Friday, September 16, 2016

3 More Days to See a WWII Liberty Ship in NYC

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It seemed for awhile as though I would never get to see the Liberty Ship  S.S. John W. Brown during her current stay at Pier 36 in New York. Originally scheduled to arrive on September 9 (last Friday), she was delayed for two days by Tropical Storm Hermine. Ironically, on September 11, the day she steamed in, I was extremely close to where she's docked but didn't know it. I'd heard about the Brown's arrival through the Lightship Lilacso I assumed (for no good reason, now I think of it) that she'd be docking on the west side. I happened to be at Abrons Arts Center, quite close to the East River. I actually didn't know there were still east side piers north of South Street Seaport. By September 12 (Monday), I figured out that she was docked on the east. On that day, I happened to have a meeting on the Lower East Side that day and I had a (very) little extra time, so I got off the F train at East Broadway and popped over to the waterfront real quick to see if I could just catch a glimpse of her. Again, ironically, I didn't know it but I was quite close to her, but I had to get to my appointment. On September 13 (Tuesday), I got the idea that I'd walk there from my house via the Brooklyn Bridge (it's about six miles). The pedestrian entrance to the bridge wasn't where I thought it was though and I got frustrated trying to find it, and ended up walking back home. (That sounds like a bigger deal than it is; I walk that far almost every day just for exercise). On September 14 (Wednesday), I thought to LOOK UP where the pedestrian entrance was before I departed and did manage finally to make it all the way to Pier 36, arriving at 4:30pm. But they were closed for tours; they close at 5pm! Finally, yesterday, I achieved success.
Absolute pills will say, "I guess you'll get directions first next time, eh?" I'm not so sure. I discovered several major things about the geography, history and sociology of New York during these wanderings, things that have direct bearing on my future writing. I wouldn't have stumbled on them if I'd gone straight to my destination. They're all just as important to me as what I learned on the Brown, and my experience on the Brown was MIGHTY DAMN COOL.
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But you're probably wondering what the John W. Brown even is. It's a class of vessel called a Liberty Ship, a World War II era cargo ship. An astounding 2,710 of these ships were manufactured in an extreme hurry when America got into World War Two. They'd originally been designed for Britain during the Lend-Lease period but within months the U.S. needed them, so with some tweaks in design, they went into mass production domestically. As the war progressed, women increasingly became part of the workforce that built them. And they just churned them off the assembly line. One Liberty Ship was built in a record nine days (hopefully some of my photos will show why that is jaw-dropping).
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The Liberty Ships were used to transport anything that needed moving over to where the war was happening: vehicles, weaponry, foodstuffs, troops, and even (early in the war, I'm guessing) horses. It's a similar idea to the setting of the play and movie Mr. Roberts, although with this major difference. The ship in Mr. Roberts was a navy cargo ship; the Liberty Ships were part of the Merchant Marine. There were only a couple of hundred navy cargo ships. I'm the opposite of an expert, but in photos they long more heavily fortified and streamlined, and I'm guessing they were safer. But as we said above, there were nearly 3,000 Liberty Ships in the Merchant Marine. They were basically built to be disposable, do their job for the duration of the war and that was it.
The bridge on the "Brown" is not nearly as luxurious as the one we see beyong Mr. Roberts (Henry Fonda) on this navy cargo ship
The bridge on the "Brown" is not nearly as luxurious as the one we see behind Mr. Roberts (Henry Fonda) on this navy cargo ship, and that's putting it mildly
But some lasted longer. The John W. Brown served the military into the post-war period. Then, from the 1950s through 1982, she was used as a New York City Merchant Marine high school! I'd never heard of that. I met two of the alumni during my tour. After that, she found her way down to Baltimore where she now operates as a museum. She is one of only two operational Liberty Ships still in existence.
Yesterday I told someone I someone was coming over to see the ship, and she asked, "Yeah, you interested in that sort of thing?" And defensively I conjured all sorts of good reasons which I didn't get the chance to articulate: my brother and father-in law were in the navy, my father worked in a naval shipyard, my great-great-great grandfather was a ship's captain, I grew up surrounded by boating in the Ocean State, I worked in a history museum for six years, I often write about history museums, and I've previously spent a great deal of time exploring places like the Intrepid, the South Street Seaport Museum, the Lilac, the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia and even the Brooklyn Navy Yard. But really none of that would need to be true. A better response would be , "How could you NOT be interested?" It's an intrinsically exciting experience, like visiting an amusement park. The scale of it is awe-inspiring. The achievements associated with it, not just the construction, but the feats the vessel and its crews accomplished during its working life. And heroism -- the Merchant Marine sustained the highest ratio of casualties of any service branch during the Second World War. But if that doesn't impress you, it's simply a cool experience to have, one you don't get to have every day.
So forgive me for inundating you with all these photographs. You'll find details at the bottom about how and where to visit the John W. Brown.
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As a confirmed Poseidon Adventure fanatic my favorite spot on the tour was the engine room. I was like a kid in a candy store and spent most of my time there picturing the place upside down. It's several decks high, and you enter from above, looking down through a three dimensional maze of catwalks, steampipes, valves, boilers etc. I snapped pictures like crazy (sometimes recklessly, the footing can be treacherous) but none of these photographs begin to convey how thrilling it is. A 3-D camera might do it. In looking at these pix, try to see past the foreground and middleground for the full perspective.
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Shaft Alley. As Eric Shea precociously intones in "The Poseidon Adventure", "Nowhere is the steel hull thinner!" It's the passengers' final destination in their race to the bottom/top. This is a smaller propeller shaft than you'd find in a luxury liner of course. Here, it's just a crawl space.
Shaft Alley. As Eric Shea precociously intones in The Poseidon Adventure, "Nowhere is the steel hull thinner!" It's the passengers' final destination in their race to the bottom/top. This is a smaller propeller shaft than you'd find in a luxury liner of course. Here, it's just a crawl space.

