Out in the Styx: Visiting the Staten Island Ferry Graveyard

Roar! Earlier this spring I decided to go on an odyssey to the land of the dead... Dead boats that is! It turns out on Staten Island there is a marine salvage yard where a number of old ferries, tugs, and barges from NYC's past have been scuttled. Just check out what this area looks like from space! Crazy!

The marine salvage yard isn't open to the public but the northern edge extends past the docks so it looked like I'd just be able to barge right in! I decided it was time to let Charon ferry me across the NY harbor so I could pay a visit to the land of the dead! Roar!

Turns out that analogy was more accurate than I realized! Right next to the northern part of the salvage yard there is actually an old Huguenot cemetery from 1700's called Blazing Star Burial Ground. It sure is spooky, I hope I don't run into Charley Boos! Roar! 

Here you can see the northern edge of the ferry graveyard beyond the marsh behind the graveyard! 

Here are a few pictures of the Ferry Graveyard across the marsh. Getting there was going to be quite a challenge! I had planned my visit to coincide with low tide, so I put some hefty trash bags around my feet and lightly stomped across the marshland! Roar! 

There are a ton of historic ships interred in the ferry graveyard. There are couple from World War II including one ship that took part in D-Day and the USS Mason, the first submarine to have an all black crew! In the back of this picture you can see one of the fireboats that responded to the General Slocum wreck in 1904! Roar!

After crossing the muddy marsh I emerged into a half sunken barge and climbed up onto the rusty hulks of dead ships. 

Here we have a look at the full salvage yard to the south. I don't want to head down there or the keepers of the dead might get me! Roar! 

Some of the scuttled ships in the salvage yard are so old that they have trees and bushes growing off of them! Talk about crazy! It makes me think of a post-apocalyptic future where all these barges have been turned into farm land once sea waters rise. Some one should make a movie about that... Roar! 

Some graffiti artists have also made it out to the ferry graveyard! Here's a cool piece that must have been done years ago, just look how it's faded with time. Roar! 

Besides all the ferries, tugs, and barges there were a number of life boats and dingys that had been piled up on top of all the other ships! There are so many ships here that are just falling apart. Talk about rest in pieces! Roar! 

Here I am hanging out on one of the old barges. This place sure is crazy. Turns out there used to be another salvage yard on the eastern shore of Staten Island that had old 19th century schooners scuttled along the entrance to the harbor. They were all removed when construction began on the Verrazano Narrows bridge. Next time you drive across the bridge be sure to watch out for ghost-ships! Roar! 

I guess I'm not the only person who has come to check out the Ferry Graveyard! Seems like a great place to take a date? Roar! 

Before heading home I decided to leave my mark on one of the barges. We'll see how this wears with time. The Ferry Graveyard might be a real trek to get to but it's a rare sight in a city that seems obsessed with eradicating its way spaces. I wonder how long the graveyard will remain? Roar!

On the job hunt! Roar!

Roar! Being a dinosaur in New York City is no easy task! Plus try being an artist on top of that, it's almost impossible to make a living! Needless to say I've been looking for a new line of work for sometime and today was the day I finally sat down to apply for a new job!

Roar! While surfing the internet earlier this afternoon I came across this ad on Gothamist.com. Let's see what it says!

The ad said they were looking for a new junior-level editor to write about NYC! Since I already do this in my spare time it would be awesome to get paid for it! They also said they were looking for someone with 3-5 years blogging experience. Even though I've only been keeping this blog for one and half years I've been exploring and writing about New York for much longer than that! Roar!

Below is a transcript of my cover letter! I wonder if Gothamist will like it? Roar! 

Roar!

Dear Gothamist,

I am applying for the new position of Junior Editor! There are several reasons I feel I would be a great fit for the Gothamist Staff and have outlined them below:

-I’ve been living in and writing about New York City since it was known as New Amsterdam!

-I love this city and about a year and a half ago I started a blog about my exploits throughout NYC which has met with moderate success!  You can see I'm not afraid to get my claws dirty!

-I  ride a bicycle as my primary means of transportation and feel my views are in line with Gothamist's stance on cycling in New York City!

-I live in the neighborhood of Bushwick, a neighborhood Gothamist seems to be infatuated with!

-Though I don't normally end my blog posts with questions designed to incite comments, I feel I can evolve my style to match that of Gothamist's! What do you think?

Those are the main reasons I feel I would make an excellent addition to the Gothamist Staff! As a dinosaur living in NYC I would also offer a unique perspective on things that would coexist nicely with the other viewpoints on Gothaminst!  I hope you'll take this into consideration when choosing someone to fill the position. Plus wouldn't it be cool to work with a T-Rex? Roar!

Sincerely,

T-Rex

trexnewyorkcity@gmail.com

http://trexnyc.blogspot.com

I wonder If I'll get the job? I hope Gothamist is an equal opportunity employer! I don't want to be the victim of Dino-Profiling! You'd be surprised how many people are reluctant to hire a dinosaur! Roar!

