Tug ‘n Tender Real Estate

I was reading the NYTimes Magazine on January 10, 2016 and on pages 4 and 5 saw this advertising spread . . . . It’s clear that 70 Vestry is selling a view, and what is that view?

It’s Pegasus and

Lilac.  Great.  Maybe I could call it Pegasus/Lilac Real Estate.

But look at where the prices start for this real estate?  No problem either, but it seems there

could be a contribution to those projects that make up the view that was advertised?

To see the spread, check the NYTimes Magazine of January 10, 2016.

Just Looking

This summer has taken me to memorable places and points in time, one of which was this comparison of the NJ-side Holland Tunnel vents today and thirty years ago.

This morning as I walked to a meeting on the Lower West Side of Manhattan, I took this set of fotos, all within a quarter mile . . .  More time travel?

Here’s a perspective of Lilac and Pilot from an angle that was not available–due to construction–as recently as two months ago.  Click here (foto #11) for more info on Pilot, the 1941 tug along Lilac‘s starboard side.

Fair early morning sun illuminates tug Red Hook and the CRRNJ building, seen here 30 years ago.

Brendan Turecamo passes the Hoboken Terminal, originally completed in 1907.   For a look at what’s behind the Terminal, click here.

Tailing Brendan Turecamo was El Galeon Andalucia, presumably headed south for Puerto Rico and Florida.

In Spanish . . . is the phrase “Felices vientos,”  I’m wondering . . .  Also, is El Galeon Andalucia the same vessel that I saw a half year ago in San Juan then called Galeon La Pepa?

All fotos taken this morning between 7:30 and 8:30 by Will Van Dorp.

 

Pegasus Afternoon

Today marks the end of the four-day historic ship festival and the official opening of Pier 25.  Friday and Saturday I worked on Pegasus.  Click on that link and you can find details of her history, starting from her inception as Standard Oil No. 16, including a time when she sported the flying horse on her stack.  1907 was a recurring number in the history-oriented tour:  the date of Pegasus launch in Baltimore and the date of the opening of the Kenneth M. Murchison-designed Hoboken terminal of the Erie Lackawanna Railroad.

Drydock tug Hoboken dates from 1963, but

Yankee ferry, the only surviving Ellis Island ferry, entered service in 1907.  Click here for much more about the Philadelphia-built Yankee.

Here’s a view of Union Dry Dock & Repair company . . . from Pegasus.

Also giving tours on the water was the historic John J. Harvey.   Type Harvey into the search window on this blog and you’ll see more fotos I’ve taken over the past five years.

Folks including me took fotos of Harvey from Pegasus, just as folks on Harvey zoomed in on us.  In the cowboy hat, it’s Mitch . . . of Newtown Pentacle.

Over 150 folks enjoyed a FREE!@#@!  Hudson River ride on Pegasus Saturday.  Lucky them!!  I’m just saying . . .  this is a rare treat, and you could make it less rare by joining in this way or that.  FYI . . . the engine burns about 35 gallons per hour, if I recall correctly.

If you’re in or around the sixth boro tomorrow, you may see this scene above.  I took that foto about a month ago.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who yesterday befriended MV Algolake. a bonafide facebooking, literate ore carrier!   Be the first among your FB friends to befriend an ore carrier;  for me it’s therapeutic, helping me forget the bulk carrier Alice that has made distance between us!!

Sixth Boro Dusk

You’ve got only three nights left to see the first run of “The Report of my Death,”  a docudrama written and directed by Adam Klasfeld and starring Michael Graves. Don’t miss it.  “Written” in the first sentence should maybe say “compiled” because the script has been constructed using rare and unpublished prose gleaned from Twain’s letters and notebooks.  And what better stage exists  in all of  New York than ON the sixth boro.  Brian’s shots here show the set in rain mode and capture Iggy, ship’s cat.  In the foto below, nature’s house lights begin to dim, and

Bowsprite catches this glimpse of Tugster saving the best seats in the house . . . er . .  . on Lilac.

Lights continue to dim.  Most associate Twain with light reportage of his earlier writings, but in the last years of his life, his writing turned dark and sarcastic.  “Reports of My Death” draws from this darkness.  The setting for the performance is a lecture tour of the British empire; such a tour a century ago would obviously be made by sea.  And Lilac as a venue works well for this; Michael Graves points to the lights in Hoboken . . . and –magic–we’re entering the port of Suva . . . or Manilla . . . or

London.  Twain’s prose mentions dolphins, and –presto–we see them with the actor over Lilac‘s bulwarks.  Or albatrosses . . . and they glide overhead.

Never has a chandelier looked better than suspended from Lilac‘s buoy-lifting boom.

High bulwarks and forepeak enclose the audience and performer in an intimate space en plein air.

Where is Lilac and the three remaining performances?  Pier 40.  At dusk, look for the building along West Side Highway with a trapeze school on the roof.   Below the aerialist is a net, a dock, and  . . . the sixth boro.

See this article on summer stages from the NYTimes a few weeks ago.

All fotos except Bowsprite’s, by Will Van Dorp.

Unrelated:  Given how dynamic and diverse the sixth boro is, I was pleased to learn earlier this week about a new waterblog:  Everyday East River.  Check it.  My only regret about this new blog is that I can’t find a way to contact the blogger.  Anyone help?