New York in the Days of the Omicron Variant

Posted on December 10, 2023 by admin

Has it been two years now since the omicron variant reared its ugly – head’s not quite the word for viruses, but anyway made a splash? Seems so. I happened to be visiting New York City at that moment in Covid history. I got through it. Even had a good visit, spending a lot of time outdoors, a safe place to be, I suppose, as New Yorkers went about their business.

Among other things, I enjoyed a Uyghur meal for the first time – I really need to do that again – washed down with an apple-flavored drink I’d never had before either, Laziza, a non-alcoholic malt beverage made in Lebanon.

It is really? Not something I think of when I think of moving.

It might be beyond belief even now, but not in the way meant in 2021.

What does Manhattan need that it doesn’t have? A system of alleys, for garbage pick up and other uses. There are some epic piles of trash out on the sidewalks.

The Korean War memorial in Battery Park, honoring not just U.S. forces, but all who fought against the North Koreans and red Chinese. Note the flags; others are on the other sides, including the U.S., ROK, UK, France and more.

In the pavement around the memorial are the names of those nations and how many of their troops died and were wounded. Luxembourg suffered two killed and five wounded, for instance. (If I remember right, a wounded and missing Luxembourger soldier was a plot point in a M*A*S*H episode. Yes.)

Near Little Island park.

Hard to read, but it’s (sort of) a Titanic memorial. Marks the dockside where the steamer would have docked, had it not had its date with an iceberg.

On the wall near the men’s room at Dos Caminos, a Mexican restaurant.

A comment on the food? A reference to a record label? An app I’ve never heard of? Couldn’t say, but it’s the kind of detail I like in a place.

We’ve Stringbeans and Onions, Cabbages and Scallions, and All Kinds of Fruits and Say —

Posted on May 3, 2023 by admin

I’ve been lax, letting the 100th anniversary of “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” go unmentioned until now. The song was published on March 23, 1923. The only popular song about Greek grocers that I know, except maybe for “I’ve Got The Yes! We Have No Bananas Blues.”

I found an article that promises the story behind the song, and offers some detail about the fruit trade in New York, past and present.

“The story of New York produce goes far back beyond Hunts Point,” says an article on the web site of a company specializing in credit rating and market information for the produce industry, referring to the Hunts Point produce market in the Bronx, an enormous operation.

“The city’s colorful history includes the Banana Docks of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which were located at Old Slip in lower Manhattan,” it says.

Banana Docks, New York City

The article goes on to say that the songwriters took their inspiration from a Greek fruit stand owner who said the famous line to him, but the account published in Time magazine in the summer of 1923 is, I think, more believable. Especially since it quotes the songwriter himself only months after the monster hit song came out.

“I am an American, of Jewish ancestry, with a wife and a young son,” songwriter Frank Silver told Time. “About a year ago my little orchestra was playing at a Long Island hotel. To and from the hotel I was wont to stop at a fruit stand owned by a Greek, who began every sentence with ‘Yess.’ The jingle of his idiom haunted me and my friend Cohn. Finally I wrote this verse and Gohn [sic] fitted it with a tune.”

It was the first song Silver ever sold. For a most harmonious recording of it, listen to the Mellomen version. With Thurl Ravenscroft. (!) For a sing-along version that also happens to be an early product of the remarkable and mostly unsung Fleischer Studios, and thus has a surreal edge to it, watch this video.

Here’s an series idea for a prestige streaming service: Banana Dock Empire. Criminals vying for control of the Banana Docks in 1890s New York. Too bad Daniel Day-Lewis is too old now to play the part of a rising young thug who murders his way into control of the city’s banana supply.

Thursday’s Theme: A Lot of Good Things Get Lost or Kicked Around

Posted on March 2, 2023 by admin

March came in like – an emu? Golden retriever? – came in pleasantly, with temps nearly 60 F. That didn’t last, of course, and chilly air is back today, with snow forecast for Friday, which will melt over the weekend.

The other day, I found a Sears bag tucked away in a semi-storage corner of the house under various things. This made me want to look up how many Sears locations survive. As of November, anyway, when Sears Holdings Corp. emerged from Chapter 11, there were 22.

