- 01 | SOUTH STREET SEAPORT | Fulton Street : built on reclaimed tidelands c.1812 – restoration detail
These New York photographs were taken in 2009 on a day walk from Fulton Street and the South Street Seaport to Cove Harbour in Battery Park City. My route took me through Wall Street and Battery Park with a side excursion on a Staten Island Ferry. This image is in great contrast to the many in black and white by Edmund V Gillon Jr in SOUTH STREET, published in 1977 by Dover with a written history by Ellen Fletcher Rosebrock. Some of the more than a century of land reclamation and building he recorded has been resurrected from dereliction and decay.
- 02 | The four-masted barque PEKING moored off South Street near Fulton Street
In 1911 the four-mast, steel hulled, barque PEKING was launched in Hamburg for trade to western South American states by way of Cape Horn. At moorings in England from 1933 the ship was acquired by the South Street Museum in 1975. In 2012 much of the New York riverside was heavily affected by Hurricane Sandy’s tidal flooding. As part of the Museum’s revival plan, the PEKING was sold to the Museum Maritim in Hamburg in 2017 where a restoration is now well advanced.
- 03 | Masts and rigging of barque ‘PEKING’
A smaller tall ship, the WAVERTREE, remains at South Street. She was built in Southampton in 1885 using wrought iron as hull material. She too has undergone a restoration completed in 2016. Recovered without masts from South America she was restored before arrival in New York in 1969. If you’re interested in past black and white imagery of New York, look particularly for a copy of NEW YORK IN THE FORTIES presenting the superb black and white photography of Andreas Feininger.
- 04 | Tugboat W.O.DECKER
Built in Long Island City this timber hulled and steam powered tugboat was launched in 1930 as the RUSSELL 1. After its sale in 1946 the boat was renamed W O DECKER after its new owners. It was donated to the South Street Museum in 1986. South Street Seaport was the original and main trading centre of New York. Growing seaborne trade and the arrival of increasingly large steamships prompted expansion to the Hudson River. Some of those early streets stand restored and repurposed, albeit without the workaday activity and clutter of the past.
- 05 | Tugboat HELEN McALLISTER
This originally steam-powered tugboat was launched as the ADMIRAL DEWEY from Staten Island in 1900. In 2000 its then owners, McAllister Towing, donated the ship to the Museum. Just south of here between Piers 11 and 12, Andreas Feininger photographed the Downtown Skyport used by seaplanes to fly such as wealthy Wall Street businessmen on their commute to and from their Long Island homes. Now the ‘planes operate from a visually less interesting contemporary successor to the north at East 23rd Street; it’s surely the most exciting mode of transport in the City.
- 06 | STATEN ISLAND FERRY DOCK | Approaching on return from Staten Island
Without being aware at the time, I had camera stability and focus problems using a longer lens whilst sailing to Staten Island. However, as I’m really more interested in the closer view it was disappointing but not heart breaking. These few ship images were of much greater interest than the broader views. Here, the ferry is docked in a new building completed in 2005: that to the right in Beaux Arts style dates from the first decade of the Twentieth Century.
- 07 | Staten Island Ferry - ANDRERW J BARBERI Commissioned 1981
Sailing closer we cut across this ferry treading water at the 2005 Whitehall Street Terminal. Interest also lay in the pair of buildings contrasting strongly in style, materials and construction. These are solely passenger ferries operating across all hours and taking some 20 minutes to complete each crossing to and from the St George Terminal on Staten Island. The passing afternoon sun was beginning to tint the cityscape.
- 08 | The ferry JOHN F KENNEDY | Commissioned 1965 and due to retire in 2019
Walking the water front to the west of the terminal I took this and the next four shots. Seemingly to guide the boats, timber jetties extend out from the sides of the water entrances to the Terminal buildings. The ferries have two “bows” and passengers enter through whichever of them on arrival docked into the very short water space inside the building. The recess is enough to protect the passengers from rain and wind. The South Ferry subway station is linked directly.
- 09 | Staten Island Ferry – SAMUEL I NEWHOUSE Commissioned 1981
The SAMUEL NEWHOUSE and ANDREW J BARBERI are built to the same design and have a passenger capacity of some 6,000.
- 10 | A breakwater and a timber pier structure against a Brooklyn skyline
On another walk I crossed over the Brooklyn Bridge to explore a little of the Brooklyn waterfront, its streets and old commercial buildings but took too few photographs.
- 11 | A detail from a carefully carpentered timber construction flanking the ferry dock
The structural design details, subtle colour variations, shapes and pattern appealed. Wood is a material that anyone can work with satisfaction and a great sense of achievement. I was fortunate that my school also offered ‘creative making’ education in woodworking, horticulture and art which have all had more lifelong value than some of my ‘intellectually superior’ academic studies.
- 12 | A corner of the Battery Maritime Building, timber structure with Brooklyn Bridge beyond
If I lived in New York or within easy reach the Brooklyn and other bridges would be one of many themes I’d explore. I’m sure that much of what I would now like to photograph has gone or is rapidly being cleared away, just as has happened in the UK. There, when it was still all around I looked but was then not involved in photography.
- 13 | The Battery Maritime Building
Constructed in cast iron and rolled steel, this Beaux Arts style building was completed in 1909 to cover three docks. A major restoration ended in 2005 which brought back the structure’s original colour scheme. It seems more elegant than its somewhat austere and simply functional younger neighbour. On my walk so far I’d moved through architecture from the end of the eighteenth century to Frank Gehry’s first New York commission then under construction and which I passed after leaving the Fulton Street subway station.
- 14 | BATTERY PARK CITY: North Cove Yacht Harbour
Battery Park is adjacent to the Staten Island Ferry buildings. The area was originally established militarily in the seventeenth century to protect the settlements and centred on the surviving Castle Clinton fort building. Long term development and changes of use lie behind its present attraction as a green space for leisure, exploration of its varied sculptures and its views of the Statue of Liberty to the south. I walked northwards on the Hudson River waterfront until I reached Cove Harbour and its leisure craft pictured here.
- 15 | Brookfield Place and the Winter Gardens across the harbour basin
From the Battery northwards the Hudson River was lined by piers used by all manner of shipping and is perhaps best known as the New York base of many Transatlantic shipping companies such as Cunard. Had Titanic completed its maiden voyage in 1912 this is where its passengers would have disembarked. The decline in sea travel and the onset of container freight left the area increasingly derelict and seeking redevelopment. The late afternoon light continue to exert a growing influence on the landscape.
- 16 | Brookfield Place high rise buildings
The seventies brought ambitious plans to clear redundant piers and buildings on the shoreline. The World Trade Centre and other construction projects in the Financial District provided landfill material to extend the waterfront into the Hudson River as a site for a largely residential ribbon that’s now Battery Park City. The glowing sun enhanced the already warm hues of some of the many building materials.
- 17 | Brookfield Place high rise buildings
An apartment here could offer an attractive home. With days end like this one, views across the Hudson River and the new parkland landscaping must appeal. However, I’m in the wrong income bracket needed for residency. New York seems like an exciting place to live or simply visit for more than these four days! As an outsider, using a travel pass gave great flexibility in riding the subway north and south and buses east and west.
- 18 | The Winter Gardens façade and the last photographs of the day
At around ten o’clock on this walking day I’d left the Fulton Street subway station heading for South Street Seaport. Now at eight in the evening I thought that it must be nearing time to pack the camera away and head ‘home’. I retraced steps along the Hudson River esplanade until I reached the South Ferry subway station in a final blaze of sunset reds. It had been a great day with such variety to see and do: the warm evening light in Battery Park City was particularly memorable.