Last week, Rear Admiral Michael Day retired after more than 40 years of service in the US Coast Guard. Over his career, he served in a range of responsible positions, in locations ranging from the Arctic to Taiwan and throughout … Continue reading
Yesterday just before 3 PM, a chartered powerboat with 12 passengers aboard, capsized in the Hudson River near Pier 86 in Midtown Manhattan. The accident fatally trapped a 7-year-old boy and 50-year-old woman underneath the overturned boat. Three others were … Continue reading
Fleet Week has returned to New York harbor after a two-year pandemic pause, bringing 3,000 sailors, marines, and coastguardsmen to the city. The week-long celebration will include public ship visitations, a variety of military demonstrations, and a mix of new … Continue reading
Happy Coast Guard Day! In honor of the day, a post about the former Coast Guard lighthouse tender, USCGC Lilac, a museum ship located on the Hudson River in New York City. The Lilac is America’s only surviving steam-powered lighthouse … Continue reading
On the eve of the first day of early voting in New York, an exquisite mix of music and the sound of merriment rose from the murky waters of the Gowanus Canal as the Wide Awakes Navy and the Gowanus … Continue reading
The story of the New York Marine Hospital in Staten Island—known simply as “the Quarantine,” seems very timely. It was the firey center of what became known as the Staten Island Quarantine War of 1858. At the time it was … Continue reading
Last week, we posted a video promoting the Port of New York and New Jersey made in the 1950s. Here is a similar if very different video made by RKO focussing on the Manhattan waterfront around 1937, at the height … Continue reading
If you haven’t been in Times Square in New York City within the past few decades, it has been transformed into a realm of light and video with every available building and wall covered with electronic billboards advertising products and … Continue reading
Here is a wonderful short video from 1993, which visits Bivalve and Shellpile, the last of New Jersey’s oystering communities, near Port Norris, where the Maurice River meets the Delaware Bay. The oystering industry was once highly profitable. Port Norris … Continue reading
Coast Guard Day in the United States is this Sunday, August 4th, commemorating the founding of the U. S. Coast Guard as the Revenue Marine on August 4, 1790, by the Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. On the ex-USCG … Continue reading
If you are near New York City over the Memorial Day Weekend, be sure to stop by the Hudson River Park’s Pier 25 to help celebrate the 86th birthday of the USCG lighthouse/buoy tender Lilac. The historic cutter will be … Continue reading
Fleet Week 2019 Kicks Off in NYC With the Parade of Ships … Continue reading
Happy Thanksgiving! Today has been celebrated as a day of Thanksgiving in the United States on the third Thursday of November since 1863. The holiday is notionally based on a harvest feast in 1621 between Native Americans and Puritans who had arrived on the … Continue reading
On Monday, I was fortunate enough to have been invited by the good folks at Highland Park Whisky to sail for an afternoon on the Draken Harald Hårfagre in New York harbor. At 115′ feet from stem to stern, Draken Harald Hårfagre is the … Continue reading
On June 7th, The Working Harbor Committee (WHC) is sponsoring a Hidden Harbour Tour® — Brooklyn Waterfront Past & Present — featuring guest speakers Capt. Maggie Flanagan, WHC & Waterfront Alliance, and Bill Miller, renowned maritime historian & author, www.billmilleratsea.com. … Continue reading