That’s not even a shadow of its former self. That’s dryer lint of its former self.

I don’t know when we got the bag, or what we bought at Sears that needed such a bag. It’s fairly large, though. About as tall as a kitchen trash bag, so I decided to take its picture and then use the bag for trash. Interesting trademarked slogan. One the company maybe didn’t think through. Where else?™

There’s a lot of possibilities, Sears.

Last week, as mentioned before, there seemed to be overnight microbursts in the area, to judge by the tree branches on the ground afterward. This was the only tree knocked down that I noticed, a few days later, after it had been chopped up somewhat before being cleared away. Note the crust of soil it took with it.

I suspect it wasn’t just the wind, but also the fact that the tree stood in a low-lying area that usually fills up during a rain and takes days to empty, weakening the soil. Besides, it might have been a sick old tree whose roots didn’t have the grip they used to, so bam! Down it came.

But even healthier trees can take a beating if the wind is aggressive enough.

Speaking of fallen things, I learned today that the Hotel Pennsylvania is being demolished. That isn’t news, just that I don’t keep up with everything happening in Manhattan. I stayed there a couple of times in the early 2000s, where the company I worked for at the time put me up. I thought it more solid than grand, but I’m still sorry to see it go.

What else to say but, Pennsylvania Six Five Oh Oh Oh

One more thing about time passage, destruction and decay. Something I found unexpectedly. An algorithm suggested it. Might as well be by chance, then.

A poignant song from the point of view of an abandoned house, included on an album called The Rat Plague of ’66. The kind of thing that happens in Australia. Don Morrison seems to be a singer-songwriter from Adelaide, South Australia.

Manhattan Decked Out for Christmas

Posted on December 23, 2021 by admin

Regards for Christmas and New Year’s Day and all the days around them and in between. Back to posting around January 3.

One reason to go to New York City in December is to admire the seasonal lights and decorations, and that’s what I did. Starting with the impressive Christmas tree on the street in front of the New York Stock Exchange.

Fearless Girl is there now, and she still has her admirers.

On Broadway just up from Bowling Green, the Charging Bull bronze still stands, and there’s a sizable tree nearby as well. For some reason, there was also an Kazakhstan flag flying.

I saw the giant Rockefeller Center tree, though the madding and maddening crowd put me out of the mood to take pictures. For the record, the 2021 tree is a 79-foot Norway Spruce, 46 feet wide and weighing 12 tons, according to the center, with about 50,000 LED lights and a 900-lb. Swarovski star with 70 spikes on top.

You might call the tree shape at Radio City Music Hall a bit of deco decoration.

No Christmas show inside.

Another gorgeous light display in the area was on the wall of Saks, facing Fifth Avenue. The crowds were quite attentive as it shifted and blinked.

Back downtown, Zuccotti Park.

The lights of Trinity Center, overlooking Zuccotti.

From there, I went to the World Trade Center complex. Not especially decked out for the holidays, but I caught the buildings at a good time in terms of lighting.

St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine, still under construction.

It’s a replacement structure, designed by Santiago Calatrava, for a church of the same name and denomination on the site that was destroyed by the Twin Towers collapse. The new church will also be a memorial honoring those who died in the attack.

The Oculus‘ interior is blue for the holidays. At least it was when I stepped in for a few moments. A lot of other people were taking a look as well.

Wandering the streets of Manhattan, I saw a lot of smaller decorations, such as this restaurant annex on 51st.

Fire house lights, same street.

Bongs in the window.

Not Christmasy, but colorful all the same. This head shop near the Oculus — are they even called that any more? — is no doubt taking advantage of the legalization of cannabis in New York State this year, though retail sales haven’t started yet. For what it’s worth, I noticed the smell of cannabis on the streets of the city a lot more this time than ever before. And for that matter, less urine smell, which I suppose is a function of the hypergentrification of Manhattan.

Over in the Meatpacking District, angular snowfolk occupy a small plaza.

The angular building facing that little plaza.

After visiting Little Island, Geof and I had lunch at a Mexican restaurant on the first floor of the building.

