Nestled in the heart of Massachusetts Bay, the historic Port of Boston stands as a testament to human ingenuity and architectural prowess. With roots stretching back to colonial America, this bustling hub has been at the forefront of trade and transportation for over three centuries. As you approach its sprawling docks, you’re greeted by an awe-inspiring sight: colossal cranes towering against the horizon, their intricate frameworks etched against the New England sky.

 

These mechanical giants are not just functional; they’re monuments to modern engineering. Brands like BROMMA hint at global connections, with each crane playing a pivotal role in an international dance of logistics and commerce. The Port’s design marries form with function—each structure is meticulously crafted to handle cargo with precision and care.

 

Walking along its piers, one can’t help but marvel at how history has shaped this place—from Revolutionary War shipments to today’s containerized goods—the evolution is palpable in every rivet and beam. The architecture here tells stories not just of buildings but also of people: sailors, merchants, engineers who have all left their mark on this iconic seaport.

 

As you stand amidst these sentinels of steel and cable, it’s clear that while ships may come and go, the legacy of Boston’s port remains steadfast—a historical landmark that continues to drive forward into new tides of innovation.

SF Bay RR, 21 June 2018

 

The San Francisco Bay RR operates on the southeast side of San Francisco on and near the port. It uses two Alco S2 switchers that were built for the State Belt RR, later the San Francisco Belt RR, the line that served the piers of the Port of San Francisco for many years.

 

As shipping companies moved to containerization, the Port of Oakland became the big northern California container terminal and most of the piers of the Port of San Francisco were abandoned or converted to uses other than marine freight, so the SF Belt RR found itself out of a job. After 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the Embarcadero Freeway, which had run over the SF Belt for most of its length, the freeway was removed, opening up San Francisco's waterfront and much of the Belt's trackage as converted for use by the Muni F line, which runs historic streetcars to Fishermen's Wharf, and the Muni lines that now server the Caltrain station.

 

Meanwhile, Pier 96, near Hunter's Point was converted to a container facility and the railroad's operations survived there. The line was renamed the San Francisco Bay RR and continued to use Alco S2s 23 and 25 to switch its customers.

 

Today, the railroad's main business is transloading dirty dirt from constructions and clean up sites in the Bay Area from trucks to railcars. It is owned by Waste Solutions Group, which also owns a fleet of hopper cars. The SF Bay and UP interchange on an as needed basis, with UP's South City job running into the SF Bay's yard on Cargo Way with empties and taking away loads.

 

A couple of railfans, Ryan and Ben, work for the railroad and Ryan invited me to come by for a visit. I had stopped by one afternoon a couple of years ago, and lucked out to see an S2 running around the yard a bit, but the railrroad usually goes on duty betweeen 4 and 5 am, switches cars for a few hours and then is done for the day. So, a visit to the SF Bay from Sacramento entailed a night in a hotel. It took a few tries for me to get time off from work scheduled on the same day the railroad was running.

 

Eventually, it all lined up and my alarm went off at 0315 at a hotel in Daly City, just south of the SF city limit.

 

I was at the yard by 4 and met Ben, who went out and started Alco 23. 25 is out of service with a bad bearing on the radiator fan drive shaft. Ryan explained that the SF Belt had done a jerry rigged repair of the shaft at some point and it was never documented, so nobody knew about the bearing until it failed. As a new low emission unit will be delivered in the next few months, there is no reason to repair 25. 25 will be put on display somewhere, perhaps near the Ferry Building, while 23 will be held as backup for the new unit.

 

But for now, an S2 built in 1944 is doing the job it was built to do. If you think about it, that is as though the Virginia and Truckee had still been using the Reno and Genoa during WW2.

 

Shorty after I got there, Ben went out and fired up the 23. It has a block heater, so it started easily with a puff of white smoke. He did an inspection of the engine, including checking the journal boxes. We then went back into the office and waited for Ryan, brakeman Johnny, and engineer Nick to arrive. The crew plotted their switching moves for the day. Ryan, who is yard operations manager, suggested that I get some blue hour photos from the ground as empties were switched and then we rode 23 while they switched loads.

 

Each car has dirt from one particular construction site and the dirt from sites cannot be mixed as different sites will have different contamination. UP ships it to a dump site in Nevada, where it is processed. Ryan explained that sometimes they can use dividers in a car to separate dirt from different projects if there is not that much.

 

Right now transshipping dirty dirt is the SF Bay's only business, but there a couple of other industries are interested in bringing new business. The line that crosses the Illinois St. bridge has been out of service for a couple of years as there currently no customers north of Islais Creek.

 

We rode the S2 for a while after the day brightened, then got down and Ryan drove me around in a company car to get some more angles as they switched. He then had other work to do and I shot the end of 23's work day as well as 25, some spare Alco parts and another project of Waste Solutions, goats that are leased out for natural weed control. Ryan said that since Waste Solutions got more cars, they can't use their goats as much for weed control in the yard as most of the yard tracks are occupied.

 

The crew called it a day for switching about 0800 and then would be doing other work in the yard for the rest of their work day.

 

All of these photos were taken with permission after signing a release and while wearing required PPE.

 

I want to than Ryan, Ben, Johnny and Nick for their hospitality. I had a great time.