Merry Creative Time to Me!

Roar! Today I finally received my prize from Creative Time for visiting all of the Key to the City locations back during the summer! In case you missed it Key to the City was this great public art project by Paul Ramirez Jonas where during the summer any one could go get a Key to New York City from a kiosk in Times Square and it would let them into 24 different locations spread through out all five boroughs of NYC! It was a whole lot of fun and if a person visited all 24 locations Creative Time would send them a special prize! Now I can finally see what it is!

Inside the package I received was a note from Creative Time and an official Creative Time book! Neat!

This is a pretty excellent letter! I think I'll get it framed to remind me of all the fun I had during the summer exploring NYC and earning sweet prizes! Roar!

The Creative Time book was really neat! Here is a picture of me holding the softcover edition of the book which has a picture on it of someone holding the hardcover edition of the book! Crazy!

Turns out the Creative Time book has more than just a sweet cover! It details the history of Creative Time as an organization for its first 33 years. Apparently there are a bunch of public art projects in the city I have experienced over the years that I never knew Creative Time was responsible for! I'm really going to enjoy this book and I can't wait to see what new art projects Creative Time will come up! Hopefully a Key to the City 2 is on the way! After all sequels are all the rage these days! Roar!

Journey to the Center of New York!

Making the discovery!

Roar! The other day while visiting an abandoned apartment building I saw advertised on Craigslist, I made a most amazing discovery! Buried within an old trunk I found a book that recounted the exploits of a noiseless visitor to New York City. Between the books pages was an article recounting the location of the fabled geographic center of New York City! Long thought to be lost, the geographic center of the city would prove quite the challenge to get to--possibly taking up to two transportation routes and maybe even an hour of travel time!

I showed the article to my colleague Hippo and proposed we set out at once on an expedition to reach the center of New York! Hippo was skeptical and insisted in a city as vast in scale as New York, a geographic center was meaningless, claiming that the true "center" of New York lay within one of its various cultural hubs. I wasn't too sure what Hippo was going on about, so I insisted we journey together to the center of New York and see once and for all what is really there!

Packing our supplies!

Hippo agreed to the expedition and we at once started gathering provisions for the journey! Besides the standard day’s worth of rations-- 100 pounds of roast meat, 12 cases of smoked fish, a large box of strawberry wafers, and a full thermos of Darjeeling tea, we took the following: a thermometer which would read to 150 degrees centigrade; a barometer to measure atmospheric pressure; a good watch; two compasses; and two Ruhmkroff's lanterns. Our arms consisted of two rifles and two revolvers. I wasn't sure that we needed them but Hippo insisted, claiming we might run into wild beasts on our journey!

We set out in the morning from my apartment in Bushwick and followed the old trolley line, first heading south down Knickerbocker Ave and then turning west and continuing along Dekalb Ave. What once had been a straightforward trolley ride has now been replaced by a series of buses! Could it possibly take us more than two transportation methods to reach the center of New York?! Oh, how times have changed! After crossing Broadway we turned south again on Malcolm X Boulevard, in some places still known as Reid Ave, and after a few blocks we arrived at the fabled center of New York City! Wow, I guess that really wasn't that hard after all! Roar! 

 

Here are Hippo and I at the geographic center of New York City! The article I found placed it in a yard on the block between Reid and Stuyvesant Ave, Van Buren Street and Greene Ave in Brooklyn. This section of Van Buren Street no longer exists and has been replaced by Jesse Owens P.S. 26; so now the geographic center of New York lies in the southwestern corner of the schoolyard!

Visiting the geographic center of the city sure was fun but I suppose Hippo is right and a city like New York will never have just one center (Despite what those living in Manhattan might think). The population center will always shift over time and the cultural center can vary widely depending on both location and the groups people belong to. Despite all that, while the geographic center may not hold much meaning, I'm still proud to know I live so close to the middle of a city as culturally vast as New York! Roar!

Visiting Collect Pond Park!

Roar! Today I decided to take a visit to part of New York's "forgotten" history. Most people have heard of New York's infamous Five Points seen in big budget, Hollywood movies like Gangs of New York, but few know the "pints" was built on the former site of Collect Pond Park. Collect Pond Park was a small pond in lower Manhattan that during the 18th century was a popular picnic spot and ice skating location. Then once industry took over in the early 19th century it turned into one of New York City's many dumping grounds and quickly became known as one of the most polluted sites in the city. The pond was filled in and though many people said it was daft to build in a swamp the city went right on to develop Collect Pond Park. After several different developments sank into the swamp, they built the Five Points District, and the Five Points stayed up! Roar! 

The Five Points was so notorious for being the absolute worst neighborhood in the city that when the city was re-developing downtown the city planners made it a point to built right over where the Five points had been and hopefully erase it from memory, even possibly from history! Roar! Here I am at the current day Collect Pond Park. This small, urban park is one of the few reminders of the old area. 