I had the Mexican French toast.

I’d never heard of that before. Created for the table of Maximilian I? Man, it was good.

Not far away, on 14th Street, is Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe en San Bernardo, a parish church formed by the merger of two congregations in the early 2000s.

An 1870s building designed by the amazingly prolific Patrick C. Keely. Wonderfully colorful interior, hardly shown in my picture.

A good place to spend a few Christmastime minutes.

Little Island

Posted on December 22, 2021 by admin

We arrived footsore at Little Island late on Saturday morning. Or at least my feet were a little sore and warmer than usual, since Geof walks a good deal more than I do, and faster as well. Along the greenway on the Hudson that morning, he modulated his pace, partly because he wanted to see certain things himself, but also to accommodate my slower gait — but not too slow. I can still walk three miles without serious difficulty.

Little Island is in fact an island, an artificial one built on the ruins of Pier 55 (in full, the place’s name is Little Island @Pier 55). Even before Hurricane Sandy slapped the pier, it was in poor shape, and the blow brought complete ruin. Redevelopment took years, as it does in Manhattan sometimes, with one plan sinking into a legal quagmire.

A second plan finally came to fruition with the opening of Little Island, managed by a nonprofit, in the spring of this year.

We entered at the south entrance bridge.

The 132 concrete structures supporting the park are called “tulips,” and I guess that’s a reasonable description. Tint them green and they could form the supports for Marvin the Martian’s summer home, but in any case, they’re big and heavy: each weighing as much as 68 tons and measuring from 16 feet to 52 feet high.

The British architectural firm Heatherwick Studio (designers of the Tower of Silence in India) and the New York-based landscape architecture firm MNLA collaborated on designing Little Island. I’ve read, and Geof confirmed to me — he has made a good many visits or at least walk-bys of the park this year — that the place is a hit. During the warmer months, you have to register for a specific time to get in, though at no charge. This time of the year, you can just wander in.

Good to hear that a new public space is popular with the public. I can understand that. Even in winter, it’s a pleasant place to wander around.

It’s lush too, at least this mild December.

With views of the city. In the foreground is the construction site on another old pier, which will be an extension of the Whitney Museum.

I took these to be homages to The Time Tunnel.

I might be one of the few to think of that, since you have to be of a certain age to do so, besides mildly eccentric.

William Street

Posted on December 21, 2021 by admin

Less famous than Wall Street and a bit longer, William Street snakes through non-grid Lower Manhattan, another faint echo of New Amsterdam. I didn’t walk the entire way during my recent visit, but did cover a fair amount of the street, starting at the back of the fortress-like Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Beneath my feet, roughly, more than 6,000 tons of gold, more than even old Croesus himself could imagine. Above street level, a building that evokes Florentine palaces, though larger even than a Medici could imagine. Designed by a NY firm that did a lot of bank buildings, York and Sawyer.

A block away is Fosun Plaza, which surrounds the 60-story 28 Liberty Street, formerly One Chase Manhattan Plaza, a midcentury creation. The plaza is a story above street level, accessible by a wide staircase. The first thing you see on the plaza is a Jean Dubuffet sculpture, “Group of Four Trees,” commissioned by David Rockefeller and completed in 1972. Almost instantly, it reminded me of “Monument With Standing Beast” in Chicago.

Deeper in the plaza is an Isamu Noguchi rock garden fountain, back down at street level and naturally dry this time of year.

“Windswept” came to mind when I was at the plaza, the adjective that’s often attached to such midcentury artificial flats, even though there wasn’t that much wind. Still, the plaza offered some good views of surrounding buildings, such as 84 William Street, the Howell apartments. In front of the Howell (from this vantage) is a small park featuring steel sculptures by Louise Nevelson.

A wonderful old office building at 62 William Street, dating from 1900.

Down at street level at that building, a Greek restaurant that didn’t survive the pandemic. Or simply didn’t survive.

From that vantage, there’s also a good view of the non-Wall Street side of 40 Wall Street.

At William and Pine streets, one of two churches I was able to visit this time in NYC, Our Lady of Victory. I popped in for a few minutes to enjoy the sacred-space quiet.

