What can we learn about New York City and its waterfront from its boats? Waterwire is inviting people from the maritime world and beyond—historians, planners, artists, business people, scientists—to share their perspectives on NYC History in 10 Boats. Below is our tenth installment, with Brad Vogel. (Read lists from Rob Pirani, Colleen Bailey, Frank Hanavan, Ann Buttenweiser, Bill Miller, Charles Denson, Buck McAllister, Celestina Cuadrado, and Charlie Deroko.) If you know someone who would like to tell the story of New York City in 10 boats, tweet author Stefan D-W at @DWStefan or email him at [email protected].
Brad Vogel is executive director of the New York Preservation Archive Project, advises the S.S. Columbia Project and previously served as editor in chief of the Tulane Maritime Law Journal. He is captain of the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club, which hosts free public canoeing from the club’s dock every Saturday from 1pm to 5pm. Mr. Vogel sees one of the boats on his list—the Loujaine—during his canoe voyages on the Gowanus Canal. Among his 10 boats, Mr. Vogel selected vessels with similarities that highlight changes in New York’s maritime culture over time. Which boats in this list would you pair? What other pairs of boats span New York’s maritime history?
HMS Jersey
The most notorious of the floating prison hulks in which the British housed thousands of American patriots and foreign seaman in the 1770s and 1780s during the American Revolution. Moored in Wallabout Bay (today’s Brooklyn Navy Yard), the prison ships subjected prisoners to wretched conditions, and thousands died aboard the HMS Jersey alone. Fort Greene’s Prison Ship Martyrs Monument commemorates those who died.
Turtle
Designed by American David Bushnell, this was the first submarine used in naval warfare. A small, hand-operated, single-person sub, the Turtle attempted to blow up British vessels in New York Harbor in 1776, to no avail. The Turtle’s whereabouts are unknown.
Florence Nightingale
From 1799 to 1858 immigrants consigned to quarantine upon arrival in New York Harbor were sent to facilities on Staten Island known as the Quarantine (noted by Celestina Cuadrado in her NYC History in 10 Boats). After Staten Islanders, who resented the “abominable nuisance,” torched the Quarantine, sick immigrants were transferred to the Florence Nightingale, a floating hospital. In the 1870s, Hoffman and Swinburne Islands were created off Staten Island to serve as the Quarantine.
Floating Church of Our Savior
One of several floating houses of worship created by the Seamen’s Church Institute, the Floating Church of Our Savior, was docked on the East River at the foot of Pike Street, from 1869 to 1910.
General Slocum
A massive fire aboard this pleasure vessel in the summer of 1904 resulted in the loss of 1,021 lives, most of them women and children. The vessel finally beached on North Brother Island after a hellish steam up the East River and remained New York City’s worst disaster until 9/11. Most passengers were Germans from the East Village, and the disaster marked the end of that neighborhood’s Kleindeutscheland (Little Germany).
John J. Harvey
Built in 1931, this fireboat served until 1994 and continues to ply the waters of New York Harbor today. In the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, the Harvey was reactivated by the FDNY and stood off Lower Manhattan, pumping water for 80 hours until mains were restored.
USS PC-1264
The first U.S. Navy ship to have a predominantly African American crew during World War II, this former submarine chaser is among many other historic vessels in Staten Island’s Arthur Kill Ship Graveyard at Donjon Marine Yard.
Loujaine
Originally the Abu Loujaine—and the Bahma before tha— this vessel was built in Japan in 1966 for Arabian Bulk Trade, a Saudi company. The ship was converted in the 1980s to carry cement and is now permanently anchored in Red Hook where the Henry Street Basin meets Gowanus Bay, and serves as floating storage in the shadow of the Red Hook Grain Terminal.
Gowanus No. 4
One of four barges bearing large turquoise boxes, Gowanus No. 4 is part of the Gowanus Gas Turbine Facility, one of the largest floating generating stations in the world. The city has used these 32 fuel oil and natural gas combustion turbine units moored at the mouth of the Gowanus Canal to meet peak energy demand since the 1970s.
Vernon C. Bain Center
Pressed into service in 1992 as a “temporary” floating prison, this 47,326-ton vessel remains moored off Hunt’s Point in the Bronx with a maximum capacity of 870 inmates. It remains the world’s largest prison barge in operation.