The medieval port of Dublin was located on the south bank of the Liffey near Christ Church Cathedral, some kilometers upstream from its current location. In 1715, the Great South Wall was constructed to shelter the entrance to the port. Poolbeg Lighthouse at the end of the South Bull Wall was constructed in 1767.

 

In 1800, a survey of Dublin Bay conducted by Captain William Bligh recommended the construction of the Bull Wall. After the completion of the wall in 1842, North Bull Island slowly formed as sand built up behind it.

 

After James Gandon's Custom House was built further downstream in 1791, the port moved downstream to the north bank of the river estuary, where the International Financial Services Centre is currently located. The noise and dirt associated with the port traffic contributed to the decline of the Mountjoy Square area, with many wealthy families moving to the Southside.

 

With the advent of containerization in the second half of the 20th century, the port moved about a kilometer downstream again, to its current locations.

Boeing today announced that the fourth Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) satellite the company is delivering to the U.S. Air Force has successfully completed prelaunch testing and is ready for launch. In this photo, WGS-4 is shown undergoing containerization in preparation for leaving the Boeing El Segundo, Calif., factory to travel to Cape Canaveral, Fla., for launch.

 

Boeing provides this photo for the public to share. Media interested in high-resolution images for publication should email boeingmedia@boeing.com or visit boeing.mediaroom.com. Users may not manipulate or use this photo in commercial materials, advertisements, emails, products, or promotions without licensed permission from Boeing. If you are interested in using Boeing imagery for commercial purposes, email imagelicensing@boeing.com or visit www.boeingimages.com.

APM Terminals Pecém loaded a shipment of three 72.5m long wind turbine blades on March 25 and April 1, 2021. This was the largest shipment of non-containerized cargo on a container ship in the world, according to data from the company Maersk Brazil. The cargo was destined for the state of Santa Catarina.

The Jacksonville Port Authority (JAXPORT) is facilitating an "Elite" U.S. Army deployment operation this week at the port's Blount Island Marine Terminal. Elite moves are the Army's largest and most important cargo moves of the year.

 

The move of equipment from the 101st Airborne Division’s 101st Combat Aviation Brigade is being conducted by the Jacksonville Detachment at Blount Island under the command and control of the 832nd Transportation Battalion and in coordination with the 597th Transportation Brigade from Fort Eustis, Va.

 

Stevedores with port partner Portus are loading about 1,450 pieces, including UH-60 Blackhawk utility helicopters, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, wheeled vehicles and other containerized support equipment, aboard the US-flagged vehicle carrier ARC Endurance. The equipment is en route to Europe where it will be used for a training mission.

 

The pieces arrived at Blount Island from Fort Campbell, Ky., by truck and rail over the past two weeks.

 

"Support from JAXPORT, as well as our trucking and rail partners here in Jacksonville, has been phenomenal," said Lt. Col. Thomas Patterson III from the 832nd Transportation Battalion. "In large moves like this one, efficiency is key to ensuring the best use of taxpayer dollars. Jacksonville offers the strategic value, expertise and flexibility to seamlessly get it all done."

 

"JAXPORT is one of the nation's most diversified ports, and our ability to support the military is an important part of our diversification strategy," said JAXPORT CEO Eric Green. "We are proud to serve our community and country in this capacity."

 

Located at the crossroads of the nation’s rail and highway network, JAXPORT offers fast access to three major interstates, 40 daily trains and service from more than 100 trucking firms.

 

As one of the nation's 17 strategic seaports, JAXPORT is on call 24/7 to move U.S. Military cargo for national defense, foreign humanitarian aid and disaster relief, and the only port in Florida with this designation.

 

The Jacksonville Port Authority (JAXPORT) and its terminal operating partner, Enstructure, recently moved 4,500-tons of frozen poultry in a single breakbulk shipment. Shipping the cargo via breakbulk rather than as containerized cargo helped significantly reduce transit time from the U.S. to its final destination in the Caribbean.

The move was JAXPORT’s first large poultry shipment since 2015. The cargo, which was previously shipped via container through other U.S. ports, shifted to JAXPORT to take advantages of the port’s efficiencies and uncongested berths.

“With the high cost and low availability of containers, the exporters needed to have another means of moving the poultry,” said Enstructure’s Brian Hubert. “Going to the different container terminals was taking them roughly two to four weeks to get their cargo to the discharge ports. When we load, it’s there in two days. We can do it more efficiently than containers with larger volumes, making it more cost-effective for our customers.”

Enstructure’s skilled labor, which operates as Seaonus Stevedoring at JAXPORT’s Talleyrand Marine Terminal, loaded the palletized chicken onto the refrigerated cargo vessel Green Guatemala. An organized staging and loading process ensured a seamless transition for the temperature-controlled cargo.

“JAXPORT was an integral partner in making sure that cargo move was a success,” Hubert said. “JAXPORT has been extremely cooperative in supporting our operation to ensure a successful outcome for our customer.”

“Companies are looking for ways to get around the congestion at other U.S. ports and move their freight as quickly as possible,” said JAXPORT Director of Cargo Sales Alberto Cabrera. “JAXPORT is known as one of the most diversified ports in the nation in terms of business lines. This flexibility has kept us delay-free throughout the pandemic and allowed us to serve the evolving needs of new and existing customers during this time.”

