July 18, 2007
Hidden harbor tour: big ships, tugs and decay
 The not-for-profit Working Harbor Committee this summer is operating a series of hidden harbor sunset tours, ducking into a few spots the normal sightseeing cruise doesn't offer -- including spots that have proven to be more of a draw to locals. It takes in the remnants of a Red Hook sugar factory, Ikea's newly filled-in 140-year-old graving dock, a Staten Island Ferry in dry dock, the Brooklyn floating pool and a completely absurd giant banner of Russian President Putin and President Bush, saluting their efforts to fight terrorism.
 The next hidden harbor tour takes sets sail this evening (though it's sold out,) followed by an August 8 trip. The 2-hour, narrated excursion is on board Circle Line downtown's Zephyr boat, which has a cash bar, air conditioning inside and outdoor viewing from multiple decks.
The tour departs from the South Street Seaport, heads up the East River to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and then heads back toward the harbor by passing through the Buttermilk Channel. It hugs the Brooklyn shore out to Red Hook and enters the Erie Basin (where a Macy's fireworks barge could be seen during the June tour.) It comes close to the mouth of the Gowanus Canal (where the baby whale got lost in April,) and then heads over to Staten Island. For the June cruise, a fireboat was pumping its spray near the St. George Terminal since it was the same night as the Staten Island Yankee's home opener.
While heading up the Kill Van Kull, which separates Staten Island from New Jersey, several of the young island locals greeted the boat by exposing their full-moon smiles. Thick tree cover hid all but the dock to the former sailors' retirement center of Snug Harbor.
The tour goes as far as the Caddell Dry Docks (which uses floating dry docks,) then turns back, hugging the Jersey side of the waterway, past the dry dock that recently hosted repairs to the USS Intrepid, past the Putin/Bush 9/11 memorial and up to the mouth of the Hudson before turning back to the South Street Seaport.
In addition to the sunset cruises, the Working Harbor team has a Sept. 16 Newtown Creek hidden harbor tour. And come September 2, they'll host a day of tugboat races.
After the June tour, Capt. John Doswell, the executive director of the Working Harbor Committee, e-mailed NewYorkology an explanation of how the floating dry docks work: Floating drydocks are like barges but with tall side extensions - designed to sink to a point so a vessel can be floated in, then the dry dock is pumped out raising both drydock and enclosed vessel. A graving dock is like a short dead-end canal cut into land, with a gate at the end. When a ship enters, the gate is shut and the water pumped out leaving the ship dry. He said there are only six graving docks in the New York Harbor area: four at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, one in Erie Basin and one at Military Ocean Terminal in NJ.
NewYorkology sent over pictures of the Erie Basin site to Carolina Salguero, who operates PortSide N.Y. in Red Hook, and asked if she could tell whether the dock had already been filled in by Ikea construction crews. In her e-mail reply, she refers to the picture below:it's filled.
the floating black thing with white writing is the caisson, or door that was swung
open and closed.
in "ikea.close" photo you can see it's right/east edge open, a bit of water (IKEA said they were going to keep 150' of dock wet) and the new cement retaining wall. 
Earlier: Industrial Brooklyn waterfront on most endangered list
Touring New York's little waterways by tugboat
Down in Brooklyn's Dry Dock No. 1 with Mary Whalen
Mary Whalen gets the TLC in Brooklyn Navy Yard
Pre-museum Mary Whalen towed to ship repair yard
A graving dock at the Brooklyn Navy Yard:
Passing Brooklyn Heights:
Riverfront Station, Casino St. Charles docked at the end of Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn:
At the Brooklyn container port in the Buttermilk Channel:
Up close with Red Hook's sugar factory before it's torn down:
A Macy's 4th of July fireworks barge:
The Empire State Building in view not far from the Gowanus Canal:
Robbins Reef lighthouse, with the top of Brooklyn's Williamsburgh Savings Bank in the distance:
A tug at work:
The Verrazano Bridge:
An empty floating dry dock at Caddell's on Staten Island, with a Staten island Ferry in another dry dock:
This is obviously where Staten Island pirates hide their booty:
Would you believe this is Jersey?
Staten Island Ferry? Not so big:
The statue backlit:
Bye from the boys of Staten Island:
July 18, 2007 09:34 AM in History, Out of Manhattan, Sightsology, Tours
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