Mystery Wreck

I recently received this image and note.  Maybe someone can identify this moment [many years ago] in an evolutionary process.

“I was born on Staten Island and have had this untitled, undated, and uncredited photo for years. I believe it’s taken from the water on the Arthur Kill of an unconverted Moran steam tug. wondering if you might be able to shed some light on who she might be. At first I thought it might be the Ned Moran, but it seems Ned lost her stack rather than wheel house?
If you have any thoughts or leads to her name/history I would be very appreciative.”

In response to my suggestion that the letter might be a D, he wrote “My thoughts on it being a M stack marker was based on the top and bottom serifs but you are correct that these could also be a D. But on the right side of stack the mid section of the letter seems to be unattached or detached rather than a continuous piece of steel connected to the foreground part of the letter.”       Since then, I’m convinced it’s indeed an M.

Some of the photos I’ve taken in this location can be found here.   The documentary Gary Kane and I filmed there nine years ago now is referred to in this post.

Many thanks to Chris for sending along this question and photo, which I’ll call unidentified of a vessel that’s unsalvageable.

 

Veterans

Over 22 million . . . the number of living US veterans.  I salute you.

Having said that, I’m searching for former crew of this vessel, PC 1264, launched from a long-gone shipyard in the Bronx in November 1943.  Today this vessel, site of a social experiment, lies off

Staten Island, less than 15 miles from the old Consolidated Shipbuilding Company in the Bronx.  Today I’ve been reading Black Company: The Story of Subchaser 1264, published in 1972 by her first commanding officer,  Eric S. Purdon, later Commander.  Click here to read Purdon’s obituary.

A former crewman on PC-1264 was Samuel L. Gravely, Jr. , later Vice Admiral Gravely.

I took these fotos in August 2011.

Black Company tells a story largely forgotten and makes an interesting read.

The top foto comes from Purdon’s book and is used without permission.

Graveyard 2

Thank you all for reading and commenting.  Let me pass along some of what I’ve learned.  Also, check out frogma’s latest.

Below, from Jeff S:  “The passenger vessel with the lifeboat on deck is the famous New Bedford built at Bethlehem-Quincy in 1928. See hull # 1417.  She was loaned to Britain in WW 2 and served as a hospital ship at Normandy landings.”

Guess the total number of ships/boats of all kinds involved in Operation Neptune, the Channel-crossing component of Operation Overlord.

According to the link above, Op Neptune involved more than 6000 vessels.   It’s interesting to imagine the fate of all those 6000.  Here’s a Normandy crossing tug I wrote about in 2007.  I wonder if any Brooklyn-built boats have remained in France?     Jeff goes on to say, “Earlier in the war New Bedford participated in ”decoy” convoy RB-1.   I think she has been at Wittes since about 1967. ”

Here’s another fabulous story:  YOG-64 was delivered to the US Navy in May 1945, arrived in the Pacific just after the end of the “9th inning,”  served in various capacities at Bikini Atoll during Operation Sandstone, judged decontaminated and decommissioned, spent two decades hauling fuel as M/T Francis Reinauer, and has rested here since the mid-1980’s.  Anyone know of a foto of Francis Reinauer?

An as-yet unidentified tug whose upper portion of the house has now slumped back into eternal oblivion.

A very strange comment I got by email asked why I had sunk the red tugboat in yesterday’s post.  I’m innocent.  Nor did I have anything to do with with sinking.

A mile or so south of Witte’s yard is another graveyard aka tidal reef.  Most prominent there is this ferry:  Astoria, sister of Ferry Maj. General Wm. H. Hart, formerly docked at South Street Seaport.  Here’s a foto of Astoria I took last summer.

Here frogma documents entropy.

Here’s a favorite quote from a Rebecca Solnit essay:  “To erase decay …and ruin is to erase the understanding of the unfolding relation between all things.  To imagine [creation and destruction] together is to see their kinship in the common ground of change, abrupt and gradual, beautiful and disastrous, to see the generative richness of ruins and the ruinous nature of all change. …  Ruins stand as reminders.  Memory is always incomplete, always imperfect, always falling into ruin;  but the ruins themselves, like other traces, are treasures; our links to what came before.  … A city without ruins or traces of age is like a mind without memories.”