JAXPORT is Florida’s largest container port and one of the nation’s top vehicle-handling ports. Located in the heart of the nation’s rail and highway network, Jacksonville offers same-day access to 98 million U.S. consumers.

 

maersk shipping, port of los angeles. nikon n90s + fuji velvia 50.

 

best viewed large

The Containerized Biocontainment System (CBCS) that was used during the Tranquil Shift exercise was designed as a first-response capability to manage clusters of patients during the first days of an outbreak, allowing international responders to focus immediately on containment. Here, the mock patient is being removed in preparation for transport to the Denver Health Medical Center.

Whitebark pine seedling with a forked top. Coeur d'Alene Nursery. Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

 

"The Coeur d'Alene Nursery is a full service facility that can provide bare root and containerized plant stock for publicly-owned lands. Along with seed cleaning, and storage, the Nursery can provide stock quality testing for the land manager." For more information about this nursery see: www.fs.usda.gov/detail/ipnf/about-forest/districts/?cid=s...

 

Photo by: Kristen Chadwick

Date: July 1, 2010

 

Photo credit: USDA Forest Service, Region 6, State and Private Forestry, Forest Health Protection, Westside Forest Insect and Disease Service Center.

Source: Kristen Chadwick collection; Sandy, Oregon.

 

Image provided by USDA Forest Service, Region 6, State and Private Forestry, Forest Health Protection: www.fs.usda.gov/main/r6/forest-grasslandhealth

This photovoltaic powered containerized refrigeration system replaced an inefficient cold storage system. It is an example of the innovative solutions and management require at the remote Refuge and Memorial.

SF Bay RR, 21 June 2018

 

The San Francisco Bay RR operates on the southeast side of San Francisco on and near the port. It uses two Alco S2 switchers that were built for the State Belt RR, later the San Francisco Belt RR, the line that served the piers of the Port of San Francisco for many years.

 

As shipping companies moved to containerization, the Port of Oakland became the big northern California container terminal and most of the piers of the Port of San Francisco were abandoned or converted to uses other than marine freight, so the SF Belt RR found itself out of a job. After 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the Embarcadero Freeway, which had run over the SF Belt for most of its length, the freeway was removed, opening up San Francisco's waterfront and much of the Belt's trackage as converted for use by the Muni F line, which runs historic streetcars to Fishermen's Wharf, and the Muni lines that now server the Caltrain station.

 

Meanwhile, Pier 96, near Hunter's Point was converted to a container facility and the railroad's operations survived there. The line was renamed the San Francisco Bay RR and continued to use Alco S2s 23 and 25 to switch its customers.

 

Today, the railroad's main business is transloading dirty dirt from constructions and clean up sites in the Bay Area from trucks to railcars. It is owned by Waste Solutions Group, which also owns a fleet of hopper cars. The SF Bay and UP interchange on an as needed basis, with UP's South City job running into the SF Bay's yard on Cargo Way with empties and taking away loads.

 

A couple of railfans, Ryan and Ben, work for the railroad and Ryan invited me to come by for a visit. I had stopped by one afternoon a couple of years ago, and lucked out to see an S2 running around the yard a bit, but the railrroad usually goes on duty betweeen 4 and 5 am, switches cars for a few hours and then is done for the day. So, a visit to the SF Bay from Sacramento entailed a night in a hotel. It took a few tries for me to get time off from work scheduled on the same day the railroad was running.

 

Eventually, it all lined up and my alarm went off at 0315 at a hotel in Daly City, just south of the SF city limit.

 

I was at the yard by 4 and met Ben, who went out and started Alco 23. 25 is out of service with a bad bearing on the radiator fan drive shaft. Ryan explained that the SF Belt had done a jerry rigged repair of the shaft at some point and it was never documented, so nobody knew about the bearing until it failed. As a new low emission unit will be delivered in the next few months, there is no reason to repair 25. 25 will be put on display somewhere, perhaps near the Ferry Building, while 23 will be held as backup for the new unit.

 

But for now, an S2 built in 1944 is doing the job it was built to do. If you think about it, that is as though the Virginia and Truckee had still been using the Reno and Genoa during WW2.

 

Shorty after I got there, Ben went out and fired up the 23. It has a block heater, so it started easily with a puff of white smoke. He did an inspection of the engine, including checking the journal boxes. We then went back into the office and waited for Ryan, brakeman Johnny, and engineer Nick to arrive. The crew plotted their switching moves for the day. Ryan, who is yard operations manager, suggested that I get some blue hour photos from the ground as empties were switched and then we rode 23 while they switched loads.

 

Each car has dirt from one particular construction site and the dirt from sites cannot be mixed as different sites will have different contamination. UP ships it to a dump site in Nevada, where it is processed. Ryan explained that sometimes they can use dividers in a car to separate dirt from different projects if there is not that much.

 

Right now transshipping dirty dirt is the SF Bay's only business, but there a couple of other industries are interested in bringing new business. The line that crosses the Illinois St. bridge has been out of service for a couple of years as there currently no customers north of Islais Creek.

 

We rode the S2 for a while after the day brightened, then got down and Ryan drove me around in a company car to get some more angles as they switched. He then had other work to do and I shot the end of 23's work day as well as 25, some spare Alco parts and another project of Waste Solutions, goats that are leased out for natural weed control. Ryan said that since Waste Solutions got more cars, they can't use their goats as much for weed control in the yard as most of the yard tracks are occupied.

