Posts Tagged ‘Working Harbor Committee’
2013 Newtown Creek Boat Tour
The 2013 Newtown Creek Boat Tour.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On Saturday -the 28th of September- the Working Harbor Committee is producing and offering a boat tour of the Newtown Creek for any interested parties to attend. A special emphasis on the waterway’s storied history and maritime legacy will be made.
I’m going to be doing the history part, speaking in my capacity as the Newtown Creek Alliance Historian, and am tasked with highlighting the various points of interest encountered along the route. Anticipated to be some three hours in length, this boat tour will be delving some three miles inland, proceeding to the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge crossing English Kills in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Maritime History of Newtown Creek is one largely forgotten in these decadent times, but even now an odd tugboat and barge might be spied making their way down the waterway on any given day. Property owners were considered to have been blessed by some of the finest industrial bulkheads in the world a mere century ago, yet many of the businesses based along the Creek today ignore this invaluable resource, allowing their waterfront property to decay and decline.
Nevertheless, a staggering amount of maritime traffic is still observed here, and towing companies such as Reinauer, K-Sea, DonJon, and Poling and Cutler are regular visitors.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Vast operations will be witnessed by those onboard, many of which are involved in the scrap metal and recyclables trade. Responsible for an enormous amount of cross harbor shipping, companies such as SimsMetal are heavily reliant on the maritime trades for their economic success.
Not all that long ago, Newtown Creek carried a greater tonnage of cargo than the entire Mississippi River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An active and thriving industrial zone in the center of New York City, from the water one can truly grasp the sheer scale of Newtown Creek’s busy waterfront. Normally hidden by high fences and obscured by street facing structures, the intensity of the Newtown Creek is laid bare before the admiring gaze of first time visitor and veteran urban explorer alike.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A tributary of the estuarine East River, Newtown Creek extends some 3.8 miles from its junction with the more familiar waterway, and provides demarcation for the currently undefended border of much of Brooklyn and Queens. Named to the Federal Superfund list, the Creek suffers from a history of environmental degradation and municipal neglect.
An era of great change is upon the Newtown Creek, and this trip will be one of your last chances to see it in its current form.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We will see four moveable bridges, and this year will be your last chance to see the static Kosciuszko Bridge which carries the BQE, as the NYS DOT has indicated that construction on its replacement will begin quite soon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Along it’s banks, great fortunes have risen.
Amongst others- Peter Cooper (BO Railroad, Canton Iron, and Cooper Union), Charles Pratt (Astral Oil, and Pratt University), and ultimately John D. Rockefeller (Standard Oil)– all grew richer than the dreams of avarice in this place. Alongside them, the darkest mills of the industrial revolution- rendering plants, yeast distilleries, bone blackers, and acid factories provided tens of thousands of jobs to the immigrant populations of Brooklyn and Queens. Today- National Grid, BP, Amoco, ExxonMobil, and a host of other multinational companies still maintain an enormous investment in this valuable industrial canal.
Upcoming tour: Hidden Harbor Tours: Newtown Creek tour with Mitch Waxman.
Come explore Newtown Creek by boat with Working Harbor Executive Director Captain John Doswell and Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman as your guides.
Boarding begins at 2:30 p.m., and departs at 3:00 p.m. sharp. The 2.5 hour, fully narrated, round-trip excursion departs from and returns to the New York Skyports Marina found at East 23rd Street & the FDR Drive in Manhattan.
There will be a cash bar onboard.
For inquiries about group discounts please call 212-757-1600.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
2013 Great North River Tugboat Race
Maritime Sunday returns with a Tugboat Race.
– photos by Mitch Waxman
For this week’s Maritime Sunday, what I saw last week at the Great North River Tugboat Race.
September 10 Newark Bay Tour
Want to see something cool?
-photo by Mitch Waxman
A Hidden Harbor® Newark Bay Tour is in the offing, which will take place onboard the luxury tour boat Zephyr.
Produced by the Working Harbor Committee of New York, a 501/3c non profit corporation whose mission is to strengthen awareness of the working harbor’s history and vitality today, and its opportunities for the future.
The tour will be departing from South Street Seaport’s Pier 16 in Lower Manhattan, on Tuesday the 10th of September, between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
Our vessel features two fully enclosed and climate controlled decks with all amenities. There is an open-air roof deck which offers panoramic views of the incredible harbor of New York and New Jersey. Snacks and beverages, including wine and beer, will be available for onboard purchase on the spacious and comfortable ship.
Hidden Harbor® Tours are presented by Working Harbor Committee in partnership with the New York Water Taxi/Circle Line Downtown.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
Visiting Brooklyn’s Erie Basin, then “Tugboat Alley” (aka the Kill Van Kull), our ultimate destination will be the Port Elizabeth and Port Newark container terminals. The Statue of Liberty will be visited on the way home, at sunset.
