How did the boat graveyard in the Arthur Kill come to pass? The graveyard was once the location of one of the largest marine scrap yards on the East Coast. No matter the location, these boat graveyards share a visual language of mysterious abandonment- eerie rusted shapes floating on the sea floor, jutting above the water line or stranded on watery sandscapes. And possibly the largest ghost fleet of all was created when Allied bombers sunk part of Japan’s imperial fleet during WWII. Closely related but not necessarily the work of individual boat owners, is the conscious disposal of obsolete vessels, such as ill-fated early submarine models off the coast of England or wooden steamships in the Potomac River. Others, such as the Mauritania Bay boat graveyard in Nouadhibou are a function of illegal abandonment. Blinding fog in San Francisco Bay and submerged reefs in the Red Sea have created their own local graveyards. Some natural, but more often manmade activities are the forces behind boat graveyards. Others, with perhaps a more pragmatic view, see the graveyard as a place with dangerous and unsafe hunks of metal filled with toxic substances that should be removed from the waterway. According to some, the Arthur Kill Ship Graveyard is an historical and haunted maritime marvel, ranking among the top ten of boat graveyards and separately, of out-of-the-way NYC curiosities. Just before I left, I saw a rubber raft with an outboard motor puttering among the ships, and then a shiny red tugboat streamed past, its fresh white wake splashing up against the rusted shells of its ancestors.From Behind the Mounds: Abandoned Ship Graveyard in Our Backyardĭistant cousins of the Titanic are lying offshore just south of Freshkills Park’s West Mound.
Apparently that’s part of the reason the ships are here: so they can continue to serve the public, if not by ferrying goods and people, by offering a brass fitting or an old tiller wheel. “Hey Mike, see that? A brass valve, right on the front!” They stood beside me for a moment, assessing the wreckage, before we were both chased off by a firm if somewhat lackadaisical guard. As I was admiring close up the sunset patterns the rust made on the hulls, a pickup truck ground up beside me and two guys hopped out. Gears, pulleys, and capstans clung to the decks of the ferryboats, tugboats, barges, and fishing boats like desperate sailors on a stormy sea, only the waters here were so stagnant that I spotted a few mussel colonies growing in the shallows.įor a different view, I drove a few yards down the road to the official entrance of the salvage yard and managed to snap a few pictures. In some places the hulls were paper thin, almost lacy, and the metal curled at the edges one could imagine it rustling and tinkling in the wind. Splintered wooden wheelhouses toppled onto decks, where crusty cleats held limp bowlines strewn with algae. Their hulls canted to port and starboard portholes pointed toward the sky. In the rippling water, Canadian geese drifted between empty shells of ships sunk in the mud. In the distance, spring birds twittered over the rush of the West Shore Expressway. The air smelled like sulfur and stagnant mud. And just ahead, through a sweep of tall grass, was what I had come to visit: the rusted hulks of ancient ships that have, like Blazing Star’s occupants and the trash of the five boroughs, also come to Rossville for their final rest: at Staten Island’s boat graveyard, otherwise known as Donjon Marine Company salvage yard.Īfter donning tall rubber boots, I pushed my way through the grasses, teetering across landfill sludge-Santa hats, flyswatters, shampoo bottles-on ancient ship beams studded with nine-inch rusty nails. Not half a mile in the distance lurked the bald green pate of Fresh Kills landfill. From the gravel shoulder where I parked, a flight of stone steps led up to the Blazing Star Burial Ground, a hillside knoll where lilacs droop over gravestones dating back to the 1700s. On a hazy day in early spring, I made my way down a shabby stretch of Arthur Kill Road on the western shore of Staten Island, past Big Nose Kate’s Saloon, Guy’s Tire Buys, and Crazy Goat Feeds pet-food store.
The 369th Regiment Harlem Hellfighter’s Marching Band.Cultural Ambassadors and the Creative Traditions Network.
0 kommentar(er)