 

The crew called it a day for switching about 0800 and then would be doing other work in the yard for the rest of their work day.

 

All of these photos were taken with permission after signing a release and while wearing required PPE.

 

I want to than Ryan, Ben, Johnny and Nick for their hospitality. I had a great time.

The abandoned Spillers Millenium Mill, seen from the Royal Victoria Dock Bridge. There are also reflections shown on the very calm waters of the Royal Victoria Dock.

 

The Millenium Mills were built in 1933, in the heyday of the London Docklands. In the 1960s, the Docklands declined rapidly following containerization of the shipping industry. This meant places such as Tilbury became the new docklands, where the river is wider for the huge container ships. The Millenium Mills were one of the last to close in the 1980s. The history of this building is difficult to find on the web.

 

Although the 59-acre site where this building stands needs redevelopment, it will be sad to see one of the last remaining symbols of the London Docklands disappear.

The Evergreen Group is the organizational designation used by a Taiwan-based conglomerate of shipping, transportation, and associated service companies. The Evergreen Group arose in 1975 from the diversification of the original Evergreen Marine Corporation, which was established in 1968 and currently operates as the world's fourth largest containerized-freight shipping company. Today, the Evergreen Group encompasses the Evergreen Marine Corporation, Evergreen International Corporation, EVA Air, Evergreen Aviation Technologies Corporation, Evergreen Air Services Corporation, Evergreen Air Cargo Services Corporation, and Evergreen International Storage and Services Corporation.[1] Additional divisions and subsidiaries exist within several Evergreen Group companies, such as Uniglory Shipping Corporation and Uni Air.

    

Dr Chang Yung-fa, Chairman of the Evergreen Group, was born in Taiwan in 1927. After graduating from Taipei Commercial High School at the age of 18, he went to work in the Taipei office of a Japanese shipping line.

 

After World War II, he joined the seagoing staff of a local shipping company as 3rd officer. His subsequent career was spent with various local companies and he progressed smoothly through the ranks to 2nd officer, chief officer and eventually to captain.

 

[edit] Foundation of Evergreen Marine Corporation

In 1961, Chang and some friends jointly established a shipping company and having helped this company to develop, he decided to branch out on his own, establishing Evergreen Marine Corporation on September 1, 1968 with just one secondhand 15,000 dwt vessel, Central Trust.

 

Over the next four years, Chang built his fleet up to 12 vessels, running them empty when necessary to convince his customers his services were both as regular as clockwork and as reliable as the sunset. Within a year, he had expanded to the Middle East. Within three, Chang was dispatching Evergreen ships to the Caribbean.

 

Back in 1975, Chang realized that containerisation was the way forward. He built four advanced S-type container ships and launched his US East Coast service. Fifteen months later, he added the US West Coast to his network, just at a time when Americans were developing a real taste for the economical, well-made products fast pouring out of Asian factories.

 

Europe followed in 1979 and Evergreen quietly prospered much to the consternation of the established lines from Europe and the United States who could not match his prices and service.[citation needed]

 

By 1984 he started his most ambitious service yet - two 80-day round-the-world services, one circling the globe in an easterly direction, the other westward. Departing every 10 days, the 20 G-type container ships he employed had a capacity of 2,728 containers each and could travel at a speed of 20.5 knots.

 

The name "Evergreen" stands for life and vitality in Chinese culture. Green also happens to be Chang's favourite colour. All his containers are painted green, and even his headquarters in Taipei is covered with green tiles.[citation needed] There has been modifications on their container fleet, from a green container with white "EVERGREEN" type, it has changed to a white container, with a green "EVERGREEN" type.

 

Chang alone sets the rigorous standards for all new employees. Fresh graduates are hired direct from Taiwan's universities. Applications far outstrip jobs available but the lucky few are well rewarded for their talents, commitment and dedication.[citation needed]

 

As the company has grown, Chang is no longer able to make all the business decisions alone as he did in the early days and recognises the need to delegate responsibility. He has chosen his top executives well and has the confidence to allow them considerable freedom in handling Evergreen's international operations.[citation needed]

 

[edit] Expansion and formation of Evergreen Group

The Evergreen Group has expanded beyond the shipping industry to encompass operations in energy development, air transport, hotels and resort services. This international conglomerate based on the integrated development of services on land, sea, and air has built an enviable reputation for outstanding performance.

 

The country’s first private international airline, EVA Airways Corporation was established on March 8, 1989 and on July 1, 1991, formally inaugurated its first flight and began a new era of national commercial aviation.

 

In line with the development of its airline industry, Evergreen has become the first Taiwanese enterprise to gain a worldwide foothold in the hotel industry.

 

In 1998, Evergreen purchased the Italian shipping line Lloyd Triestino renaming as Italia Marittima S.p.A on 1 March 2006, thus providing it with a firm foothold in the European Union. It consolidated this position in 2002 with the establishment of Hatsu Marine in London, a UK-flag shipping company that today operates some of the largest and most sophisticated vessels in the Evergreen Group fleet.

 

The Evergreen Group, with over 18,000 employees and more than 240 offices/agents worldwide, now comprises over 50 major corporations worldwide, three of which are listed on the Taipei Stock Exchange.