Roar! It's also the most rat infested area in the city! Because the park is still technically below grade it has become a major breeding ground. There are literally hundreds of rats here! Some of them have even broken off into factions! It turns out the Native Rats of Collect Pond Park are fighting with all the rats that are moving there from other parts of the city!

Most of the rats spend there time hiding in all the ivy growing all over the park. It turns out the main immigrant rat group, the Dead Mice, were holing up in the ivy preparing for war with the Native Rats! Things are looking pretty bad down here in Collect Pond Park, someone needs to remind all these rats just whose paws built this park! Roar!

Here Be T-Rexes!

Roar! Yesterday was the annual New York Medieval Festival held up at Fort Tryon Park in Manhattan. I decided it would be really fun to go up there and see what the middle ages were really about! 

I rode my bike over to the west side bike path, then rode all the way up to 197th street where it terminates. On my way up I passed this old overlook that was once part of C.K.G. Billing massive estate which used to occupy the land that is now Fort Tryon Park. Across the West Side Highway from the overlook is the old driveway that now leads to Fort Tryon Park! The drive way was turned into a highway entrance to the park after Billings estate burned down in 1926. Roar!

On my way to the Medieval Festival I passed the Cloisters, a monastery built here to house a good portion of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's medieval art collection! I decided to check it out in order to get a good idea of what to expect at the fair!

Here I am hanging out in the Cloisters! This is such a sweet place, I wonder if I'll meet an Abbot or even a Costello! Roar!

Get a look at this awesome tapestry! There is so much going on in it! It looks likes they've managed to weave quite a story here!

They even have part of a real Gothic cathedral in here! It's really neat and all, but where are the cabinets?!

Here is some of the amazing stained glass at the cloisters! A lot of the art here has dealt with religion, I think it's really impressive how medieval artists dealt with such a fragile subject! Roar!

Woah! They have lions here too just like in the SchROARzman building! I wonder what this one is staring at?

Oh my! Here is a medieval bible depicting the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse in revelations! I already lived through one apocalypse, I hope I never have to meet these guys!

I wonder, what is the secret of this grail? Who does it serve? Is it the cup of a carpenter? How did they even get it past the great seal? Was it housed in the castle... Roar!

Next I headed outside to the garden where there was this sweet apple tree! Wait a second, BLARGH! These apples aren't sweet at all!

From the Garden there was a great view of the fairgrounds! I decided it was time to head down to the festival and see how medieval times were being represented in 2010!

AAHHHHHHH!!! This isn't what the middle ages were like at all!!!

Luckily there was this group of brave knights who helped me fend off the fiendish dragon lady! Without them I might have been a goner!

The knights were there to help protect this fair princess who was riding a sweet unicorn! I wish I could ride one too!

Oh my gosh! They had an amazing baby unicorn for me to ride! Unicorn Power! Roar!

The knights told me they had to go compete in some games of medieval combat and skill! Here they are engaged in some serious armed combat! I wanted to compete too but the officials told me it was hand to hand combat, not claw to claw. Roar!

Next they mounted their horses to play some games of equestrian skill! It was all really impressive, I've never seen anyone ride a horse like that! It was quite the mount!  Roar!

This person was strangely dressed for a knight, they didn't even take part in any of the games! I wonder what was up with them?!

Next I decided to see what life was like in the middle ages for the common man. Here I am with some finely dressed town folk who were on their way to the market! I wonder if they're going to buy any meat?!

At the market there was this group of wandering minstrels who were singing some enchanting melodies! I want to go a-wassailing too! Roar!

There was even a great rope artists who was showing off her acrobatic prowess! It was really neat and all but I've seen plenty of this stuff in my own neighborhood over at House of Yes.

At the market I also ran into this mystical owl who told me he could unlock the secrets of the universe! I told this huckster owl I wasn't interested in his secrets and I would earn all my levels myself! Roar!

I was getting pretty hungry after wandering around the market so I decided to head over to the food area and get something to eat! I came across this Ye Olde Barbeque Shoppe that was in what was the old stables of C.K.G. Billings estate. It's nice to know some of the old structures of the mansion and still standing and now part of Fort Tryon Park!

There was also this Ye Fried Dough Stand! I didn't know they had fried dough in the middle ages! Roar!

At first I thought this Ice Cold Lemonade sign said Ye Olde Lemonade! It wouldn't have surprised me if it did!

I decided to go back to the Ye Olde Barbeque Shoppe to get a GIANT PIECE OF MEAT! It was so smokey and awesome, medieval times must have been awesome if everyone got to eat like this all the time! Roar!

After that huge meal I decided it was time to head home. But suddenly on my way out of the park I was attacked by a despicable Boy Skylark! They are the lowest class on the escheladder and I had no trouble defeating him! I guess he must have thought if he was able to beat a "Dragon Knight" like me his levels would soar! Silly Boy Skylark when will you learn!

Wow! What a strange end to the New York Medieval Festival! I wonder if it's like this every year? Even though its not really what middle ages were like, it sure was fun to come to this beautiful park and see everyone enjoy some live action roleplaying on a beautiful fall day! Roar!