Archive for the ‘New York Harbor’ Category
spider like
Wednesday, yo.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Do you have a favorite Staten Island Ferry model? I do, and it’s the John F. Kennedy. It’s not the newest, or the largest, but it is the oldest model in the fleet of big orange boats and the last of its class still being used. This baby has been on duty since 1965. It’s the one with wooden benches and the large outdoor balconies. Such a cool boat.
Before you ask… again… it doesn’t matter how big the thing is. The difference between a ship and a boat is that a ship can launch a boat and a boat can’t launch a ship or a boat. Rowboats, emergency boats and inflatable duckies don’t count in this distinction.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Along the route back to Manhattan, a trip which is about thirty minutes long, the Reinauer Towing tug pictured above caught my eye. You’ll often spot articulated Tug and Barge combos “parked” off the coast of South Brooklyn. The fuel barge is riding pretty high up so it’s likely empty of product. The parked tugs are waiting for their turn at a pier which connects to a tank farm of refined petroleum products, with that pier likely found along the Kill Van Kull waterway separating Staten Island and Bayonne, New Jersey.
There are other distribution points, of course, but given the position the smart money is on Kill Van Kull.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After getting back onto Manhattan, one walked north a couple of blocks and boarded the Astoria bound NYC Ferry, which proceeded along the East River. A smaller tug with a different dance card was encountered along the way. Recyclable materials, of the sort which we citizens leave on the curb in clear or blue bags, were being barged south and the route carried them right under the Manhattan Bridge.
The horrific “Two Bridges” development, specifically the first of its 5 mirror faced luxury towers, was causing the afternoon sun to strobe down onto the water in a most uncomfortable fashion. Gauche.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, October 5th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
protean ideations
Tuesday, sis.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in yesterday’s installment, a pleasure seeking narrator found his way onto the Staten Island Ferry to slake his desire for fresh air, sunshine, and something interesting to photograph. Seldom does the big orange boat disappoint.
Upon my arrival on the southernmost extant of the municipal archipelago, the one named for a historic Dutch legislative body, a brief walk carried me down to the waterfront. One was able to observe “the show” offered by the working vessels of NYC’s maritime economy and actuate the camera’s shutter with wild abandon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The tugs in today’s post are property fo the McAllister Towing operation.
The “colorway” or paint job which the various towing companies decorate their vessels with help to identify them at a distance, a necessity inherited from the days before wireless radio communications were possible or feasible. Today, each one of these tugs operating in NY Harbor are virtually small radio stations with onboard electronics packages that include multiple band radios and even transponders which report the GPS tracked position of them to the United States Coast Guard. That broadcast data is also reported by several public facing websites, which allow you to anticipate where and when a boat will be passing by.
I don’t do that, though. Serendipity is the sugar syrup of my days and nights.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After spending about an hour hanging around the …Staten Island… waterfront, I checked the time and realized that I’d want to reverse course and head back to Astoria sooner than later. Accordingly, one entered the Staten Island Ferry Terminal at St. George and boarded the big orange boat.
While the crew was preparing to debark the pier, a Staten Island bound ferry was coming in to dock. It was one of the gigantic and fairly modern Molinari class boats, specifically the Guy V. Molinari. The boat is named for the scion of modern day political bossdom and the founder of the First Family of Staten Island politics, former Borough President Guy Molinari.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, October 5th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
defied conjecture
Monday, bro.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A pleasant afternoon was achieved, again, when a humble narrator took to the water. One scuttled over to the NYC Ferry Dock here in Astoria, whereupon an uneventful and not too terribly photogenic journey southwards along the East River was accomplished. Upon arrival in Lower Manhattan, further perambulation carried one to the Staten Island Ferry terminal whereupon the giant orange boat was boarded. The southern terminus of the pentateuch archipelago of NYC was now in reach, and all told I was only out $2.75.