 

In 2006 the Kuomintang sold its former headquarters to Evergreen Group for $2.3 billion New Taiwan dollars (96 million United States dollars).[2]

 

[edit] References

^ www.evergreen.com.tw/

^ Mo, Yan-chih. "KMT headquarters sold for NT$2.3bn." Taipei Times. Thursday March 23, 2006. Page 1. Retrieved on September 29, 2009.

[edit] External links

EVERGREEN GROUP

EVERGREEN INTERNATIONAL HOTELS

EVERGREEN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

EVERGREEN AVIATION TECHNOLOGIES CORP

A very muddy walk up Strethill was required to get a shot of 66 716 with 4G01 Seaford to Ironbridge Containerized Biomass passing over Coalbrookdale Viaduct, A very last minute decision to have the morning off work meant I had the wrong shoes on to be waiting around for over an hour in a snowy field which very soon melted to mud

SF Bay RR, 21 June 2018

 

The San Francisco Bay RR operates on the southeast side of San Francisco on and near the port. It uses two Alco S2 switchers that were built for the State Belt RR, later the San Francisco Belt RR, the line that served the piers of the Port of San Francisco for many years.

 

As shipping companies moved to containerization, the Port of Oakland became the big northern California container terminal and most of the piers of the Port of San Francisco were abandoned or converted to uses other than marine freight, so the SF Belt RR found itself out of a job. After 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the Embarcadero Freeway, which had run over the SF Belt for most of its length, the freeway was removed, opening up San Francisco's waterfront and much of the Belt's trackage as converted for use by the Muni F line, which runs historic streetcars to Fishermen's Wharf, and the Muni lines that now server the Caltrain station.

 

Meanwhile, Pier 96, near Hunter's Point was converted to a container facility and the railroad's operations survived there. The line was renamed the San Francisco Bay RR and continued to use Alco S2s 23 and 25 to switch its customers.

 

Today, the railroad's main business is transloading dirty dirt from constructions and clean up sites in the Bay Area from trucks to railcars. It is owned by Waste Solutions Group, which also owns a fleet of hopper cars. The SF Bay and UP interchange on an as needed basis, with UP's South City job running into the SF Bay's yard on Cargo Way with empties and taking away loads.

 

A couple of railfans, Ryan and Ben, work for the railroad and Ryan invited me to come by for a visit. I had stopped by one afternoon a couple of years ago, and lucked out to see an S2 running around the yard a bit, but the railrroad usually goes on duty betweeen 4 and 5 am, switches cars for a few hours and then is done for the day. So, a visit to the SF Bay from Sacramento entailed a night in a hotel. It took a few tries for me to get time off from work scheduled on the same day the railroad was running.

 

Eventually, it all lined up and my alarm went off at 0315 at a hotel in Daly City, just south of the SF city limit.

 

I was at the yard by 4 and met Ben, who went out and started Alco 23. 25 is out of service with a bad bearing on the radiator fan drive shaft. Ryan explained that the SF Belt had done a jerry rigged repair of the shaft at some point and it was never documented, so nobody knew about the bearing until it failed. As a new low emission unit will be delivered in the next few months, there is no reason to repair 25. 25 will be put on display somewhere, perhaps near the Ferry Building, while 23 will be held as backup for the new unit.

 

But for now, an S2 built in 1944 is doing the job it was built to do. If you think about it, that is as though the Virginia and Truckee had still been using the Reno and Genoa during WW2.

 

Shorty after I got there, Ben went out and fired up the 23. It has a block heater, so it started easily with a puff of white smoke. He did an inspection of the engine, including checking the journal boxes. We then went back into the office and waited for Ryan, brakeman Johnny, and engineer Nick to arrive. The crew plotted their switching moves for the day. Ryan, who is yard operations manager, suggested that I get some blue hour photos from the ground as empties were switched and then we rode 23 while they switched loads.

 

Each car has dirt from one particular construction site and the dirt from sites cannot be mixed as different sites will have different contamination. UP ships it to a dump site in Nevada, where it is processed. Ryan explained that sometimes they can use dividers in a car to separate dirt from different projects if there is not that much.

 

Right now transshipping dirty dirt is the SF Bay's only business, but there a couple of other industries are interested in bringing new business. The line that crosses the Illinois St. bridge has been out of service for a couple of years as there currently no customers north of Islais Creek.

 

We rode the S2 for a while after the day brightened, then got down and Ryan drove me around in a company car to get some more angles as they switched. He then had other work to do and I shot the end of 23's work day as well as 25, some spare Alco parts and another project of Waste Solutions, goats that are leased out for natural weed control. Ryan said that since Waste Solutions got more cars, they can't use their goats as much for weed control in the yard as most of the yard tracks are occupied.

 

The crew called it a day for switching about 0800 and then would be doing other work in the yard for the rest of their work day.

 

All of these photos were taken with permission after signing a release and while wearing required PPE.

 

I want to than Ryan, Ben, Johnny and Nick for their hospitality. I had a great time.

SF Bay RR, 21 June 2018

 

The San Francisco Bay RR operates on the southeast side of San Francisco on and near the port. It uses two Alco S2 switchers that were built for the State Belt RR, later the San Francisco Belt RR, the line that served the piers of the Port of San Francisco for many years.