Tugboats, oil barges, tankers, container ships, car carriers, ocean liners and ferries ply the busy waters of New York Harbor daily, but most of their activity is hidden from land. On this cruise tour-goers will get an insider’s view of New York’s working harbor – the largest port on the East Coast and the third busiest in the nation.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
Working Harbor Committee offers boat tours from May to October. Tours are narrated by people who know the harbor intimately – tugboat captains, maritime historians and other experts. WHC’s schedule includes visits to places like the tugboat berths in Erie Basin and Kill Van Kull, container, breakbulk, oil and car ports in Brooklyn and New Jersey, Newtown Creek and many other locations.
The group has been in operation for ten years, and proceeds derived from the tour help to support educational programs for at risk youths, as well as offering free harbor programming for senior citizens.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
Onboard our comfortable NY Water Taxi vessel Zephyr, you will be delighted by a never ending parade of tugboats, cargo vessels, and see the immense cargo handling equipment which lines the shorelines. Hear the realities of keeping a 24/7 operation like this- which employs tens of thousands of New Yorkers- running from maritime experts and harbor insiders.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
The world of working maritime vessels and facilities is vitally important to the area’s economic well being.
Want to know where your Toyota came in? How the ingredients for your chocolate bar got here? How your trash is removed?
Welcome to the Working Harbor.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
This tour passes by the Red Hook Container Terminal and visits Erie Basin, home of Hughes Brothers Barges and Reinauer Tugs before crossing the harbor toward Staten Island. It then enters Kill Van Kull, the area’s busiest waterway dividing Staten Island and Bayonne, passing tug yards, oil docks and marine repair facilities.It then passes under the Bayonne Bridge and visits the giant container ports of Newark Bay: Port Newark and the Elizabeth-Port Authority Marine Terminal, where the world’s largest container ships tie up.
On the way back, we pass by Military Ocean Terminal, the 9/11 Teardrop Memorial, the Robbins Reef Lighthouse and more.
The Statue of Liberty, at sunset, is our last stop before returning to Pier 16.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
The September 10th Newark Bay tour will be led by Captain John Doswell, executive director of Working Harbor Committee.
Capt. Doswell was a writer, designer, producer and software developer for many years before turning his attention to NYC’s waterfront. He serves on the board of several waterfront organizations and founded Friends of Hudson River Park. In addition, he is a waterfront consultant and event producer. Capt. Doswell runs the annual tug race on the Hudson River, and has been involved with everything from Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance’s “City of Water Day” to “Op Sail”.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
Special guest narrator Ed Kelly, executive director of the Maritime Association of the Port of New York and New Jersey, will draw on his long maritime experience to describe how the port works.
“The maritime industry delivers the American way of life. It is essential to the nation’s security and economic well being,” Ed Kelly has said. But because we have gotten so good at what we do people don’t even know we do it any more. It is hidden away. That’s why tours like this are so important.”
-photo by Mitch Waxman
To get onboard with the Working Harbor Committee, and order tickets to our September 10th Newark Bay tour with Capt. John Doswell and Ed Kelly, click here for the NY Water Taxi ticketing page.
nervous overstrain
Maritime Sunday drifts into port again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A “Ro-Ro,” car carriers like Courageous Ace allow a fleet of newly manufactured vehicles to be driven on and off the ship and unloaded without the usage of Gantry or Transfer Cranes, hence “Roll on, Roll off” or “Ro-Ro.”
Radio call sign IMO 9252204, Courageous Ace is 198m long with a 32m beam and has a gross tonnage of 439. In Americanese, that means its 649.606 feet long and 104.987 feet tall, or around one and three quarter football fields long and just under one quarter of a football field high off the water. Why football fields, like horsepower, remain a measurement we all can reference I will never understand. Comparisons follow.
Courageous Ace is just shy of what the Citigroup building in LIC turned horizontal and set afloat would look like, and is approximately the same size as the Richard J. Daley Center in Chicago (the office building in the Blues Brothers movie). It’s owned and operated by Mitsui O.S.K. Lines.
from mol.co.jp
MOL takes a proactive stance in reducing the environmental burden of its vessels as we transport environmental-friendly automobiles that offer improved fuel efficiency and lower CO2 emissions. MOL launched the Courageous Ace in 2003, with a bow that is aerodynamically rounded and beveled along the bow line to help reduce wind resistance. This groundbreaking design results in significant energy savings.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Charles D. McAllister was one of two tugs assisting the colossus into its berth in New Jersey. She seemed to be on watch rather than actively towing, perhaps two tugs were required further out, beyond the Narrows. A large vessel like Courageous Ace actually has to deal with cross currents, and its draft requires that it stay in the deep maritime channels maintained by US Army Corps of Engineers and stick to a route proscribed by the Coast Guard.
from mcallistertowing.com
McALLISTER TOWING is one of the oldest and largest family-owned marine towing and transportation companies in the United States. Founded by Captain James McAllister in 1864 with a single sail lighter, the company has served the maritime community continuously, earning a reputation for unsurpassed excellence. Today, the company operates a balanced and extensive fleet of tugs, barges, and ferries in the major ports on the U.S. East Coast and in Puerto Rico. Captain Brian A. McAllister is the President and a great-grandson of the founder, representing the fourth generation of McAllisters at the helm. Five McAllisters of the fifth generation are also employed by the company.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My guess would be that the Ro-Ro had already finished its journey and slowed down sufficiently that using two tugs to move into the dock would have been overkill.
