Archive for the ‘East River’ Category
tangible things
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hanging around the East River side of Lower Manhattan recently, your humble narrator was elated to see the Bouchard Tug “Ellen S. Bouchard” transiting past Governors Island. Such prurient thrills are all that I’m still capable of getting excited about these days, so I whipped out the camera and started shooting.
Built in 1982, by Halter Marine of New Orleans, Louisiana (hull #1036) as the Ellen S. Bouchard for Bouchard Transportation of Melville, New York.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s a fuel barge that the tug is managing, and odds would be good that it’s journey began on either the Kill Van Kull or the Port of Newark. It would be foolish to guess where it was headed, except to say that it will drop its cargo off at a distribution center for eventual disposition to end customers via tanker trucks.
From his first voyage at eleven years of age as a cabin boy on a sailing ship bound for China, Captain Bouchard knew that shipping would be his life. By 1915, he was the youngest tugboat captain in the Port of New York.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The barge would be carrying something close to the equivalent capacity of fifty standard sized oil trucks, and was accordingly making its way through the narrow East River in a slow and deliberate fashion. Such caution is necessary, as an accidental allision or collision would spell disaster for both natural and unnatural features alike.
from wikipedia
Bouchard Transportation Co., Inc, based in Melville, New York, and founded in 1918, is primarily a family and employee-owned company that provides transportation and logistics services in U.S..
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s something about the sight of Tug passing under the Brooklyn Bridge that causes one to want to buy a slice of pizza or order a bagel with cream cheese and lox and complain about the Mayor or the Yankees. It’s just so “New York”.
from wikipedia
The tugboat is one symbol of New York. Along with its more famous icons of Lady Liberty, the Empire State Building, and the Brooklyn Bridge, the sturdy little tugs, once all steam powered, working quietly in the harbor became a sight in the city.
The first hull was the paddler tug Rufus W. King of 1828.
time worn
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One hundred and twenty nine years ago- on May 30, 1883- 12 people were killed and 35 wounded upon the Brooklyn Bridge in what would best be described as constituting a personal nightmare scenario to your humble narrator. I’ve never liked crowds, and shy away from congested areas where a sudden panic might carry me toward apotheosis randomly. Surely this is born of an experience in racially polarized South Brooklyn back in the early 1980’s when I found myself swept in the surge of a small race riot while onboard a bus.
from nytimes.com
A woman fell down the wooden steps at the end of the New-York approach to the Brooklyn bridge yesterday afternoon while the pathway was crowded with thousands of men, women, and children walking and passing one another. As she lost her footing another woman screamed, and the throng behind crowded forward so rapidly that those at the top of the steps were pushed over and fell in a heap.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Weak, poorly developed physically, and given to panic- a young narrator watched with growing horror as a group of “Cugenes” (slang for Italian kids in my old hood) approached the Bushwick bound B78 bus intent on ferreting out a certain African American youth with whom they had a conflict. The Cugenes come onto the bus swinging, and as tribal affiliations ruled the day- the pushing started. I found myself a helpless and unwilling cork bobbing on a sea of witless hatred, an experience which has stayed with me to this day.
from wikipedia
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River. With a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m), it was the longest suspension bridge in the world from its opening until 1903, and the first steel-wire suspension bridge.
Originally referred to as the New York and Brooklyn Bridge and as the East River Bridge, it was dubbed the Brooklyn Bridge, a name from an earlier January 25, 1867 letter to the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and formally so named by the city government in 1915. Since its opening, it has become an icon of New York City, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964 and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1972.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Unending nightmares of such situations guide me to this day, and one is quite phobic about being trapped within a crowd without egress or a clear pathway of escape. I think it’s part of the reason that places like Times Square fill me with nameless dread, and I prefer the concrete desolations of the sparsely populated Newtown Creek.
