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
Category Archives: City of Ships
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
On an overcast Friday in New York’s inner harbor, the windjammer Peking, was gently slipped into the flooded well deck of the heavy-lift ship Combi Dock III. Once in position, the heavy-lift’s ballast tanks were pumped out, lifting the historic … Continue reading
This year’s City of Water Day hosted, by the Waterfront Alliance, will take place Saturday, July 15th, from 10 AM to 4 PM, on Governors Island in New York harbor as well as at neighborhood sites across the harbor. There will … Continue reading
The Lilac Preservation Project is hosting “LILAC: Flower of the Delaware, A Coast Guard Day Presentation” on Thursday, August 4th, at 6:00 PM on the historic lighthouse tender Lilac at Pier 25, the foot of West Street and N. Moore … Continue reading
One hundred and twelve years ago today, the disaster on the General Slocum resulted in one of the largest loss of life in New York City prior to the attacks of 9/11/01. At around 9AM on June 15, 1904, approximately 1,350 passengers, … Continue reading
A very interesting program coming up on the historic lighthouse tender ex-USCGC Lilac at Pier 25 on the Hudson River in Manhattan. From their press release: Linked Dance Theatre will stage “Soul of the Sea,” a site-specific immersive dance performance … Continue reading
Yesterday thousands lined the shores of the Hudson to watch the Fleet Week Parade of Ships. Unfortunately, this year, I couldn’t be there. Here, courtesy of the US Navy, is a unique view of the festivities from the flight deck … Continue reading