Archive for the ‘Staten Island’ Category
lifelong seclusion
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
Welcome, once again to Maritime Sunday at this, your Newtown Pentacle. With the return of agreeable weather, a humble narrator has been making up for lost time, and found himself on… Staten Island… last week. The vessel you see is a Bouchard tug, called Evening Tide.
Evening Tide was built in Louisiana, in 1970, and was originally called the “Captain George Edwards.” She measures 127′ x 31′ x 15′ and Evening tide is a powered by a 3,900 HP engine. Recently spotted transiting away the Kill Van Kull towing a fuel barge, the otherwise wholesome seeming Tug was involved in an accident just ten years ago.
from marinelog.com
The oil spill occurred during the afternoon of April 27, 2003, a bright and clear day. A Bouchard owned and operated tugboat, named the Evening Tide, was traveling en route from Philadelphia to Sandwich, Massachusetts. The Evening Tide was towing an unpowered barge loaded with over four million gallons of No. 6 oil, a thick, viscous and adhesive petroleum. All navigational, communications, and steering systems aboard the Evening Tide were in good working order. Navigational charts identifying all hazards in the area, which are published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, were on-board the Evening Tide in paper and electronic form.
While traveling northwards, the Evening Tide veered off course as it neared the first green buoy marking the beginning of Buzzards Bay channel. The Evening Tide and the barge traveled to the west of the first green buoy, the Information alleges, striking a series of rocks. The impact from the collision ripped a twelve foot hole in the bottom of the barge, rupturing one of the barge’s ten separate tanks containing oil.
Also- TOURS:
Glittering Realms– April 20, 2013 Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– May 4, 2013 Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Hidden Harbor: Newtown Creek tour with Mitch Waxman presented by the Working Harbor Committee, departs Pier 17 in Manhattan May 26,2013 at ten a.m. Limited seating available, order advance tickets now. Group rates available.
energetic struggle
This is the one thousandth posting of this, your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The other day… or night… it’s all kind of hazy… your humble narrator was afflicted with insomnia.
Having no commitments for the following diurnal cycle, a daring plan was hatched and executed wherein one left HQ here in Astoria and plunged forth into the dark. Perambulating past clustered inebriates, and cab drivers arriving at work and congregating while waiting for assignment from yard dispatchers- a steady path for the East River was magnetically adhered to. Casting myself wildly forward from ferry to ferry, one soon realized that the vast human hive had been crossed and the ground that this veritable mendicant stood upon was none other than… Staten Island.
That’s when the gargantuan Cosco Osaka container ship came into view, shepherded by the Gramma Lee T. Moran tug.
from morantug.com
The LEE T. MORAN is an expression of brute power and utility that belies the refinements of technical engineering below her waterline. There, twin ports are cut into the steel hull to make room for the tug’s Z-drive units. On the floor of the shop they look like the lower units of giant outboard engines. Made by Ulstein, a subsidiary of Rolls-Royce, the Z-drive functions much like an outboard. Imagine two outboards extending straight down through the hull, each having the ability to rotate 360 degrees. That makes even a heavy, 92-foot tug with a 450-ton displacement very maneuverable. “It can turn on a dime,” says Doughty. “The hull bottom is slightly flatter to adjust to the two drive units. By turning each drive out 90 degrees, the captain can go from full-ahead (14 knots) to a dead stop in no time.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Awake for what would probably be two days at this point, your humble narrator was a mass of symptoms and early warning signs. Shaking from the cold, my eyes sunken back from fatigue and reddened from lack of sleep, it felt as if a narcotic haze fell over me while watching the small tug maneuver the larger vessel out of the Kill Van Kull.
Nevertheless, the attempt to soldier on was successful and these photographs were captured.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A wearier narrator scuttled back to the St. George Ferry Terminal for a ride back to the docks in Manhattan, wherein another ferry trip brought him back to Queens. By this point, the insomniac possession had lifted and pregnant fatigue indicated that it was time to fall into that same state of involuntary unconsciousness- with its bizarre hallucinatory imagery- which has plagued him since childhood.