I’m all ‘effed up.
from chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
A terrible disaster occurred yesterday afternoon on tho East River Bridge, by which twelve persons lost their lives and a great many others were injured more or less seriously. While there were no less than 15,000 persons on the Bridge, a blockade was formed on the footpath at the head of a flight of steps nine feet high extending from the masonry above the anchorage to the first iron truss, the same place at which blockades of people have occurred heretofore. A panic followed the pushing and struggling in which men and women tried to free themselves from the crowd. In the midst of this rush, started, it is thought by a gang of roughs, either thoughtlessly or with mischievous intent, several persons were carried over the edge of the steps. They fell on the landing and at the foot of the stairs, ethers stumbled on them, and more than forty persons were trampled underfoot by the panic-stricken multitude.
certain villagers
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent business brought me to the Greenpoint section of infinite Brooklyn, which offered your humble narrator an opportunity to get high.
Pop cultural references aside, what that meant was a trip to the roof of the so called Pencil Factory, and the chance to slide my lens around the unobstructed vista of the alluvial plane which lies between Newtown Creek, the former Bushwick Creek, and the East River.
from wikipedia
An alluvial plain is a largely flat landform created by the deposition of sediment over a long period of time by one or more rivers coming from highland regions, from which alluvial soil forms. A floodplain is part of the process, being the smaller area over which the rivers flood at a particular period of time, whereas the alluvial plain is the larger area representing the region over which the floodplains have shifted over geological time.
As the highlands erode due to weathering and water flow, the sediment from the hills is transported to the lower plain. Various creeks will carry the water further to a river, lake, bay, or ocean. As the sediments are deposited during flood conditions in the floodplain of a creek, the elevation of the floodplain will be raised. As this reduces the channel floodwater capacity, the creek will, over time, seek new, lower paths, forming a meander (a curving sinuous path). The leftover higher locations, typically natural levees at the margins of the flood channel, will themselves be eroded by lateral stream erosion and from local rainfall and possibly wind transport if the climate is arid and does not support soil-holding grasses. These processes, over geologic time, will form the plain, a region with little relief (local changes in elevation), yet with a constant but small slope.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The pencil factory of the Eberhard Faber company, recently converted to luxury apartments, from above. Often has it occurred to me that this most be how the elites of Manhattan perceive the North Brooklyn and Western Queens communities, as if from above and with the perspective of Olympians.
from nycgovparks.org
The native Keshaechqueren originally inhabited this part of Brooklyn. Dutch mercantilists and farmers, arriving in 1638, rapidly developed it into a hub of seafaring commerce. In the 1850s, the community swelled with new residents, of primarily Irish and English descent, when two ferry lines began regularly scheduled runs from the Greenpoint coastline to Manhattan’s East Side. With the almost simultaneous addition of big businesses like the shipbuilding firm Continental Iron Works and fuel provider Astral Oil Works, Greenpoint began to compete on a national level with older naval foundries in Boston and Norfolk.
From the decades following the Civil War through the 20th century, Greenpoint’s population has steadily grown. In the early 1950s, the community began to suffer strain as several waves of immigration met with limited economic opportunities in the neighborhood.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The red building in the right of the shot, for instance, houses one of my favorite saloons in this section- also known as the “Pencil Factory”. They serve hard cider in a pint glass with ice during the summer, and that’s what’s known as “local knowledge”. Can’t see that from up here.
Of course, this angle of view precludes one from understanding the truth of these places, the life and cultural norms of the street, and reduces the population housed therein to statistical groups with the status of mere tenants (from a macro historical and sociological point of view) in a “district”. This isn’t a district, this is a neighborhood.
Hmmm, I guess these Eberhard Faber folks must have been a big deal.
from nyc.gov
The company first opened a factory in Manhattan near 42nd Street and the East River in 1861 as the U.S. branch of Germany’s A.W. Faber Company, a pencil manufacturing company dating to the mid-18th century. In 1872, Eberhard Faber, the great grandson of the company’s founder, moved the operation to Brooklyn after the Manhattan plant – the first pencil manufacturer in the United States — was destroyed by fire.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shapes on the far horizon in the shot above are all in Queens, and the dark dome of vegetation are those trees fed by the morbid nutritions of Calvary Cemetery. The reason why this part of Greenpoint Avenue is so wide is that it was built to accommodate the street car lines going to and from Calvary, which met the ferry docks not too far from where the so called “transmitter park” is found today.
