![]() Hurricane Sandy really changed the landscape of the shipyard. Boats have always been slowly sinking into the water, but it appears the hurricane quickly destroyed/sunk many of the more fragile boat skeletons.Ī New York State Port Authority ferry boat. I’ve visited in the winter and summer, but on this last trek, the wheelhouse was obscured by a freight truck that appeared to have been knocked over by the hurricane. A wheelhouse is an enclosed unit where the wheel of the ship is located, although most modern boats don’t have them anymore. My favorite part of the boat graveyard isn’t even in the water, it’s the old wheelhouse that sits on land, a few yards from the shore. Here, watch this funny news clip where the reporter says, “this is a tanker that has run aground,” and anchor asks incredulously, “are you kidding?” to which the reporter responds with sincerity, “No.” I watched it like four times because I’m an asshole. The latest addition is the 168 foot water tanker, John B Caddell, which was pushed onto Front Street during Hurricane Sandy. (Above) Built in 1928, it served as a hospital ship in the Battle of Normandy. To the left of the Bluxom is the New Bedford. Don’t google that boat or an hour later you’ll find yourself balls deep in weird boat nerd forums run by everybody’s grandpas who barely know how to use the internet and then you’ll get the same feeling you get after listening to your old man talk about The War all night. Turns out some people are real tools when they’re pointing out mistakes on the internet.Ībove is the Bloxom, a 1944 tugboat built in West Virginia for the US Army, in the 1940’s and today. Most likely it has sunk, but if not, feel free to let me know. I was unable to find it in any of my photos. If you own a boat and/or have any sway with the city’s parks and rec department, contact me! Many victims’ bodies washed ashore on North Brother Island, which is a mecca of exploring I will most likely never get to and it drives me nuts. A series of careless mishaps -such as rotted fire hoses, misplaced flammable liquids, cheap rescue equipment, and inaccessible lifeboats- led to the death of over 1,000 passengers, mostly women and children. The passenger ferry was making its annual trek to a picnic site on Long Island when it caught fire. Hewitt fireboat. Operational from 1903-1958, the boat’s claim to fame was assisting in the famous shipwreck of the PS. Many of the boats are just old, anonymous tugboats, but a few are somewhat famous, such as the Abram S. Scrapping also demolished/sank many boats. Google Maps image of the boatyard before Hurricane Sandy, which sank many of the boats visible in this screenshot. ![]() The estimate for boats remaining in 2013 is a little over two dozen. When the property was turned over to Donjon Marine Company, a wall was erected along the shore and most of the boats were dismantled, to either salvage parts or to be sunk in the river. Witte, who owned the graveyard until his death in 1980. At its peak, the waterway housed 400 boats, many of which were still intact, by the order John J. In the 1960s, Witte’s Marine Equipment Company began acquiring discarded boats for salvage. Unsalvageable boats used to be dragged out and sunk, but now the remaining boats are slowly rotting into the river. The graveyard consists of decommissioned boats- ranging from warships to giant passenger ferries to dinghies- that are permanently moored in a highly polluted stretch of riverbed along Arthur Kill waterway. Google Maps identifies it as the Arthur Kill Ship Graveyard and the word-of-mouth titles are the Staten Island boat graveyard or the tugboat graveyard. The area is known by a number of names, the original being the Witte Marine Shipyard, the latest being the decidedly less eloquent Donjon Iron and Metal Scrap Processing Facility. Just south of the Fresh Kills, along Arthur Kill road in Rossville, you’ll find the boat graveyard. Most of Fresh Kills landfill has been capped and covered and will soon open as a city park. The landfill closed permanently after receiving the World Trade Center rubble from 9-11, from which human remains are still being unearthed. At one point, the pile was taller than the Statue of Liberty. In a city where we all live on top of each other and a single subway ride results in prolonged shoulder touching, uncomfortably intimate hand grazing, and the “accidental” boob bump, we had room for the world’s largest pile of trash. From 1947 to 2001, it was home to Fresh Kills landfill, which at one time was the largest landfill in the world. For more than a century, Staten Island has been New York City’s dumping grounds for garbage, bodies and the poor and homeless.
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