.

Unrelated to some degree, click here for my latest photos in Professional Mariner magazine.

 

Disintegration

I’m excited to be doing another showing of Graves of Arthur Kill tonight.  I hope to sell some copies, but I also look forward to hearing others’ stories of visiting the marine scrapyard over on the Arthur Kill.

Over the years i’ve done two series of blogposts on the yard:  the ghosts series and the graveyard series.   Another way of viewing the place is as disintegration.  Enjoy these fotos and then I’ll explain where in a perfect world with endless resources I’d like to go next.

So I’d be thrilled if I could work with someone who could do time lapse simulation like this and this.   I’d take a vessel like Hila aka ATR-89 from the time it arrived at the yard, and project its progressive disintegration over about a century.

Meanwhile, we have our imaginations.    By the way, we’re selling the video also at Noble Maritime, all proceeds going to the museum.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.

By the way, bowsprite has her own commercial activities operating South Street Seaport’s 14 Fulton Street pop-up shop.

Government Boats 25

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.