Troop bunks, stacked five high.
Troop bunks, stacked five high.
The Liberty Ship John W. Brown will depart New York on September 19. She is docked at Pier 36, which is frankly not easy to get to (unless you travel by car). Perhaps a 20 minute walk from the F train's East Broadway stop. It is hidden behind some municipal buildings (sanitation and the fire department, it looked like). But, as I hope I've demonstrated, it is worth the trip. Tours are a $10 suggested donation. On Saturday, the 17th, there will be added treat -- they will run the engines, so folks can see it in action. And the biggest treat of all will be on Sunday, September the 18th, they will be having a benefit cruise. Tickets to that are $195. The John W. Brown is a not-for-profit museum. It exists on donations; and its staff is all-volunteer.  Info and tickets can be found here. 
Lastly, if you miss it in New York, you can always tour it when you visit Baltimore. That's where she lives most of the time.

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Tomorrow: The Annual German-American Steuben Parade

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Much like New York's  German American community itself, the German American Steuben Parade maintains kind of a low, dignified profile. As compared with, say, the St. Patrick's and Columbus Day parades, the Steuben Day parade (which is just as big, I might add) doesn't get a lot of airplay. In fact, you may never even have heard of it -- or New York's German community, for that matter.
In the 19th century, Germans were second only to the Irish in terms of ethnic presence here. And they're STILL here; they merely assimilated. Two World Wars had something to do with that. The irony? America got millions of desirable Germans, starting with the ones who fled the backlash after the Revolution of 1848 and the increasing militarism and oppression in Germany in the late 19th and early-to-mid twentieth century. With them came some of the world's best music, food...and beer. Need I say more? Well, I will. Here are some vaudeville-related facts about the Germans in the U.S.:
  • The Germans brought that wonderful institution the beer garden with them. Its civilized family atmosphere (in contrast with the rowdier saloons) became a model for what came to be known as Polite Vaudeville.
  • The Germans brought their music with them, including marches, which when played with syncopation by African Americans, gave birth to ragtime and jazz.
  • The Germans (Austrians especially) brought light comic opera (operetta) with them, which rapidly morphed into the American theatrical form known as musical comedy.
This year I'll have an enhanced appreciation of the celebration, having gotten a firmer grasp of the Germans in my background. Like all Anglo-Saxons, I naturally have early Medieval ancestors from North Germany (the Angles, Saxons and Jutes) and many Frankish ancestors besides. I've discovered Medieval ancestors from all parts of Germany, Cologne, Cleves, Bavaria,Thuringia, Westphalia, Rügen and the Palatinate. In comparison with my English, Scottish, Irish, French and Dutch ancestry, my RECENT (modern) German ancestry is quite small. I've found a small handful as late as the late 1500s. My most recent full-German ancestor is my (7th) great grandmother Margaret Cypert (1716-1799), whose parents moved to Pennsylvania from Strasburg, I'm assuming for religious reasons (Margaret was a Quaker).
Come celebrate their contributions today. The parade marches up Fifth Avenue from 68th to 86th Street today from 12 to 3pm.  More details here.

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Monday, September 12, 2016

A Jaunt to the New York City Marble Cemetery

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If you've done any amount of time kicking around the Lower East Side, you've passed the New York City Marble Cemetery on Second Street Between 1st and 2nd Avenues. It's not to be confused with the New York Marble Cemetery (look carefully for the difference in the names), which is around the corner, and as both their web sites claim, is "unrelated". The latter apparently has underground mausoleums and is viewable on a different schedule. We'll get to that one. Meantime, we went to this one.
Ordinarily you'll find the front gate locked, looking like this:
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But once a month they open it up to the public and it looks like this:
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And so, after a long time of wanting to, I finally got to go inside yesterday.
Ironically, I failed in my only specific agenda item, to find the marker for my distant relative Preserved Fish. I wasn't very organized; I just wanted a pleasant outing, and got one. I did find this photo of the marker online though, and so I'll know what to look for next time.
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We did find many other points of interest, including the vault were President James Monroe was formerly interred prior to being exhumed and moved to Richmond. He died a veritable pauper and so he originally rated only this modest stone. So, sure, we're the "Greatest Nation in the World" -- until I hear shit like this. I can't imagine something so cold happening to a national leader in any other nation but ours. He wasn't even hated -- he was well regarded and highly accomplished! Policies and "doctrines" and national capitals (Monrovia, Liberia) bear his name! But, "Uh, I'm sorry President Poor Guy -- you'll have to take the economy tombstone. Near the back. Too bad you didn't have more money, and no one wanted to give you any!"
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Mostly, the place was wonderfully cheering in a Gothic sort of way. It's really just a beautiful walled garden with statuary -- and remains! A festive environment prevailed. We saw a little party of older Goth women happening under a bush. I wasn't indiscreet enough to photograph them, but I did capture this lady doing her thing on the accordion. That was two accordion concerts I got that day (I went to Circus Amok after this).
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The New York City Marble Cemetery will next be open to the public on September 25 and October 15 & 16. For more information go here. 