from “A history of the city of Brooklyn By Henry Reed Stiles” courtesy google books
The Green-point Ferries are from the foot of Green-Point Avenue, Brooklyn, E. D., to the foot of East Tenth and East Twenty-Third streets, New York. The first named route was established in 1852 (lease dated 1850), by the efforts of Mr. Neziah Bliss, of Green-Point; and was soon transferred to Mr. Shepard Knapp, being now held by G. Lee Knapp. The Twenty-Third street route was established in 1857, and held by St. Patrick’s Cathedral, per G. Lee Knapp. Rent of the Tenth street ferry, $1,300, and of the Twenty-Third street, $600 per annum, both expiring in 1874.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Remains of the Greenpoint Terminal Market, immolated just a few years ago, persist on the riverfront. They await the application of venture capital and the blade of earth moving equipment, and will begin a conversion to towers of steel and glass.
Soon, one will not be able to see the spectacle of the Shining City of Manhattan from Greenpoint, except via regulated and officially decided “sight lines” or “visual corridors” offered by gaps between high rise apartment buildings- or if you happen to live in one of them.
Just like in Long Island City.
from the “DIGEST OF SPECIAL STATUTES By THE CITY OF NEW YORK” courtesy google books
1865: This act incorporates the Green Point and Calvary Railroad Company, and authorizes the construction of a railroad, to be operated by horse power only, from at or near the Green Point and Tenth street ferry, at the foot of Green Point avenue, in the city of Brooklyn, thence along Green Point avenue to Green Point avenue plank road, across the bridge over Newtown creek; thence easterly along said road to the easterly side of Calvary cemetery at or near the point where the, said road intersects the main road leading from Calvary cemetery to Hunter’s Point; thence to Central avenue; thence along Central avenue and Commercial street to Franklin avenue, to Freeman street, to Washington street, to the place of beginning.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One view which will remain unoccluded for the foreseeable future, of course, is that which is enjoyed by some hideous thing which cannot possibly exist or lurk within the cupola of a Sapphire Megalith in Long Island City.
Such an entity- with its singular and unblinking eye casting about rapaciously, a global army of loyal acolytes and fanatic employees, and a desire to devour all the wealth that there is, was, or ever will be- this hungry and impossible thing which would be “too big to fail”- were it not entirely mythical- what perspectives on the transformations of North Brooklyn could it offer from atop its hildskjalf?
Of course, such paranoid wonderings often occur, when one spends his time getting high in Greenpoint.
from nyc.gov
Greenpoint is generally defined as the district bounded by North 7 Street on the south, the East River on the West, Newton Creek on the north and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway on the east, corresponding approximately to the area of ward 17 in the 19 century. th
Once also known as Cherry Point, Greenpoint, got its name from the eponymous spit of grassy land that extended into the East River near the foot of what later became Freeman Street. The name came to designate all of the 17 ward when Greenpoint, Bushwick, and Williamsburg were joined to Brooklyn in 1854. At that time, the 17 ward was home to approximately 15,000 inhabitants. A sandy bluff, over one hundred feet high in some parts, overlooked the shoreline between Java and Milton Streets, but it was leveled before the middle of the 19 century for use as building material and landfill both in New York and locally. The original Greenpoint spit disappeared between 1855 and 1868 when the western half of the blocks along the once white sandy shoreline west of West Street were created by landfilling. During this period, the blocks west of Commerce Street between Ash and Eagle Streets were also created or in the process of being filled.
the sullen shore
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One such as myself is addled by detail and lost in the phantasmagoria of history, an unending torrent of dates and numbers. The “historians” of the world pride themselves on being able to pull such numerals out of a memorized hat, reciting them in the same manner that a rabid sports fan might describe the statistics of their favorite team. On some topics I can accomplish this, but as long time readers will attest- my brain works a bit differently than most.
To me, it’s the story that counts.
from wikipedia
This bridge and the Manhattan Bridge are the only suspension bridges in New York City that still carry both automobile and rail traffic. In addition to this two-track rail line, connecting the New York City Subway’s BMT Nassau Street Line and BMT Jamaica Line, there were once two sets of trolley tracks.
The Brooklyn landing is between Grand Street and Broadway, which both had ferries at the time. The five ferry routes operated from these landings withered and went out of business by 1908.