Further south.

Delmonico’s, by gar.

Or at least its 21st-century iteration, though in a fine old building. I understand there have been a few Delmonico’s down the centuries, since like the Dread Pirate Roberts, the name is the thing. I’m pretty sure the first time I ever heard of the place was years ago in this Charles Addams cartoon, when I didn’t really understand the joke.

I ducked over to Stone Street at this point.

It’s a happenin’ place, on Thursdays anyway.

At South William and Broad is the former International Telephone Building, once occupied by IT&T and designed by Buchman & Kahn in 1928.

Your voice goes wingedly around the world? Notice that underneath the winged figure, there are people using 1920s-style telephones, along with ’20s-style telephone poles with multiple crossarms.

One more place, this one on Broad.

Designed by Kirby, Petit & Green, the American Bank Note Company building dates from 1908. I’m always delighted to see a physical presence of something I’ve only ever read about.

Wall Street

Posted on December 20, 2021 by admin

Not too many streets get to be metonyms, but Wall Street does, which is a little remarkable for such a short street, only eight blocks from the East River to Broadway, or vice versa. During my walk along the street just before sunset, I wanted to take a closer look at the physical street, not its high finance subtext, which I hear about enough as it is.

I started at the East River Waterfront Esplanade, near where Wall Street meets South Street, which is partly under FDR Drive. You can catch a fine view of Brooklyn from the esplanade.

That’s as close as I got to Brooklyn this time around, as opposed to some other trips.

An enlargement of the sidewalk on the easternmost block of Wall Street forms Mannahatta Park, a pleasant place with bushes and trees and benches. Rose bushes bloomed there this December.

More than two centuries ago, the site was New York’s slave market, and surely not a pleasant place. The city erected a sign only in 2015 to mark the doleful history of the site.

At the corner of Water and Wall is 88 Wall Street, these days the Wall Street Hotel, very much an upmarket property (and not where I stayed) that opened only this year in a former office building.

The hotel’s web site has an unusually long and detailed history of the site, which is only fitting, considering the richly layered history of the street. One of the more remarkable snippets of 88 Wall Street history is the fact that a series of two buildings on the site from 1791 to 1870 were owned by a tontine, and known as the Tontine Coffee House and then the Tontine Building. Out of the 203 investors who had funded the coffee house, seven survived to be beneficiaries of the tontine.

The current building, a Beaux-Arts structure designed by Clinton Holton & Russell in 1901, was for a time home to an import company that was, among many other things, the world’s largest dealer in mother-of-pearl. When plastic buttons bottomed out the market for that material, the company went into cultured pearls.

By the time you pass 88 Wall Street, the thoroughfare takes on its famed canyon-like aspect.

Next to 88 is 74 Wall Street. Its entrance caught my attention.

The ever-useful New York Songlines says: “This round-arched building was put up in 1926 as the Seamen’s Bank for Savings Headquarters (hence the seahorses, mermaids and other nautical motifs); the architect was Benjamin Wistar Morris.”

Nautical motifs, all right, though Seaman’s Bank is long gone.

Almost as remarkable, the building seems to be vacant. Then again, maybe not so remarkable. Despite the persistence of Wall Street as an metonym, and the presence of the New York Stock Exchange, the street hasn’t been the hub of U.S. finance in many years; that moved on to Midtown.

Though not on Wall Street, 1 Wall Street Court — the Beaver Building, 1904 — is visible from there.

67 Wall Street, now a residential co-op.

Songlines again: “This 25-story triangular building, originally known as the Munson Building, was designed in 1906 by Kenneth M. Murchison for the Munson Steamship [Line]. From 1931 until 1972 it was the New York Cocoa Exchange.”

63 Wall Street.

60 Wall Street, a 1988 building designed by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo.

Originally Morgan Bank’s HQ, these days Deutsche Bank occupies it. I found the lobby impressive.

Soon after this point, it’s pedestrians only. Trinity Church isn’t far away.

40 Wall Street.

Lots of history here. A picture of the upper section.