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Friday, September 09, 2016

American Dunkirk: The Waterborne Evacuation of Manhattan on 9/11

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The horrific events of September 11, 2001 were, you must admit, a triumph of planning: time, resources, personnel, organization. And for the most part, the perpetrators achieved what they set out to do. On the other hand, the responses to those attacks were triumphs of spontaneity: civilians and professionals, trained and untrained, leaping into the breach cold and on a dime, demonstrating in a fascinating way how humans can cooperate and coordinate their behavior on the fly. And to a remarkable degree, they too were extraordinarily successful.
A huge and fascinating slice of the story in New York was the evacuation of up to an estimated 400,000 people from Lower Manhattan by an ad hoc flotilla of boats --up to 100 tug boats, pleasure craft, ferries, fishing boats, dinner cruise vessels, whatever and whomever happened to be nearby in the harbor that morning. Some have said this story is "unknown", but that's not quite true. I've certainly read about the story in newspaper accounts, books, and the like many times --- but then, I was focused like a laser beam on the story during my New-York Historical Society years, when we put on a series of exhibitions about the events (and I still am, as I've been working on a long term writing project about that day). But, it's possible that most ordinary people haven't heard the tale. If that's so, I imagine it might be because it's a quieter story, one that happened in the midst of high drama, tragedy, villainy, murder, death and spectacles of violence. But if you can just shift your focus, and direct your gaze towards the waterfront -- consider what I just said once more: 400,000 people (roughly the population of Minneapolis) evacuated from New York in a few hours by boat. By strangers. On random craft, not even passenger craft necessarily. With no advance planning.
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Participants on the deck of the Lilac -- a perfect setting for this panel, as the events pretty much went down RIGHT HERE
 A number of participants in that heartening story (boat captains and crew members, rescuers, coordinators, evacuees) as well as researchers and scholars were aboard the Lightship Lilac last night for a different sort of launch, for the new book American Dunkirk: The Waterborne Evacuation of Manhattan on 9/11. The fascinating panel included the book's authors Tricia Wachtendorf and James Kendra, both of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware; Eddie Rosenstein, producer of Boatlift, a film about the event; Captain Patrick Harris of the yacht Ventura, who was one of the rescuers; and Jessica Dulong, chief engineer of the fireboat John J. Harvey, which also played a crucial role in saving lives that day (she is also a distinguished writer and the author of the upcoming book Calling All Boats: Untold Stories of the Maritime Evacuation of September 11th.  )
L-R, Harris, Wachtendorf, Kenda, Rosenstein, Dulong
L-R, Harris, Wachtendorf, Kendra, Rosenstein, Dulong
Kendra and Wachtendorf's research drew largely from analysis of first person accounts, both their own interviews and those they found in archives, such as the one at South Street Seaport Museum. They seem focused on how people self-organize to respond effectively in sudden crises like this. And there were fascinating contributions to the discussion by people in the audience who were there that day. Again and again and again, the main theme of the conversation seemed to be that humans require freedom to make their own decisions in such situations. Bureaucracy and rules and dogmas and "permission" don't serve you well where speed is required. The evergreen example of how bureaucracies can tragically fail in such situations is Hurricane Katrina, where each decision-maker seemed paralyzed by procedures, causing delays that cost lives. The one exception of course being the U.S. Coast Guard -- which also performed admirably on 9-11. Accustomed to the exingencies of rescue as part of its core mission, the Coast Guard apparently has a pragmatic ethic of relaxing formalities as the need requires. Or, as Wachtendorf finessed the day's lesson, remaining mindful of the aims and spirit of the rules, even as you need to bend them to get the job done. (Absolute chaos, after all, would be its own form of disaster). Other points stressed by participants included the intense training and inborn caution of all maritime personnel. In some ways, sailors are hard wired for sensible decisions and practices in such situations, and most are trained in the same way, so that even when they kick into gear in a spontaneous situation they have pre-set ways of interacting and interlocking that serve them well. And, as one of the rescuers chimed in from the audience, New York's maritime community is small. Many of the players already knew each other and had interacted in some capacity -- again, making the process flow more easily.
Anyway, I felt a real bond with everyone at this event. I sort of didn't want to let them go. To get your copy of American Dunkirk go here. And to learn more about this incredible collective act of heroism, watch Rosenstein's Boatlift right now:

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