 

As shipping companies moved to containerization, the Port of Oakland became the big northern California container terminal and most of the piers of the Port of San Francisco were abandoned or converted to uses other than marine freight, so the SF Belt RR found itself out of a job. After 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the Embarcadero Freeway, which had run over the SF Belt for most of its length, the freeway was removed, opening up San Francisco's waterfront and much of the Belt's trackage as converted for use by the Muni F line, which runs historic streetcars to Fishermen's Wharf, and the Muni lines that now server the Caltrain station.

 

Meanwhile, Pier 96, near Hunter's Point was converted to a container facility and the railroad's operations survived there. The line was renamed the San Francisco Bay RR and continued to use Alco S2s 23 and 25 to switch its customers.

 

Today, the railroad's main business is transloading dirty dirt from constructions and clean up sites in the Bay Area from trucks to railcars. It is owned by Waste Solutions Group, which also owns a fleet of hopper cars. The SF Bay and UP interchange on an as needed basis, with UP's South City job running into the SF Bay's yard on Cargo Way with empties and taking away loads.

 

A couple of railfans, Ryan and Ben, work for the railroad and Ryan invited me to come by for a visit. I had stopped by one afternoon a couple of years ago, and lucked out to see an S2 running around the yard a bit, but the railrroad usually goes on duty betweeen 4 and 5 am, switches cars for a few hours and then is done for the day. So, a visit to the SF Bay from Sacramento entailed a night in a hotel. It took a few tries for me to get time off from work scheduled on the same day the railroad was running.

 

Eventually, it all lined up and my alarm went off at 0315 at a hotel in Daly City, just south of the SF city limit.

 

I was at the yard by 4 and met Ben, who went out and started Alco 23. 25 is out of service with a bad bearing on the radiator fan drive shaft. Ryan explained that the SF Belt had done a jerry rigged repair of the shaft at some point and it was never documented, so nobody knew about the bearing until it failed. As a new low emission unit will be delivered in the next few months, there is no reason to repair 25. 25 will be put on display somewhere, perhaps near the Ferry Building, while 23 will be held as backup for the new unit.

 

But for now, an S2 built in 1944 is doing the job it was built to do. If you think about it, that is as though the Virginia and Truckee had still been using the Reno and Genoa during WW2.

 

Shorty after I got there, Ben went out and fired up the 23. It has a block heater, so it started easily with a puff of white smoke. He did an inspection of the engine, including checking the journal boxes. We then went back into the office and waited for Ryan, brakeman Johnny, and engineer Nick to arrive. The crew plotted their switching moves for the day. Ryan, who is yard operations manager, suggested that I get some blue hour photos from the ground as empties were switched and then we rode 23 while they switched loads.

 

Each car has dirt from one particular construction site and the dirt from sites cannot be mixed as different sites will have different contamination. UP ships it to a dump site in Nevada, where it is processed. Ryan explained that sometimes they can use dividers in a car to separate dirt from different projects if there is not that much.

 

Right now transshipping dirty dirt is the SF Bay's only business, but there a couple of other industries are interested in bringing new business. The line that crosses the Illinois St. bridge has been out of service for a couple of years as there currently no customers north of Islais Creek.

 

We rode the S2 for a while after the day brightened, then got down and Ryan drove me around in a company car to get some more angles as they switched. He then had other work to do and I shot the end of 23's work day as well as 25, some spare Alco parts and another project of Waste Solutions, goats that are leased out for natural weed control. Ryan said that since Waste Solutions got more cars, they can't use their goats as much for weed control in the yard as most of the yard tracks are occupied.

 

The crew called it a day for switching about 0800 and then would be doing other work in the yard for the rest of their work day.

 

All of these photos were taken with permission after signing a release and while wearing required PPE.

 

I want to than Ryan, Ben, Johnny and Nick for their hospitality. I had a great time.

Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

 

The Keller Hotel was constructed in 1897-98 to the Renaissance Revival style design of Julius Munckwitz. He was Supervising Architect and Superintendent of Parks in New York City and maintained an architectural practice in Harlem. Most of the buildings that Munckwitz designed have been demolished.

 

The building was built by William Farrell, a prominent coal merchant. The hotel was operated by several proprietors including Fritz Brodt, who had a contract with the United States government to provide food to immigrants at Ellis Island. The hotel was located near ferry and transatlantic cruise ship docks where thousands of visitors arrived. By at least 1935, it housed transient sailors.

 

After the decline of the maritime industry on the Hudson River, the Keller Hotel became a single-room occupancy hotel and the Keller Bar at the corner storefront became a popular bar catering to a gay clientele.

 

The building is currently vacant, but the interior is being altered to convert the upper floors to residential use. The building has two cast-iron storefronts at the ground floor of the West Street façade, which feature a continuous cornice and columns with a stylized floral design at the capitals. The upper floors are constructed of brick with stone trim and feature a restrained use of classical and Renaissance-inspired ornament.

 

It is one of the last surviving turn-of-the-century Hudson River waterfront hotels.

 

The building, situated along the Hudson River, is a significant reminder of the era when the Port of New York was one of the world’s busiest and the section of the Hudson River between Christopher and 23 Streets was the heart of the busiest section of the Port of New York.