Serendipitous during our paddle “north” was a glimpse of W. O. Decker headed “south.”  We debated calling them but decided that we would cross paths if that was intended.  By the way, if the identification of Ned Moran in Graveyard 1 is correct, then Decker and Ned Moran date from the same year!   Maintenance IS everything.

On our return, we saw Decker waiting (haulout?) at the yard in Tottenville.  Decker is older than Bloxom and Hila and fortunate to have staved off ruin, traces of aging, and entropy as well as it has.  May she bob and pitch for many more years.

I wish I’d taken the profile of this vessel . . . . From this frontal shot, it looks a lot like Day Peckinpaugh.  Jeff identified it as “canal tanker Michigan.  Built by McDougal Duluth S B in 1921 as Interwaterways Line Incorporated 105, shortened to ILI-105 in 1935 before becoming Michigan. She carried caustic soda, vegetable oil , liquid sugar and such on the Erie and Welland canals. Twin screw.”  For the record, Day-Peckinpaugh was ILI-101–the prototype–built in the same year.  Thanks much, Jeff.  See an image of ILI-105 in her prime here.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Some links to check:  ForgottenNY and Undercity and somehow I missed –if traces of it are still there–Fireboat Abram Hewitt thanks to Opacity.

Rossville itself has an interesting history spanning Raritan Indians, Ross Castle, Blazing Star tavern, and the Underground Railroad.

Graveyard 1

I read about this place almost 20 years ago in this NYTimes piece and clipped it, saved it, still have it somewhere.   The Witte family, Norman Brouwer, and Arthur Kill–all mentioned in the article–were just names then. Yesterday, thanks to fellow-waterblogger frogma (See her “graveyard posts here and here) and the generosity of  Sebago Canoe Club kayak Captain Minh to lend me a kayak, I got there.  Remember, double-click enlarges fotos.

To learn the specifics on 1944-launched Bloxom below, click here.  Anyone know of fotos of Bloxom and Hila in their heyday?

More of Bloxom‘s context.

The wooden hull steel deckhouse World War 2-era tug ATR-89 Hila.  An anonymous commenter last summer wrote:  “WW2 built ATR….this one ATR-89. Became HILA out of Jacksonville in 1949 and passed into Liberian registry by 1954.broke down in late 50′s on a voyage from Miami and eventually ended up at Wittes.”  Anyone know of fotos of Bloxom and Hila in their heyday?

1926-built ferry Seawell’s Point (right) and unidentified vessel (See Graveyard 2 for identification)  left seen frontal and from

from the opposite side.  The lifeboat still waits a declared emergency.

Wooden wheelhouse offering as template for craftsmanship of another time.  Notice Bonnie beyond the H-bitt on lower right side of foto.

A different view.  Is this what remains of the Meseck twins?  Great fotos of Carrie T. Meseck (later Susan A. Moran) at steamshipphotos.com

According to a December 2006 comment by “the dude” on the fabulous Opacity site, the tug below is “Ned Moran sailed for Moran Tugs 1954-1963, the tug with a brt of 206 tons had 1040 ipk, she was 20.48 x 8.28 x 4.27 mtr and build during 1930 at A.C.Brown & Sons in Tottenville, she sailed first under the name Federick (sic) E Meseck in New York and was purchased by Moran during 1954 where she served until 1963 when she was sold to Witte’s Staten Island yard.”  To be noted, Moran purchased Meseck Towing Company in 1954.  I’d love to see fotos of Ned at her zenith.

More trip fotos soon.  Here’s a foto of Courier aka Bayou Plaquemine from two years ago.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.

Tip of the hat to Miru Kim, O’Boyle, and Opacity.

And a propos of nothing, see surfing the dunes of Peru here.