PAST MEETINGS & EVENTS

In October, our speaker was Roland Lewis, CEO of the Municipal Waterfront Alliance, who showed a film and spoke about the many changes that have occurred along New York City’s 520 miles of shoreline and what’s to come. MWA is the voice for almost 600 organizations with ties to our regional waterways.

http://www.waterfrontalliance.org/

Hudson River Park and three apartment buildings
by Richard Meier, architect. Photo and Copyright by Theodore W. Scull

In September, 100 members and guests attended a program presented by the SS United States Conservancy’s Dan McSweeney. Founded in 2004, and though initially serving as an advocacy group for the legendary ship, we learned that the Conservancy's role has evolved significantly in the interim years. The Conservancy has since become owners and stewards of the vessel through a generous grant from Philadelphia philanthropist Gerry Lenfest in 2010.

The organization's new mandate is to save America's great ship of state and her legacy by developing a world-class museum and educational programs focused on the vessel and by setting the conditions in which a successful public-private partnership can be established to redevelop the ship as a self-sustaining, multi-purpose stationary attraction. Our Port of New York is the primary focus of effort for this project.

SS UNITED STATES at her current berth in Philadelphia May 14, 2011 (Photo & Copyright Theodore W. Scull)

SS UNITED STATES docked in Manhattan August 25, 1966
(Theodore W. Scull Collection)

For the June program WSS/PONY membership secretary Tom Rinaldi discussed his May 2011 visits to five historic passenger vessels preserved in Asia. Around the world, only a small handful of deep-sea merchant vessels have been successfully preserved by way of adaptive reuse. Five can be found today serving in stationary roles in the Philippines, China and Japan. Tom had the opportunity to visit them thanks to a fellowship awarded by the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University where he earned a masters degree in 2010. The vessels included the Hikawa Maru, Yotei Maru (former train ferry), Brasil Maru, Ming Hua (former Ancerville), and Augustus. In addition, we heard some amazing tales of how he got between the ships by train and overnight ferries.

The former mv Augustusat Manila, Philippines

mv PHILIPPINES (ex-mv AUGUSTUS, 1952);
MANILA, PHILIPPINES:
Built in 1952 at Cantieri Riuniti dell’Adriatico, Trieste, Italy, for the state-operated Societa Generale di Navigazione Italia (Italian Line), to serve the company’s express route between Genoa, Italy and Buenos Aires, Argentina, by way of ports in Spain, Portugal, Brazil and Uruguay. Sold for other use, 1976, and later renamed ms Philippines.

Adapted for stationary use as a hotel and convention center at Manila in 1999. Today one of only two surviving South Atlantic liners that facilitated the postwar diaspora from Europe to South America. Little altered from original construction, with intact interiors by Gustavo Pulitzer Finali and others.

The Brasil Maru as a museum vessel at Zhanjiang, China

mv BRASIL MARU (1954); ZHANJIANG, CHINA:
Built in 1954 for the Osaka Shosen Kaisha Line’s Transpacific service between Kobe, Japan, and South American ports including Santos, Brazil and Buenos Aires, Argentina, via the Panama Canal. Facilitated transport of passengers and cargo between Japan and South America to serve Brazil’s community of Japanese expatriates, the world's largest. Retired from service in 1974, she subsequently became a museum ship at Toba, Japan. Moved to Zhanjiang, China for continued preservation as a museum ship, 1997.

Our speaker, Linda Dianto, a Staten Island resident for most of her life, has taken on the mission to open the National Lighthouse Museum at the original US Lighthouse Service Depot on Staten Island adjacent to the Staten Island Ferry terminal in St. George. The museum and its beautiful ten-acre site overlooking New York Harbor will become a destination for the world’s lighthouse enthusiasts and preservationists, and an exciting attraction for the millions of visitors who take the Staten Island Ferry. More than a dozen lighthouses are less than an hour’s boat ride from the museum pier. She told us about the planned exhibits and interactive displays for children and adults featuring lighthouses from around the nation, classical Fresnel lenses, lamps and technologies, modern aids to navigation and personal histories of the keepers and their families. Outdoor exhibits will include lightships, buoys and fog signals, and a return and restoration of the original Depot Lighthouse.

Layout of Site Buildings and Pier 1

The SS Columbia may look familiar to New York steamboat enthusiasts, though she spent her entire career on the Detroit River. That's because the Columbia was designed by Frank Kirby, a noted naval architect whose work also included important Hudson River steamboats such as Hendrick Hudson, Washington Irving and Robert Fulton. While all of the great Hudson River day boats have disappeared, the Columbia survives today in a somewhat neglected state in Detroit. Richard Anderson, our speaker, spoke about the history of this very important historic steamboat, a National Historic Landmark and today America's oldest surviving passenger steamer.

Historian and author John Laurence Busch described in some detail why the proposition of making the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean on a "steamship" was met with a mixture of skepticism and fear.

In 1807, Robert Fulton ran his “North River Steam Boat” as a regular passenger service between New York City and Albany, New York.  But proving this might be possible on the oceans of the world was another matter; most observers in the early 19th century didn't think it could be done. One man who did was a steamboat captain named Moses Rogers. Combining his knowledge of the old mode of transport—sail—with the new mode of transport—steam—he set out to design a vessel that was capable of overcoming the many dangers of the sea.  This craft would be not a "steamboat," but a "steamship," the first of its kind.  With this steamship called Savannah, Moses would prove to the world that steam-powered vessels were not just a provincial innovation, but rather the beginning of a global revolution.

Mary and Alan Borthwick have traveled on a wide variety of passenger vessels from canal barges and expedition ships to large cruise liners. On each vessel they try for new experiences not advertised in the sales brochures with a look behind the scenes.

On the barge "Caprice," in southern France, Alan told us about bicycling into a village to buy bread for the ship in a boulangerie, and on the Adriatic coastal ship "Artemis," he went produce shopping with the Hotel Manager and ran up the signal flags.

Aboard the m/s "Andrea," they visited the crew’s very cramped operating areas, the engine room, the crew mess and the laundry.

While circumnavigating Australia on the "Volendam," they were able to attend "First Call" ceremonies in the ports of Hobart and Fremantle where the ship’s captain and the port authorities exchange gifts such as plaques.

Alan, the PONY Branch Treasurer, bracketed each segment with illustrations of each vessel and for his efforts he received a copy of John Maxtone-Graham’s Normandie.