Songlines: “Formerly the Manhattan Bank Building, this was designed to be the tallest building in the world, but was beaten out by the Chrysler Building’s surprise spire…

“The Bank of the Manhattan Company, which eventually became Chase Manhattan, opened its first office here in September 1799. It was founded by Aaron Burr against the opposition of Alexander Hamilton. The New York Stock & Exchange Board, as the NYSE was then called, had its first permanent office here in 1817.

“Donald Trump calls this the Trump Building; please don’t encourage him.”

37 Wall Street.

A familiar name, but Tiffany’s is a fairly recent occupant. Designed by Francis H. Kimball, a very busy New York architect, the building originally housed the Trust Company of America in 1907, and then a series of other banks. The upper floors are now residential.

Before long, one comes to Federal Hall National Memorial, which is behind some scaffolding now.

George looks a bit cut off up there. Looking down pensively, perhaps, on the nation he created.

There’s plenty else on Wall Street that’s perhaps a little less permanent. For instance, sources of affordable food to price-oppressed New Yorkers.

I bought a falafel at that first one, delicious and large enough to make part of dinner two nights in a row.

Also, men working.

Finally, I couldn’t very well come to Wall Street without a look at the NYSE (11 Wall Street), whose after-hours trading floor I got to visit in 2002.

“It’s a primary rain forest of electronic equipment — the guts of the capitalist beast — no, the sinews of the Invisible Hand,” I wrote at the time. Looking at the allegory-stuffed pediment, I’d also say Temple of Commerce.

New York City ’21

Posted on December 19, 2021 by admin

Until a few weeks ago, I assumed that I’d take no more trips for the rest of the year. I’ve had an exceptional year in that way, so another one would be an unexpected cherry on top of the sundae.

Early this month, my company invited me to some meetings and other events at headquarters in downtown Manhattan, so on Wednesday I flew from O’Hare to LaGuardia, returning today. The first thing I noticed in NY is that the redevelopment of LaGuardia is coming along. LGA is on its way to being a real 21st-century airport, rather than the dingy embarrassment it has long been.

On the whole, the weather was cooperative for a visit, clear and cool until Saturday, when it was cool and alternated between drizzle and mist. The pandemic was not cooperative. Some of the events scheduled for my visit were canceled or otherwise disrupted. New Yorkers were eager to be tested at popup facilities.

I had some time to walk the streets and other pathways of the city, especially on Saturday – a low-risk activity, even in the days before the vaccines – and had a few good dine-in meals, in spite of everything. Such as at a storefront on Water Street, Caravan Uyghur Cuisine, where I had a wonderful lamb dish, besides the experience of visiting a Uyghur restaurant for the first time.

From Wednesday evening to Friday morning, I stayed at a hotel at the non-financial end of Wall Street, and spent the whole time in Lower Manhattan, below Barclay St. From Friday evening to this morning, I stayed at a hotel in Midtown East (or Turtle Bay, on 51st) and spent some time around there, though my travels took me back downtown sometimes.

Lower Manhattan is a fairly small district, with its streets roughly hewing to those of New Amsterdam, meaning a grid that’s been dropped and stepped on, unlike most of the rest of the island. That makes for more interesting exploring, but it’s also possible to get disoriented, though never for very long.

During this visit, I had time to look over two streets in detail, Wall and William, though I poked around some others, such as the charming and close-in Stone Street, where a residue of 19th-century buildings overlook 21st-century outdoor bubbles that serve as restaurant annexes.

Spent some time in Battery Park (officially The Battery, but does anyone call it that?), which was alive with tourists and a few buskers late on Friday afternoon. Including this fellow, who was playing Christmas songs on his erhu. He was good, but not drawing much of a crowd, so I gave him a dollar.

I did a lot of walking, but also rode the subway. It was about the same as ever, except for near-universal masks.

Also, no matter how many times I visit New York, and I’ve lost count, and how many times I ride the subway, I still get on the wrong line, get off at the wrong station, and mistake an express for a local. I did all of those things this time, once each. My wayfaring skills are pretty good, but without more practice, are no match for the irregularities of the system, which was welded together more than a century ago from two different competing systems, the IRT and the BRT, which were themselves consolidations of disparate lines.