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show- presented by the Obscura Society NYC- is back on at Observatory, on February the 15th- Next Friday.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
acclaimed songs
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Early preparations for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday necessitated a trip to a certain big box grocer located in Long Island City on Friday. Unfortunately, a slightly strained muscle in my back was pushed all the way from “uncomfortable” to “spasming” by the trip, wherein mass quantities of food stuffs were laboriously carried up the stairs to the walk up apartment quarters shared by “Our Lady of the Pentacle” and myself with our little dog. Accordingly, this post is being offered by a massively distracted narrator. The dog was particularly enthused when she realized that part of the horde of consumer products transported into the apartment included a 15 pound supply of Milkbone brand dog biscuits.
Built in 1973, by McDermott Shipyard of Morgan City, Louisiana (hull #179) as the Amy Moran for the Moran Towing Corporation of Greenwich, Connecticut. The tug is fitted with an elevating wheelhouse. She is a twin screw tug rated at 3,000 horsepower.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a poor showing at maintaining regular updates in the latter half of 2011, resolutions to hold this- your Newtown Pentacle- to a daily schedule were made, and so far in 2012 only one day has come and gone without an update. Luckily, it’s a leap year. That single missing day is actually due to an outage of Internet access rather than my own sloth, so at least I have a good excuse.
from morantug.com
Moran Towing began operations in 1860 when founder Michael Moran opened a towing brokerage, Moran Towing and Transportation Company, in New York Harbor. In 1863, the company was transformed from a brokerage into an owner-operator of tugboats when it purchased a one-half interest in the tugboat Ida Miller for $2,700.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For today’s Maritime Sunday post, the focus is cast upon the Amy Moran, which is part of the enormous fleet of towing vessels employed by the Moran corporation. All of the shots in this post were captured along the Kill Van Kull, with the final one depicting her undergoing maintenance at a floating drydock located along the tidal strait which divides and defines the coastlines of New Jersey and Staten Island.
Ow. Despite my aching back, a humble narrator nevertheless sends a hearty Maritime Sunday shout out to the Amy Moran and her crews.
from wikipedia
A floating drydock is a type of pontoon for dry docking ships, possessing floodable buoyancy chambers and a “U”-shaped cross-section. The walls are used to give the drydock stability when the floor or deck is below the surface of the water. When valves are opened, the chambers fill with water, causing the drydock to float lower in the water. The deck becomes submerged and this allows a ship to be moved into position inside. When the water is pumped out of the chambers, the drydock rises and the ship is lifted out of the water on the rising deck, allowing work to proceed on the ship’s hull.
engulfing mist
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another victim of Sandy seems to have been the Old Orchard Shoal Lighthouse, which according to Coast Guard reports, has been scoured away from its century long occupation in Great Kills.
Wo.
Lighthouses are amongst the most resilient structures mankind can produce, and this thing reliably weathered the entire 20th century.
I will say it again- Wo.
from workingharbor.wordpress.com
The US Coast Guard has confirmed the total loss of the Old Orchard Shoal Light off Great Kills Beach, Staten Island. The historic structure was swept away by Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My pal Mai Armstrong, known to you Lords and Ladies of the Pentacle as “far eastern correspondent Armstrong”, beat me to the punch on this news.
She has been writing the fantastic Working Harbor Committee blog for a while now, linked to above. She also has shots of the aftermath at the post linked to above.
from wikipedia
Old Orchard Shoal Light was completed and lit on April 25, 1893.
The Fresnel lens was removed in 1950.
Before moving on to Governor’s Island and then finally Coney Island Light, Frank Schubert, said to be the last civilian lighthouse keeper in the United States, was stationed at Old Orchard Shoal Light.
Old Orchard Shoal Light is listed on the National Park Service’s Maritime Heritage Program as Lighthouse to visit [6] and as one of New York’s Historic Light Stations.
On May 29, 2007, the Secretary of the Interior identified Old Orchard Shoal Light Station as surplus under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000. The property was described as Gedney Channel/Lower New York Bay, 3.5 miles south of New Dorp Beach. Remote 35 ft. conical, 3-story “spark plug” style light (1893) with keeper’s quarters (approx. 1000 SF). Interior lined in brick up to 3rd floor. On 0.72 acre submerged land. Constructed of cast iron on concrete/cast iron caisson. Markings: white upper/black. Protective riprap and breakwater sheltering light’s boat basin. Accessible by boat only.”