The bridge has been under reconstruction since the 1980s, largely to repair damage caused by decades of deferred maintenance. The bridge was completely shut down to motor vehicle traffic and subway trains on April 12, 1988 after inspectors discovered severe corrosion in a floor beam. The cast iron stairway on the Manhattan side, and the steep ramp from Driggs Avenue on the Williamsburg side to the footwalks, were replaced to allow handicapped access in the 1990s.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mathematics has always been my particular failing, its abstractions and dry logic have always evaded me. During second grade, I had the pox upon me, and missed the introduction to long division- an illness with long term consequence as I’ve never really caught up. Often, I think that I suffer from some sort of numbers based form of dyslexia, which is as close as can be described to what happens to numerals as they swirl about in my head.
The calendrical information is far less important than “the story”. It’s best to refer to careful notes on minor details like day and year, and critical to commit context and theme to memory.
from Mayor Low’s administration in New York By City Club of New York, 1903, courtesy google books
The general plan of the bridge was adjopted by the East River bridge commission on August 19th, 1896, and filed in the department of public works of each of the two cities. In May, 1897, an amended plan was adopted and filed. The first actual work on the bridge was begun on the Manhattan tower foundation on October 28th, 1896.
The tower foundations on both sides of the river rest on solid rock. The north pier on the Manhattan side sinks to a depth of 56 feet below high water and the south pier 66 feet below high water. On the Brooklyn side the north pier extends to a maximum depth of about 101 feet below high water and the south pier to a maximum depth of about 90 feet below high water. The Manhattan anchorage rests on 3,500 piles driven through clay to a bed of sand overlying the rock. The Brooklyn anchorage rests on natural sand.
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
Is it important to know what day the Williamsburg Bridge was erected, as compared to the tales of those early shipwrights, dry docks, and vast maritime complexes which it obliterated?
To me, it is far more interesting to chew on the fact that the massive shipyards, which included Novelty Iron works, between here and Corlears Hook spawned a lost and forgotten world amongst the wharves and birthed a unique culture whose hidden influence affects our world to this day..
For instance-
- Legend has it that there were once so many ladies of the evening around Corlears Hook, servicing the sailors and working men employed at these yards, that the slang term “hookers” became ubiquitous with prostitution.
- The earliest institutional ancestors of the the NYPD, addressed with the task of cleaning up the neighborhood, were forbidden to wear uniforms by State Law and would instead identify themselves as Police by displaying a six pointed badge made of copper- which is why we call them “Cops” to this day.
also from wikipedia
In 1638 the Dutch West India Company first purchased the area’s land from the local Native Americans. In 1661, the company chartered the Town of Boswijck, including land that would later become Williamsburg. After the English takeover of New Netherland in 1664, the town’s name was anglicized to Bushwick. During colonial times, villagers called the area “Bushwick Shore.” This name lasted for about 140 years. Bushwick Shore was cut off from the other villages in Bushwick by Bushwick Creek to the north and by Cripplebush, a region of thick, boggy shrub land which extended from Wallabout Creek to Newtown Creek, to the south and east. Bushwick residents called Bushwick Shore “the Strand.” Farmers and gardeners from the other Bushwick villages sent their goods to Bushwick Shore to be ferried across the East River to New York City for sale via a market at present day Grand Street. Bushwick Shore’s favorable location close to New York City led to the creation of several farming developments. In 1802, real estate speculator Richard M. Woodhull acquired 13 acres (53,000 m²) near what would become Metropolitan Avenue, then North 2nd Street. He had Colonel Jonathan Williams, a U.S. Engineer, survey the property, and named it Williamsburgh (with an h at the end) in his honor. Originally a 13-acre (53,000 m2) development within Bushwick Shore, Williamsburg rapidly expanded during the first half of the nineteenth century and eventually seceded from Bushwick and formed its own independent city.
uncouth clouds
Note: This “Maritime Sunday” is a repost of “Stronger than Fear” from September 12, 2010
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What would Superman do?
This governing logic which demands that one draw a line and say “No more” compels some to step forward and personally form a barrier between law and chaos. To leave behind the mundane, don a colorful uniform, and fight for truth, justice, and the American way.
Such men and women that display this sort of behavior may often found in the employ of the NYPD, and one elite unit of that inestimable organ of the municipality is the redoutable NY Harbor Patrol.
