You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Philadelphia’ tag.
Quick . . . name those units?
Type Vane Brothers into the search window, presuming you know these are Vane Brothers boats, and you’d get all the previous instances of this title, going back to 2009.
Now you can see the names . . . Potomac above and Fort McHenry below.
Philadelphia is legible here, as is
Kings Point.
On a related note, I’ve been doing some blog maintenance; I finally added tags to the first three and a half years of this blog. Tags? You can find them in the “fine print” just below the title. When I started the blog back in November 2006, I had enough to do just remembering the process of getting images and text on the page. So until April 2010, I just skipped tags. Their addition matters because now–if you want–you can efficiently trace all instances of a certain vessel appearing here. For example, the first time I saw any Vane Brothers boat in the sixth boro was at the 2007 tugboat race; it was Patapsco. If you want to locate all the photos I’ve posted–and now tagged–type Patapsco into the search window, find it in the tags, click that tag, and voila . . . you can go all the way back to the first one.
The system is not fool proof because Patapsco, the word, might refer to the river and watershed also. It refers to any other vessel by that name as well. For example, if you type in Pegasus, you get both the 1907 tug and the 2006 boat. However, with tags undated, you get more of the older images than previously. Similarly, Philadelphia may refer to the boat above or the city; type that in the search window, and you’d get both.
And if I neglected to tag in in posts more recent than April 2010, it’ll be harder to find. If I made a mistake, you’d be given my mistaken info . . . GIGO. Those caveats given, searching is now easier than it was.
All photos, WVD.
Back in the sixth boro . . . it’s a head-on shot of Thomas J. Brown, with multiple icons of the harbor behind her.
Mister T pushes some loaded barges out east beneath the 59th Street Bridge in the photo below,
and tows twice as many empties westbound in the next photo.
Mary Turecamo shifts deck cargo barge New York from Red Hook over toward the other container ports of NYC/NJ, keeping a good number of trucks off the roads and bridges.
Meredith C. Reinauer moves RTC 150 out in the direction of the Sound.
Philadelphia pushes fuel barge Double Skin 503 into the Kills, over to where Ellen McAllister assists Genesis Liberty out of her IMTT berth.
Then Genesis Liberty moves GM 11105 around and outbound.
Robert Burton, usually pushing compacted garbage barges, the other day was doing
rock scow duty.
And rounding out this post, Ava M. McAllister, still in her first half year of working in the sixth boro, heads out to escort in a vessel just in from sea.
All photos recently by Will Van Dorp.
With momentum gaining for more offshore wind farms, a raft of seldom-seen type vessels make port calls in the sixth boro. This photo from Tony Acabono is an excellent example: Geosea is not new, but she’s surely exotic.
Another from Tony, Berto L. Miller is new in town, joining two other Miller OSVs sometimes here, Rana and Josephine K.
And yet another set from Tony . . . recognize this vessel?
Look at the design on the stack . .. .
It’s the return of Bear, as I first knew her, although she’s also been Catherine M. Brown and Elizabeth Anna.
And finally . . . here’s a photo of a vessel--Lois Ann L. Moran and barge Philadelphia–as seen from the “vessel,” the whatever-it-is in Hudson Yards. Those are LIRR trains in the foreground. Thanks to my sister for this photo.
Thanks to Tony and my sister for these photos. No photos here by Will Van Dorp, who is again off across the border.
i.e., CB. I’m writing this on the 8th . . . my first encounter with serious wifi. After today, I might not have wifi again for a spell. Last year I posted about this trip under the title GWA. Two years ago it was Go West.
Let me post some highlights from August 1 and 2, and Chelsea Piers to the Rondout. Note the fireboat 343 below,
Left Coast Lifter at Spuyten Duyvil,
USAVs Chickahominy and Missionary Ridge across from West Point,
Helen Laraway pushing a handful of barges southbound toward the Highlands,
Our vessel down the hill from
Newburgh’s historic district,
Penobscot Bay heading down river,
Philadelphia upbound,
Hudson leaving the Rondout for the Hudson,
and Johannsen Girls doing the same.
All photos by Will Van Dorp on August 1 and 2.
. . . a sixth boro set on a day that was predicted to bring rain. When I first saw the photo below, I thought the McAllister tug was assisting a DonJon unit?
A few seconds later it was clear that Alex was overtaking the slower Paul Andrew.
Dr. Milton Waner–named for a plastic surgeon!!— here travels light. Harley does have this focus on medicine in their recent namings, like Fight ALS and One Cure. That’s Durham in the distance with the spud barge.
Around the same time, Eric McAllister, Thomas D. Witte, and James E. Brown appear, headed for the Kills.
Mr Russell comes out of the Kills. And can you name the Vane tug in the distance?
Philadelphia!
It must be the newest Vane tug in the sixth boro, and I don’t know if she’s even more recent than Capt. Brian A. McAllister. For all I know, this could be her first week in town…. And from a full decade ago, here’s the previous Philadelphia in town, the ITB Philly.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Thanks for all the guesses, both in comments and on email. Last week I accompanied a group of journalists invited on board. The word from the SS United States Conservancy is that the need for action is urgent; the project is running a critical “race against time.” Here are a few key facts about the vessel from the conservancy website. This is the first of several posts I intend to do. Click here for an Op-Ed piece written by one of the guides on our tour Susan Gibbs, grand daughter of the the vessel’s designer, architect, and creator.
Note the unique “sampan wing” tips on the funnels.
This is midships looking aft in the First Class corridor, as it looks today. To the left, you can see the deck “footprints” of suites, including where the plumbing rested.