Along the way, the Vane Bros. Patuxent Tug was spotted towing a fuel barge on an extremely long line, as it passed by the Statue of Liberty.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The smarter gulls – obviously the ones from Brooklyn – land on the Staten Island ferry deck and hitch a ride, whilst the more athletic or less intelligent ones fly into and work the slipstream of the big orange boats as they ply betwixt Manhattan and… Staten Island…
Long practiced, this particular round trip excursion of mine is one of the few remaining activities that I actually enjoy. My preference is to stand on the stern of the ferry, as the bow end is typically crowded with tourists. No tourists right now, of course, but old habits die hard. Habit is also how I almost missed taking the third shot in today’s post. Also, technically, speaking the SI Ferries do have a bow and a stern, but their design sort of obfuscates that fact.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It seems that the ferry I was riding was one of the smaller/older ones which have huge bay windows on their central cabin decks. It also seems that, due to the pandemic, the ferry crews are running the service with these bay windows flung wide open to provide ventilation. What that meant for this wandering photographer was the shot above, depicting one of the massive Molinari class Staten Island Ferries sitting at dock and awaiting duty. You normally would have to struggle to find an unoccluded view of this particular wonder, so hooray for COVID.
See, you find the good in the bad. That’s called optimism, and it’s the NYC way.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, October 5th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
nameless panic
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The view of NYC you encounter when onboard the Staten Island Ferry is – as the British would say – “gob smacking.” You’re looking at the peninsular section of lower Manhattan called the Battery. To the south east are the Brooklyn and Queens East River coastlines of Long Island, and on the north west is New Jersey and the Hudson River section of the world. My understanding is that there are other places beyond the actual omphalos of the universe which is New York City, but I can’t speak to legend.
The actual site of the Garden of Eden is found at the crossroads of 42nd street and Broadway in Manhattan – that’s a fact. The tree of Good and Evil – it was a fairly substantial sized garden, Eden – was found at Herald Square, which later became a hellmont. The hellmont factor is why the 34th street subway complex is always so incredibly hot, as it’s a vertical tunnel that leads directly to the fire of Gehenna itself.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s always something interesting to see when riding the Staten Island Ferry, such as the Vane Bros. Hunting Creek tug managing a fuel barge with a whole pile of maritime cranes providing a backdrop for it.
One didn’t spend too much time on… Staten Island… and after checking out the vainglorious shopping mall which has recently opened to thunderous silence in St. George – Good Work, EDC – I boarded a Manhattan bound big orange boat and headed back towards Pier 11 and the NYC Ferry Astoria line for a ride back home.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another tug managing another fuel barge was spotted on the way home, this time nearby Corlears Hook – which is better known as the section of Manhattan that the WIlliamsburg Bridge touches down on.
One of the epicenters of ship building during the colonial era in NY Harbor, this is the neighborhood that spawned my favorite “Gangs of New York” era group of tough guy bandits – the Sewer Rats. Freshwater pirates, they would row out into the river in the dead of night and rob anchored shipping.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, September 7th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
absorption in
It’s always Tuesday, somewhere.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last shot from the waterways of New Jersey, depicting the MV Port Richmond sludge boat, part of the NYC DEP’s fleet, negotiating under one of the many bridges in New Jersey which I don’t know the name of. When I don’t know the name of a bridge in this neighborhood, I say it’s probably the Pulaski Skyway, but I’m almost always wrong. I do it to get a rise out of people.
I believe that the bridge in the shot above is the Vincent R. Casciano Memorial Bridge, aka the Turnpike Extension Bridge. If I am correct, it was built in 1956.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My pal Val, who was operating her Valmobile through often heavy automotive and truck traffic, proferred that it was time to start heading back towards more familiar territory. In the back seat Scott the Libertarian had little to say about the matter, but as a Libertarian that’s his lot in life. Majority opinion was located in the front seat.
Unfortunately, given the section of Bayonne we were in the only logical way home was through the Holland Tunnel and then lower Manhattan. I can report that traffic has ticked back up to not quite pre pandemic levels but pretty close.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Soon, the Valmobile was chugging across the Manhattan Bridge as well. Luckily there wasn’t a toll on this crossing, but over the course of the afternoon we racked up a good forty to fifty bucks worth of bridge and highway tolls. That’s how they get ya, huh?
A quick meal in Astoria was quaffed, and my pal Val managed to get home before yet another thunderstorm lashed through. Scott the Libertarian lives nearby HQ.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, August 24th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
The Newtown Pentacle 