 

DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

 

The Port of New York and the Greenwich Village Waterfront

 

By the early nineteenth century, New York City developed as the largest port in the United States and in the early twentieth century emerged as one of the busiest ports in the world. In Manhattan, South Street along the East River had been the primary artery for maritime commerce, but West Street became a competitor in the 1870s and supplanted the former by about 1890.

 

The construction, by the New York City Department of Docks, of the Gansevoort Piers (1894-1902) and Chelsea Piers (1902-10, Warren & Wetmore) between West 11 and West 23 Streets, just north of Barrow Street, had a profound impact on this section of the Hudson River waterfront.

 

These long docks accommodated large transatlantic liners. This area was described in 1914 as “in the heart of the busiest section of the port, adjacent to the transatlantic liners, coast and gulf vessels, between Christopher and 23 Streets, surrounded by 5,000 seamen of all nationalities” of the half a million seamen that come into the harbor each year.

 

By 1939, the Federal Writers’ Project’s New York City Guide described this “most lucrative water-front property in the world” as follows:

 

Although the western rim of Manhattan is but a small section of New York’s far-flung port, along it is concentrated the largest aggregate of marine enterprises in the world.

 

Glaciers of freight and cargo move across this stripe of … waterfront.

 

It is the domain of the super-liner, but it is shared by the freighter, the river boat, the ferry, and the soot-faced tug … Ships and shipping are not visible along much of West Street. South of Twenty-third Street, the river is walled by an almost unbroken line of bulkhead sheds and dock structures …

 

Opposite the piers, along the entire length of the highway, nearly every block houses its quota of cheap lunchrooms, tawdry saloons and waterfront haberdasheries catering to the thousands of polyglot seamen who haunt the “front.” Men “on the beach” (out of employment) usually make their headquarters in barrooms, which are frequented mainly by employees of lines leasing piers in their vicinity.

 

The Keller Hotel is one of last surviving turn-of-the-century Hudson River waterfront hotels. In addition to the Keller Hotel, the only other surviving waterfront hotels in Greenwich Village are the Great Eastern Hotel (180-184 Christopher Street aka 386 West Street, highly altered to combine three existing buildings and façade altered, 1888, John B. Franklin), the Holland Hotel (305 West 10 Street aka 396-397 West Street, 1904, Charles Stegmayer, located within the Weehawken Historic District), the American Seamen’s Friend Society Sailor’s Home and Institute (113-110 Jane Street aka 505-507 West Street, 1907-08, William A. Boring, a New York City designated landmark), and the Strand Hotel (455-53 10 Avenue aka 500-502 West 14Street, 2-4 11 Avenue, façade altered, 1908, Richard R. Davis).

 

Concern about the welfare of sailors in the port of New York goes back to the early 19century. In May 1828, the American Seamen’s Friend Society was established in New York City as one of a number of 19 century religious organizations concerned with improving the social and moral welfare of seamen throughout the United States and abroad.

 

The Society opened its first home for sailors in Manhattan in 1837 as an alternative to the “dives, dance, halls, saloons, and the sailors’ boarding houses” that line the waterfront.

 

So great was the concern about the welfare of sailors, that the legislature of the State of New York enacted laws in 1866 and 1882 to require sailors’ hotels and boarding houses in Manhattan and Brooklyn to be licensed by a Board of Commissioners.

 

The Keller Hotel was used as an accommodation by transient sailors and was listed as such along with the Seamen’s Institute and another hotel in Manhattan in the Emergency Relief Bureau directory of October 19, 1935.

 

The Architect: Julius Munckwitz

 

Julius F. Munckwitz was born in c.1829 in Leipzig, Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1849.

 

He held the post of Supervising Architect and Superintendent of Parks in New York City and resigned from the Parks Department in 1885.

 

His son, Julius F. Munckwitz, Jr., succeeded him as Architect to the Parks Department.

 

The senior Munckwitz maintained an independent architectural practice by 1862 until his death in 1902.

 

He was a prominent architect who designed commercial buildings (E.D. Farrell Furniture Company, West 125 Street, Manhattan, 1891, demolished), hotels (Marie Antoinette Hotel, West 66 Street, Manhattan, 1895, expanded in 1903 by

 

C.P.H. Gilbert, demolished), office buildings (three at Broadway and 65 Street, 1901-02, all demolished) and multi-family residential buildings (126 Riverside Drive, 1900, demolished; northwest corner of 56 Street and Park Avenue, 1888, demolished).

 

Munckwitz also designed the Lincoln Square Arcade at the northwest corner of 65 Street and Broadway (1902, altered in 1931 by John L. Miller, Jr., demolished).

 

In connection with his position at the Parks Department, he designed the Boathouse in Central Park (1872-76, designated New York City Landmark) with Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould, Riverside Park (1875-1900) with Samuel Parsons and Calvert Vaux based on the plans of Frederick Law Olmsted, and the stone retaining wall at Morningside Park (1881-87) with Jacob Wrey Mould and Montgomery Kellogg. He was a member of the New York Chapter AIA, and elected a Fellow in 1864.

 

Knickerbocker and Keller Hotels

 

The large number of people that came through the Hudson River section of the Port of New York, especially between Christopher and 23 Streets with its ferry and transatlantic cruise line docks, included both travelers and sailors and created a demand for hotels along the Hudson River waterfront.