On Saturday, my only nonworking day in town, I was up early and walked with my old friend Geof Huth from Battery Park, near where he lives, up the greenway along the Hudson River to the city’s newest park, Little Island, a course of nearly three miles. Here’s Geof on Little Island.

We had a grand walk that morning, passing small parks, gardens, memorials, sculptures, recreational facilities, many Hudson River piers, and urban oddities, such as one of the most brutal structures I’ve ever seen, the Spring Street Salt Shed.

One thing I did not do, which I had fully planned to do on Saturday afternoon, was head up to the other tip of Manhattan to see the Cloisters. By now it’s a running joke with myself. Every time I go to New York, I want to see it. I have since a New Yorker friend of mine first recommended it to me in 1983, and a lot of other people have since then. Somehow or other on each trip, something happens to prevent my visit.

This time I was too tired after the grand walk, though I don’t regret the miles along the Hudson. Not only did we see a lot on the land side of the path, we had some excellent views of Jersey City and eventually Hoboken, across the river. Is it odd that I want to go to those places as well someday? Maybe not as odd as it once would have been.

Had some fine views of Lower Manhattan too, such as with One WTC poking into the clouds. I’m going to consider this a vista, since we were raised a bit above sea level.

Though not technically a vista, I did manage to see the length of Manhattan as we left today.

And a good deal else, such as the infamous Rikers Island.

I thought the year of vistas had come to a conclusion after Russian Hill, but no. I squeezed a few more more in.

Our Lady of Victory Basilica and National Shrine, Lackawanna

Posted on June 14, 2021 by admin

The last place we visited over Memorial Day weekend in greater Buffalo was Our Lady of Victory Basilica and National Shrine, which is in south suburban Lackawanna, New York. We drove south from Lockport just after noon, had lunch in Buffalo at the Lake Effect Diner, and continued south on surface streets to Lackawanna, mainly U.S. 62, which is Bailey Ave. and then South Park Ave.

That course takes you through areas well-to-do and ragged, residential and industrial. Greater Buffalo might be like a smaller version of greater Chicago, but on our drive through the heart of the MSA, we found an essential difference: it’s much easier to get around Buffalo.

Maybe the holiday weekend had something to do with that, but I suspect the difference between 1.1 million people living on the edge of a Great Lake and 9.4 million people living on the edge of another Great Lake was the determining factor. Driving through metro Chicago is often like driving through glue. Buffalo proved much more pleasant as a driving experience.

The basilica stands at South Park Ave. and Ridge Road in Lackawanna.

The church was open. I believe only two other people were there when we visited.

“The artists who painted the murals, sculpted the statues and painstakingly produced the basilica’s 134 stained-glass windows were also members of an international team,” the Buffalo News reported, as reposted here.

“– Architect Emile Ulrich, a graduate of the Academy of Paris, was in Cleveland when the call came from Baker.
— Italian born Gonippo Raggi masterminded the artwork. His oil paintings can be seen throughout the shrine. When he died at age 84 in 1959, Raggi was the subject of a New York Times obituary that credited his work in more than 100 churches on three continents.
— Buffalonian Marion Rzeznik of Poland assisted Raggi. Rzeznik studied sculpture in Krakow, Vienna and New York City.
— Otto Andrle, a Buffalo-native, crafted the stained-glass windows.”

All that talent was brought together in the 1920s to build the basilica by the Venerable Nelson Henry Baker (1842-1936), an exceptionally talented and energetic priest. One of his talents, useful almost anywhere with a money economy, was fundraising. Besides the basilica, which started construction when Baker was 79, over the course of his vocation he founded a hospital, high school, elementary school, an infant home, a home for unwed mothers and a boys’ orphanage.

A bronze Baker is across the street from the basilica.

Not far away is Mary.
Baker declined credit for his many legacies, it seems, with his quote on the matter on the pedestal.

The Erie Canal

Posted on June 13, 2021 by admin

On our last day in metro Buffalo, we drove to Lockport, New York, late in the morning to see the Erie Canal. Even in my South Texas elementary school, and in U.S. history classes later, we heard about the Erie Canal. It probably was of special interest to my high school U.S. history teacher, the estimable former Wobbly Mrs. Collins, who grew up in Buffalo. Yuriko, on the other hand, heard nothing about it in Japanese schools; no reason she would.