She (Charles D. McAllister) is powered by two Caterpillar 12-D398 Turbo main engines with Lufkin reduction gears at a ratio of 7.14:1 for a rated 1,800 horsepower. She is a twin screw tug, fitted kort nozzles and flanking rudders.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ellen McAlllister was doing all the work, noodling the giant into berth. Shortly after docking and whatever business Homeland Security and Customs required of the ship was accomplished, hundreds of brand new automobiles and trucks would be driven off the ship and into a lot. Some of these vehicles will be loaded onto trains for transport all up and down the Northeast, others onto trucks for more localized delivery. The Ellen McAllister was profiled recently in the NY Times, linked to below.
from nytimes.com
For two or three or four weeks at a time, the men — and a few women — of this tugboat business live in constant sight of the flashing red light atop the Empire State Building and 1 World Trade Center’s red-and-white sparkle, but they rarely, if ever, set foot in Manhattan. Most of their exposure to the city occurs during the occasional walk from their Staten Island port to the corner store, where they buy lottery tickets.
enlarged expeditions
Today’s post wonders what it is that may eternal lie.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Maritime Sunday is a time for reflection and appreciation of the working harbor of New York and New Jersey and all the ships at sea, but nagging suspicions that there may be something lurking beneath the surface torment.
Down in the weed choked mud, can there be some form of alien consciousness whose revelation would engender the start of a new dark age? In some subaqueous sepulchre, does some phosphorescent madness wait which may not be dead, but actually lies dreaming instead? The question reduces a humble narrator into a horrible jelly of panic and paranoid fanaticism, frozen with hysterical paralysis at the implications of a dire future suggested by the very idea.
Can anyone perceive that which lies beneath the ocean waves and discern all there is, that might be hidden in the icy darkness?
If there is – trust me, the United States Government is on top of it- and they’ve got the gear.
from wikipedia
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island (including the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn) from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland. In reference to its connection to Long Island Sound, it was once also known as the Sound River. The tidal strait usually reverses flow four times a day.
The strait was formed approximately 11,000 years ago at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation. The distinct change in the shape of the strait between the lower and upper portions is evidence of this glacial activity. The upper portion (from Long Island Sound to Hell Gate), running largely perpendicular to the glacial motion, is wide, meandering, and has deep narrow bays on both banks, scoured out by the glacier’s movement. The lower portion (from Hell Gate to New York Bay) runs north-south, parallel to the glacial motion. It is much narrower, with straight banks. The bays that exist (or existed before being filled in by human activity), are largely wide and shallow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An American Palantír – gaze in wonder upon – the Ship.
It can be said that the ship you see was once a Navy vessel, the USNS Capable. Capable was a Stalwart Class Ocean Surveillance vessel, originally tasked with the collection of acoustic data as part of the anti submarine force. It launched in 1988, had 1,600 HP engines, and was 224 feet long with a 43 foot beam. It left the service in 2004, whereupon it was transferred to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA launched the refitted vessel in 2008, christening it the Okeanos Explorer.
NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer, “America’s Ship for Ocean Exploration,” is the only federally funded U.S. ship assigned to systematically explore our largely unknown ocean for the purpose of discovery and the advancement of knowledge. Telepresence, using real-time broadband satellite communications, connects the ship and its discoveries live with audiences ashore. Visit the NOAA Marine Operations Center Okeanos Explorer page for operations and crew information.
Since the ship was commissioned on August 13, 2008, the Okeanos Explorer has traveled the globe, exploring the Indonesian ‘Coral Triangle Region;’ benthic environments in the Galápagos; the geology, marine life, and hydrothermal systems of the Mid-Cayman Rise within the Caribbean Sea; and deep-sea habitats and marine life in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Mapping activities along the West and Mid-Atlantic Coasts have furthered our knowledge of these previously unexplored areas, setting the stage for future in-depth exploration activities.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Images and video captured by the Okeanos Explorer suggest vast versimilitude to certain blasphemous paintings of dream landscapes, which were last displayed in the salons of Paris shortly before the second World War, which were said to cause viewers to note strange parallelisms and draw mystified conclusions. Perhaps the ship has already visited that nightmare corpse city (spoken of only in hushed whisper by cultists and madmen alike) in the southern Pacific, found at S. Latitude 47°9′, W. Longitude 126°43′, and have decided to keep their findings private due to an abundance of caution and the desire to protect the world from knowledge of the thing. Who can say?
At any rate, a squamously squirming and loathsomely redolent Maritime Sunday greeting is fearfully offered to the crew of the Okeanos Explorer at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
also from oceanexplorer.noaa.gov
From July to August 2013, a team of scientists and technicians both at-sea and on shore will conduct exploratory investigations on the diversity and distribution of deep-sea habitats and marine life along the Northeast U.S. Canyons and at Mytilus Seamount, located within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. The 36-day expedition is composed of two cruise ‘legs.’
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Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, August 10, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
The Newtown Pentacle 