This section of the “First Class stairs,” like the entire interior is stripped to bare metal.
Use your imagination . . . this is the First class ballroom, where Count Basie and other greats played.
This is the port side promenade deck. (Follow the links there.) Too enclosed, you think? You’d want it enclosed for a passage in the North Atlantic in January as she speeds along at nearly 40 mph.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp. Click here for David Macaulay’s blog about the vessel that brought him to the United States.
For more info on the the SS United States Conservancy and their efforts to save the ship via repurposing, click here. More soon . . . if not tomorrow.
By the way, in yesterday’s post, the first three fotos were as follows: 1955 Packard Clipper Super, a 1941 Cadillac Series 75 hearse, and a 1955 Buick Road Master . . . all contemporaries of the SS United States.
Many thanks to the Conservancy for the opportunity to tour the vessel. If you have personal stories related to the vessel, please consider adding them to the comments.
Foto from Birk. I never noticed before how much the colors of a McAllister tug and Santa Claus are alike. Now all Alex needs is to sport white fabric bow pudding, you to squint, and . . . et voila! To the right . . . I think that’s she who did a last waltz this past July.
Christmas decorations on USS New Jersey? Except this foto was taken in October.
Tugboat Lizzie with reflections . . . and made by a frustrated retired jeweler friend of John Ericsson.
a gold- and silver-plated copper tug! Trophy material. See more at the Independence Seaport Museum, not where the road has taken me but well worth a visit.
Top foto by Birk Thomas. All others by Will Van Dorp, who’s quite inland and equidistant from the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.
Fundraiser TONIGHT Dec 1, 2010 for the tug Pegasus!! It’s unfortunate that I have to work elsewhere tonight.
A short post today . . . it’s December and just to call it windy out is an understatement along the lines of saying that in winter the sixth boro is less hot than in June, that sex is just exercise, and that this video is a fenderbender.
Oh, well . . . enjoy these fotos: Specialist II slings a string (strings along a sling?) of rock scows into the confluence of the East (so-called) River and the Hudson. That’s
Red Hook container port in the background, with the nose of Mary Whalen protruding from behind the blue warehouse.
And here’s a catch-up from my Philly posts of last week: when Captain Dann towed the Lockwood 2002 barge south-bound the cargo looked
all boxed up like this. Maybe something headed south or east for Sinterklaas?
Nah.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Thanks to Carolina Salguero of PortSide NewYork for calling that video to my attention.
And since I’m linking to videos today, see this one, a music video that uses the Witte scrapyard as backdrop. I really like the music, but I think the ship remains in the Arthur Kill location should be the main event, NOT the backdrop.
The last milestone was the 1000, but this one, post 1280, goes up exactly four years (well, I’m three days late, actually) after my first ever post. Since then, I’ve spent countless hours of free time educating and entertaining myself, touring other folk through the sixth boro,
interacting with passersby in ports wherever they beckon–ports like the sixth boro,
Baltimore (and many other places …) and more I hope to come. Thanks to all for your tours and advice and feedback.
Meanwhile, I’m enjoying this blog more than ever, learning to see, fishing
(sometimes in extreme conditions) for
flights of fancy and
all manner of lore and historical info about the sixth boro and all the waters connected to it.
Like yesterday, I was reading about Alice L. Moran, her marvelous feats, and wondering if she’s still called Amsterdam and working in Bahraini waters. And I was reading about PY-16 USS Zircon (later a pilotboat named New York and previously a Pusey & Jones steam yacht Nakhoda), predecessor of pilotboat New York.
I’ve enjoyed these first 1280 and will be continuing. Meanwhile, here’s another interesting thing I stumbled upon yesterday on page 12 of the Spring 1966 Tow Line magazine. I hope no one is irked by my printing a screen shot here. Enjoy. Letter 1 with request on left and response on right.
Thanks for reading this blog and commenting for four years. The ride goes on.
Photo credits here to Les, Allen, Carolina, and bowsprite. Greets to the guys on SKS Tyne.
Meanwhile, a few words about the MWA Waterfront Conference tomorrow: ”
New York, NY: On Tuesday, November 30, senior officials and representatives from over 14 government agencies will join over 500 waterfront advocates, educators, and planning experts for the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance’s 2010 Waterfront Conference at Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the George Gustav Heye Center.
Dozens of agency officials, politicians, and other experts will be on hand to offer their perspectives on the future of the NY-NJ Harbor, including: NYC Deputy Mayor Robert Steel, Bob Martin of the NJ Department of Environmental Protection, Col. John R. Boulé II of the US Army Corps of Engineers, Capt. Linda Fagan of the US Coast Guard, Peter Davidson of the Empire State Development Corporation, David Bragdon of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning & Sustainability, Adrian Benepe of the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation, Amanda Burden of the NYC Planning Commission, Cas Holloway of the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, and Seth Pinsky of the NYC Economic Development Corporation.”
Uh … transplant to the Delaware?
Wilmington Tug’s Sonie passes junk-rigged Summer Wind as
she pushes light in the direction of the Ben Franklin Bridge. In the foreground left is the faux sternwheel of Philadelphia Belle.
Gulf Service heads in the same direction from over near the big guns of battleship New Jersey.
That transplant … It launched from Philadephia in 1902 to work out of New York, which it did until 1939. See the fourth profile below.
Petrel is an Allied staple on the Delaware.
Jupiter (ex-Socony #14) currently is operated and maintained by a volunteer group called Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild. The tip of boom and yellow-green-white vessel belong to Gazela, the Guild’s other vessel, previously written about here and here (See fotos 7, 8 and 9). 
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
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