Posts Tagged ‘Staten Island’
amusing incidents
Witnessed on the Kill Van Kull.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back in April, your Newtown Pentacle displayed shots of and discussed the estimable USS Slater’s arrival at the Caddell Dry Dock on the Staten Island side of the Kill Van Kull. Your humble narrator was onboard the recent Working Harbor Newark Bay excursion when the Slater was encountered again.
from wikipedia
USS Slater (DE-766) is a Cannon-class destroyer escort that served in the United States Navy and later in the Hellenic (Greek) Navy. The ship was named for Frank O. Slater of Alabama, a sailor killed on the USS San Francisco (CA-38) during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. He was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for gallantry in action. The USS Slater is now a museum ship on the Hudson River in Albany, New York, the only one of its kind afloat in the United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From the look of it, the ship was being repainted by one guy, which is a ridiculous notion. You can’t paint a Navy Destroyer, retired or not, with just one brush. I’d insist on using a roller, at least.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My understanding is that Slater will have returned to the water by the time you’re reading this, although I’m unsure of when her vacation in the City will be over and she returns to duty in Albany. One cannot imagine how expensive her trip to the spa has been, but Staten Island is noted for its rejuvenating qualities, so it’s probably money well spent.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Paul Andrew, a tug operated by the DonJon towing concern (which has also been mentioned before at this, your Newtown Pentacle), slid past the Statue of Liberty, which was a shot I couldn’t resist capturing or presenting here – at your Newtown Pentacle.
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There are three Newtown Creek walking tours coming up.
Sunday, June 22nd, America’s Workshop
A FREE tour, courtesy of Green Shores NYC, click here for rsvp info
Saturday, June 28th, The Poison Cauldron
With Atlas Obscura, click here for tickets and more info.
Sunday, June 29th, The Insalubrious Valley
With Brooklyn Brainery, lunch included, click here for tickets and more info.
writhing sharply
Give thanks, or else.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For the holiday weekend, which is ultimately a vestigial harvest festival celebrated by some post industrial nation state that occupies a third of a continent (and militarily speaking- most of the planet- for those extraterrestrials and Otaku who might be reading this), Newtown Pentacle will be in single image mode.
Now, go eat the things you are supposed to, then go do your patriotic duty and shop. Our enemies in east Australasia would prefer if you did nothing instead, and just continued to grow fatter. Your job is to go eat a bird which is native to the continent, so get to it.
The shot above depicts another sort of endemic creature infesting North America, the humble Cormorant, which is lucky enough to not be considered food by the well fed masses.
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not shocking
Maritime Sunday returns.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the end of the 2013 schedule of NY Harbor tours conducted by Working Harbor Committee, a circumnavigation of Staten Island was offered and I was onboard. We left the familiar confines of the Kill Van Kull and turned left, onto the Arthur Kill.
from wikipedia
The Arthur Kill is a tidal strait separating Staten Island, New York City from mainland New Jersey, USA, and a major navigational channel of the Port of New York and New Jersey. Arthur Kill has also been known as Staten Island Sound.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Unknown country for your humble narrator, great expectations of maritime industrial activities were met when the Barbara McAllister tug appeared of the early November air.
Built in 1969, by Halter Marine Services of New Orleans, Louisiana (hull #226) as the T.J. Sheridan for the Sheridan Transportation Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was a beautiful, if bracing, trip. Luckily, I had a flask of hip pocket whiskey with me which provided for some warming comfort.
from mcallistertowing.com
McAllister Towing & Transportation is one of the oldest and largest marine towing and transportation companies in the United States. We operate a fleet of more than 70 tugboats and barges in 17 locations along the U.S. East Coast from Portland, ME to San Juan, PR. The fleet of over 100,000 H.P. consists of 24 Z-Drive/ Tractor tugs, 6 Tier II compliant tugs, 20 plus vessels involved in coastal towing and 35 ABS load line classed vessels.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A hearty maritime Sunday shout out to the Barbara McAllister is offered, and to the Working Harbor Committee for another excellent year on the harbor.
also from mcallistertowing.com
McAllister Towing has provided superior tugboat service to New York Harbor since 1864, when Captain James McAllister, great-grandfather to current president Brian A. McAllister, bought his first sail lighter to carry cargo from Manhattan to Brooklyn . Today, McAllister’s tugs provide a wide variety of services to the busy ports of New York and New Jersey , serving the most concentrated and affluent consumer market in the world and handling a significant part of the 16 million tons of cargo that passes through the port every year. In addition to ship docking services and general harbor assist work, New York based tugs are regularly employed in offshore towing along the entire East Coast.
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no exit
Maritime Sunday leaves every thirty minutes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The seldom considered Staten Island Ferry – the most popular tourist destination in New York City – transiting forth and back from St. George on… Staten Island… to the Whitehall terminal located on the island of Manhattan. This shot from the archives depicts the latter leg of the transit, and provides for the opportunity to offer a rousing Maritime Sunday “huzzah” to the crews that handle the job.
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almost homogeneous
Xanthophobic horrors abound, here in the Newtown Pentacle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If light may be observed, and if its wavelength is between 570 and 590 nanometers, one can be reasonably assured that they are witnessing a color known as yellow. Xanthophobia is the fear of the color yellow, a sickness of the mind one must avoid at all costs, for contemplation of it serves only to populate the mad house. As a note- Sexual organs like the ones pictured above are likely to contain carotenoids- yellow and red pigments that are found in the chloroplasts and chromoplasts of plants and other photosynthetic organisms. These colorants are also present within certain algaes, amongst certain strains of bacteria, and even within fungi. All of them scare me, as I am afraid of the color yellow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As a boy in Brooklyn, an aged neighbor named Klein farmed sunflowers, vast ugly things whose bee infested faces leered over the insufficient fence that separated his property from our own familial plot. Many a summer afternoon was passed by a young narrator in a state of mortal terror at the thought that Klein’s cyclopean flowers might achieve some form of malign sentience and free themselves from the ground.
A bizarre notion, but I was a very strange child, according to those who knew me in those days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Commercial fisherman’s outerwear departments, safety vests, even the sudden appearance of a taxi- all can send one such as myself into a sickening spiral of hallucination and panic. It is no stretch to say that the DC comics superhero Green Lantern and I would have a lot in common and would find quite a few things to converse about concerning the subject of the color yellow.
It goes without saying that riding the otherwise wholesomely orange Staten Island Ferry can sometimes be so unbearable to me…
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 