I’ve heard the songs, too. The oft-recorded one about the loyal mule (which Bruce Springsteen does wonderfully, paying homage to Pete Seeger). The more fun one is about drunkenness among bargemen (and -woman), which I expect was true enough to life in the early days of the canal. The obscure Yellow Jack version, incidentally, used Lockport as a backdrop for the video.

Despite all that, I’d never gotten around to seeing the canal with my own eyes. So it was time. Naturally, we visited only the smallest slice, since the canal stretches more than 360 miles.

Lockport’s an interesting spot on the canal because it originally had five locks, which is unusual enough to have its own name: Flight of Five Locks, to allow the canal to cross the Niagara Escarpment. For the 1820s, I expect it was state-of-the-art engineering.

We got there at about 10:30 and knew we were in the right place.

There were other signs as well.

Looking east, from the bridge over the locks.
As usual, an historic site isn’t as simple as somewhere or something that magically hasn’t changed since its most interesting period. In structure, and certainly a lot of other details, the canal as we saw it isn’t how the 19th-century bargemen would have.

To the left in the picture is the original canal locks, the five of the name. It’s a narrow passage compared to the wider channel on the right, which involves two locks covering the same distance as the older five locks. In the early 20th century, the state of New York upgraded its canals, including the Erie, to form the New York State Barge Canal system. That’s when wider channel was built, no doubt state-of-the-art in its time.

Such a change made for much faster commercial movement on the canal. Of course that’s an obsolete virtue now, though the wider canal still makes for the more expeditious movement of pleasure craft, which are all that use the waterway anymore. The last commercial vessel to ply the Erie Canal, or rather that branch of the NYS Barge Canal system, was the Day Peckinpaugh, which quit service in 1994. Later than I would have thought.

Apparently there was (in effect) a Day Peckinpaugh class of ships on the NY canals. “After her 1921 maiden voyage, she was followed by over a hundred similar motorships on the Barge Canal,” notes the Waterford Maritime Historical Society. A lot more about the ship, at first unimaginatively called the Interwaterways Line Incorporated 101 and built to traverse the Great Lakes as well, can be found here.

We took a tour that started with a walk along the canal. Here is one of the two locks filling or draining, I forget which.More boats.

The hill side.

The “Upside-Down Bridge.” It’s a railroad bridge over the canal in Lockport, build just before the canal was improved.

“This bridge is a multi-span railroad bridge built in 1902 by the prolific and noteworthy King Bridge Company of Cleveland, Ohio,” says HistoricBridges.org. “The main span which crosses the river is a Baltimore deck truss. The bridge was referred to as the ‘Upside-Down Bridge’ because as a deck truss, it looks like a through truss positioned upside-down.”

Near the bridge, the tour turned into a man-made cave in the hill, a water tunnel (hydraulic raceway) built in the 19th century using muscle power, hand tools and black powder.

The raceway used to power local industry, opening for tourists in 1977. That happened, it seems, because the natural cave in the limestone under Lockport proved disappointing in the 20th century, and possibly a locus of fraud in the 19th century.

It was dark in there.
The tour also involved a short boat ride in part of the tunnel that’s partly flooded still. A novelty, certainly, but not for anyone even a little claustrophobic. I figure they stay away from commercial caves anyway.

Out in the sun again, we looked around town a little more. The west entrance of the locks is visible from Big Bridge.

A sign near Big Bridge (built 1914) claims that at 399 feet, the bridge over the canal at that point is one of the world’s widest. Maybe so, but it’s completely undistinguished in every other way.
One more sight in Lockport.
A fairly recent (2015) mural called “Guardian of the Waters” by Augustina Droze and Bruce Adams. Its plaque says: “The mural is inspired by the history and engineering marvel of the Flight of the Five Locks, which opened a path to the West, inspired inventions that changed the world, and gave rise to the city of Lockport, NY.”

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Tag Archives: New York