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desolate shore
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in yesterday’s posting, a few friends and I made it a point to experience the Bayonne Bridge a few weeks back and walk over the pedestrian walkway. Our reasoning was that since the construction project which will “rekajigger” the roadway is beginning quite soon, access to this point of view will be denied to pedestrians for some time and we had better go while the getting was good. Hence…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The bridge seems absurdly high, much more than its actual height suggests. This is largely due to the low lying shorelines which comprise the surrounding terrain, which are a vast tidal floodplain reclaimed by landfill techniques from the swampy marshlands which nature intended. One or two members of our small party found themselves suffering the effects of vertigo, but luckily your humble narrator was not one of them. My paranoid fantasies allow little room for other psychological complaints to crowd in.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Attempts at “getting artsy fartsy” with the camera were what occupied me, and along the way envy for the unique perspectives captured by the daring bridge photographer Dave Frieder crawled into my mind. If you don’t know Frieder’s work, you should. He made a career of climbing the bridges of New York City (and beyond) and captured extraordinary images while doing so. He is also quite the expert on bridge engineering.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There is true beauty in the arch component of the Bayonne Bridge, one can visualize the lines of force moving through the steel. Othmar Amman, who designed the bridge, often allowed the structural elements of his work to remain visible. Before him, engineers would be compelled to erect facades of masonry or cement to encase the steel, but he liked to let it all hang out.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking to the west, and New Jersey, one may observe the gargantuan Port Elizabeth Newark dock complex which serves as one of the main engines of the Port of New York. Gantry cranes and stacked shipping containers obscure Newark Airport behind it. Beyond lies the continent, and the United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To the east is witnessed the city state which lies off the coast of America, the shining city. The Kill Van Kull is the body of water spanned by the Bayonne Bridge, a tidal strait which connects the port facilities to the west with ocean going traffic. The Kill has been discussed thoroughly here at your Newtown Pentacle, and a section of its landward side on Staten Island is actually the subject of a walking tour (offered below) which I conduct for the Working Harbor Committee. The Staten Island side of the Kill is “The North Shore” and the Jersey side is called “The Chemical Coast”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Some work on the bridge has already begun, as evinced by the construction aprons being installed. The initial phases of things involve the removal of generations of lead based paint which protect the structure from corrosion. In our environmentally and politically correct age, such material is anathema, and must be removed. Discussion of the EPA administered site on the Staten Island side which is polluted with Uranium, of course, will be kept to a minimum.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Slouching downward toward Bayonne, those lines of force I mentioned earlier dance within the steel. Not pictured, incidentally, are the many bits of signage installed along the walkway advising the citizenry against suicide. Were my only choices for residence New Jersey or… Staten Island, despondency might set in, but one cannot believe that either is “that bad”. Since the City keeps the suicide counts for individual bridges quiet, I can’t provide any insight on this, but is the Bayonne Bridge a favorite spot for such activity?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Fully ensconced on the New Jersey side, the roadway betrays its destination via signage. Morningstar Rd. seems to be innocently named, but upon seeing the sign, I could not help but think of two things. First- the Morningstar in occultist circles is Venus, and Second- Morningstar is the last name of the transmogrified archangel Lucifer. Perhaps those anti suicide signs are more prosaic than I thought. Does the Bayonne Bridge quietly connect to some outer borough road to hell?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bayonne Bridge as seen from the New Jersey side, as our little party entered the unknown country of Bayonne in search of a diner. Luckily New Jersey is lousy with such establishments, although there is a significant difference in the meaning of “sloppy joe” over there. The NYC sloppy joe is what the rest of America would call a “loose meat sandwich”, whereas in NJ it’s a three layered affair which involves turkey breast, cole slaw, and russian dressing- amongst other things.
Also- Upcoming tours…
for an expanded description of the October 13th Kill Van Kull tour, please click here
for an expanded description of the October 20th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
The Newtown Pentacle 