Witness 2 generations of their patrol vessels, plying the estuarine tides of the River of Sound– commonly known as the East River to modernity.
from safeboats.com
The Defender class comes standard with full cabin to protect the crew from weather and an independent forced air diesel heater, both of which provide the crew with the maximum amount of comfort and minimal fatigue. The Defender has the direct benefit of years of evolutionary USCG Non Standard boat history to maximize its operational availability. Just one sea trial will prove that the Defender Class is unmatched in performance, work ability, fit, finish and quality.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What would Batman do?
The job of these amphibian officers is to protect and patrol the harbor of New York, assist maritime travelers experiencing mechanical or existential trouble, and to enforce a strict security cordon around the archipelago. In the age of the terror war, the strategic patrol of waterfront infrastructure and detection of multi national sapper units (called terrorists) has been added to their list of duties.
This is the NYPD unit that once was originally formed out of a bunch of beat cops in 1857 who, with a rowboat, were tasked with busting up a gang of river pirates called the Swamp Angels that operated out of an open sewer on Cherry Street in Manhattan. Today, Harbor unit is an elite and coveted posting.
An already impossible patrol area coupled with decades old technology and an expanded mission has demanded a few upgrades to equipment, and the acquisition of some “wonderful toys”.
from wikipedia
Commanding Officer of Harbor Unit – Deputy Inspector David Driscoll
On March 15, 1858, five members of the New York City Police Department rowed out into New York Harbor to combat piracy aboard merchant ships lying at anchor. The NYPD Harbor Unit has existed ever since, protecting life and property. With hundreds of miles of inland waterways to cover, the unit operates 27 boats from three bases.
For underwater work, the department used to contract with private diving companies when weapons or other evidence had to be recovered from the bottom of New York’s many rivers and waterways. In the early 1970s, however, the Harbor Unit formed a specialized scuba team that today numbers around 30 officers. Unlike many police dive units, whose members dive only part-time, NYPD divers are assigned to the unit full-time. (The exception are some scuba-trained officers in regular patrol units who are detailed to the team temporarily during the busy summer months.) In addition to the normal duties of evidence recovery, the Scuba Team’s mission has expanded since 9/11 to include a counter-terrorism role. For air-sea rescue work, the Harbor Unit keeps two divers assigned to the Aviation Unit 24 hours a day, seven days per week, all year round. These divers will work with their counterparts in the FDNY, who arrive at incidents by fireboat or rescue company.
- image from wikipedia
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What would Iron Man do?
I admit it, these safeboats that seem to be multiplying all across the harbor are amongst my favorite subjects to focus in on when they pass. Each one of the “services” has a configuration specific to its mission, a suit of armor tailor made for the tasks at hand…
– the Coast Guard ones have big honking machine guns…
– FDNY a water cannon…
– even the National Parks Dept. Police have their own version
– collect them all!
from homepage.mac.com/josephcocozza/poddiver
New York also is one of the world’s busiest seaports. Manhattan itself is an island. Moreover, the five boroughs are surrounded by water. According to NYPD Lieutenant John Harkins; “ New York City has 184 miles of coastline on the Atlantic Ocean, and we have over 546 square miles of inland waterways…. (and) the city is a major hub of international ship borne commerce.”
The policing of New York’s waterways are provided by the men and women of the NYPD Harbor Unit. The Harbor Unit is on the cutting edge of marine law enforcement. From its 3 bases and 27 boats, the Harbor Unit provides the City of New York with a marine force that is equipped to handle all water borne security, public safety and rescue concerns. This includes: enforcement of maritime laws, missing persons in the water, evidence recovery, air-sea rescues,, narcotics interdiction, anti-terrorism and security for United Nations. To accomplish this mission, the NYPD Harbor Unit works closely with state and federal law enforcement.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What would Lex Luthor do?
There’s just something I love about the way that these small vessels crash over the water, a latent desire to see it really open up and go top speed. These defender class boats remind me of old science fiction shows from the 70′s, of a colonial viper or earth starfighter.
These boats were built in accordance with a governing military hardware design philosophy called “the weapons platform”. It doesn’t matter what configurations an individual user might install, the chassis is always standard, and one need install or replace only sensors or weapons at one’s own discretion. The United States Navy “Carrier fleet” concept is the ultimate application of this notion.
I often wonder what these boats may be electronically talking to as they patrol, whether they be wireless cameras or some of the more… esoteric gear which is rumored to be at work in the harbor. Police methods are ingenious, and varied.
from nypost.com
From “invisible” helicopters and mini-submarines to radiation-detecting knapsacks, the NYPD is employing a new generation of high-tech tools to combat terrorism and fight crime.
Officers are getting equipped with space-age gadgets like handheld bomb detectors, being trained in futuristic flight simulators, and traveling in gadget-filled, crime-solving vans. And more gizmos are being tested every day.
The NYPD’s Scuba Team is evaluating devices that allow divers to see underwater sonar images on LCD screens attached to their masks instead of blindly searching murky rivers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What would Spider Man do?
Great responsibility accompanies great power, and these police officers- roughly 150- are entrusted with the patrol of nearly 200 miles of coastline and 576 square miles of navigable water. On a warm summer evening such as the one enjoyed when these photos were shot, this seems to be the best posting in the entire NYPD, but remember, they’re out there in blizzards and thunderstorms.
from nytimes.com
The officers are likely to remain officers, they said, since few harbor unit members make detective.
”You’d basically have to save the mayor’s son from drowning,” Officer Parkin said, looking up toward Gracie Mansion and Carl Schurz Park, with the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive running under its promenade.
They made a U-turn and headed back south, toward the Battery, where a Staten Island ferry boat passed, large and empty and brightly lighted.
”Rush-hour ferries,” Officer Whelan said, ”big targets.”
On the Hudson River they passed air vents to the Holland Tunnel, a tall brick structure at the end of Pier 34. A blip on the radar screen off the starboard bow turned out to be a sightseeing boat. Through the squad’s night-vision binoculars, dark undersides of piers were lighted up in Day-Glo green.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What would the Punisher do?
The smaller and older of the vessels is a 25 foot fiberglass Parker, which (in its civilian configuration at least)is a 200 HP fishing boat converted over to police duty. Cop hull, cop screws, cop seats, cop bilge pump…sorry, the Blues Brothers are intruding again.
These craft offer a lightweight and shallow draft capability, and the silhouette they offer is reminiscent of older generations of vessels that once fished the coastlines of the north eastern United States in great multitudes. This makes a lot of sense, procuring equipment from the mass market for use by the gendarme, although the manner in which the Parker crashes the waves when at speed must be a great source of discomfort to those onboard.
But, if crime is a disease, NYPD is the cure.
from 1893, at nytimes.com
NEW BOAT FOR HARBOR POLICE; THE PATROL BUILT FOR SPEED AND EFFECTIVE WORK. To be Launched Near Baltimore To-morrow — As Handsomely furnished as a Private Yacht — Fitted for Fire and Wrecking Purposes as Well as Police Duty — Over 143 Feet Long and Constructed of Steel — Her Estimated Speed Sixteen Miles an Hour — Provided with a Powerful Searchlight.
check out these historic shots of Patrol at policeny.com
- photo from policeny.com
and here’s a link to a movie of Patrol capturing some pirates in 1903
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What would Captain America do?
also from nytimes.com, in 1889
THE HARBOR POLICE FORCE.; HISTORY OF AN ADMIRABLE ORGANIZATION. HOW THE RIVER THIEVES HAVE BEEN HELD IN SUBJECTION FOR MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS–THE PATROL.
The degenerate successor of the picturesque pirate of history and romance is the modern “water rat” or river pirate. The operations of thieves of this kind in the waters around New-York led to the establishment in 1857 of the present police patrol of New-York Harbor.
also from policeny.com
Sec. 157 When a boat shall bring prisoners ashore, it shall be the duty of one or more of the crew, to transfer them to the patrolmen on land, who shall convey the prisoners to the nearest station house.
Sec. 158 In addition to the ordinary baton of a patrolmen, each member of the harbor police shall be armed, while on duty, with a revolving pistol and a cutlass.
Sec. 159 Each boat, while on duty, shall be continually moving, unless engaged in watching some suspected place or vessel.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another specie of NYPD Patrol boat, a retired one which I’ve had the privileged of having actually boarded, is Launch 5, aka the Patrolman Walburger.
The Newtown Pentacle 