 

William Farrell, a prominent coal merchant, was born in Ireland c. 1827 and came to this country as a young boy.

 

He opened a coal yard at 144, 146, 148 and 150 Barrow Street in 1875, a branch yard at 622-628 Greenwich Street in 1884 and another yard at 129 Street and the Boulevard in 1887.

 

Farrell bought five lots comprising 385 West Street, 384 West Street aka 150 Barrow Street, 144, 146 and 148 Barrow Street from John S. McLean on December 10, 1890.

 

He built the hotel building on two of the lots in 1897-98 at an estimated cost of $68,000.His coal business continued in operation after his death in 1910 with Thomas F. Farrell as the president.

 

The first hotel to operate in the building was called the Knickerbocker Hotel.

 

It remained in business until about 1910.

 

Thomas F. Farrell, a merchant who operated a coal business at the same address on Barrow Street as William Farrell, was the proprietor of the hotel until 1903.

 

After 1903 Thomas F. Farrell continued in business as a successful coal merchant.

 

In 1903, Fritz Brodt (aka Fred Brodt) took over as proprietor of the Knickerbocker Hotel under a sub-lease from Thomas F. Farrell.

 

He ran the hotel and a saloon on the premises until about 1910. Brodt was born in France in 1845. From 1908 to 1910, Brodt had a contract with the United State government to furnish food to immigrants being detained at Ellis Island.

 

His contract was terminated by the Commissioner of Immigration William Williams after the Commissioner accused Brodt’s employees of coercing immigrants to purchase expensive packages of food.

 

The hotel operated under the name New Hotel Keller from about 1911 to about 1929, by the New Hotel Keller Co., Inc. with Joseph P. Mullarkey as the president.

 

The New York Telephone Directories list the hotel as the Keller Abington Hotel from 1929 to 1993 and as the Keller Hotel from 1993 to 2000.

 

The hotel was located directly across from the Hoboken ferry and close to other ferries and transatlantic cruise ships. In this location it could have attracted travelers who were newly arrived by ship or who had come by ship for a short stay, as well as sailors.

 

The Emergency Relief Bureau directory of October 19, 1935 listed the Keller Hotel as one of three hotels in Manhattan for transient sailors.

 

In the 1980s the Keller Hotel became a single room occupancy hotel in which the City housed indigent people.

 

It is now vacant but the interior is being altered to convert the upper floors into residential apartments.

 

Later History of the Greenwich Village Waterfront

 

After 1960, with the introduction of containerized shipping and the accompanying need for large facilities (space for which could be accommodated in Brooklyn and New Jersey), the Manhattan waterfront rapidly declined as the center of New York’s maritime commerce.

 

In addition, airplanes replaced ocean liners carrying passengers overseas.

 

Most of the piers and many of the buildings associated with Manhattan’s Hudson River maritime history have been demolished.

 

By the early 1970s, the western end of Christopher Street and adjacent blocks along West Street, long established with waterfront taverns, had become a nucleus for bars catering to a gay clientele.

 

The June 1969 rebellion by patrons of the Stonewall Bar, 55 Christopher Street, against police harassment, helped to launch a renewed national gay rights movement and made Christopher Street the social and cultural center of New York’s lesbian and gay community.

 

Subsequent History

 

The Keller Hotel building was owned by William Farrell’s estate until 1946 when it was sold to Sophia Lent.

 

Subsequent owners of the building include Montceil Realty Corp., who acquired it from Sophia Lent in 1950; William Gottlieb, who then purchased it in 1985 from Montceil. William Gottlieb (c. 1935-1999), a real estate investor, owned hundreds of buildings in Greenwich Village, Gansevoort and the Lower East Side and was known not to sell or re-develop his real estate properties.

 

Upon his death, his holdings passed to his sister, Mollie Bender.

 

The corner storefront at 384 West Street had been occupied as a restaurant, bar or saloon since at least the 1930s by a succession of tenants (Renee Tavern, 1939-1949, Charles Bar & Grill, 1950-1955, Keller Bar 1956-1998). The Keller Bar was reputed to be the oldest gay “leather” bar in the City.

 

The northern storefront at 385 West Street has been occupied by a number of different businesses, including John Dees, billiards (1940), Bering Marine Service Corp. field office (1945), Jerome Jawitz, electrical engineer (1950), Eastern Tire and Supply Company (1953-58) Lou Berg, seamen supplies and work clothes (1959-1970) and QQFS, catering (1973-1975).

 

Design and Construction

 

The Keller Hotel is a Renaissance Revival style masonry building with cast-iron storefronts. Classical and Renaissance-inspired architecture gained favor beginning in the 1880s, lasting into the 1920s.

 

The styles were popularized by American architects and patrons who had visited Europe or had seen pictures of European buildings, and were familiar with the masterpieces of classical, Renaissance, and neoclassical architecture.

 

These styles, which were used for all types of buildings, including commercial and residential, feature classical design forms and detailing used in various combinations and degrees of restraint or exuberance.

 

Julius F. Munckwitz, as a native of Leipzig, Germany, would have had first hand familiarity with Renaissance and neoclassical architecture. The Keller Hotel is an example of an elegant, restrained use of Renaissance-inspired ornament concentrated at the entrance door of the hotel and around the window openings.

 

The string courses between each floor, entrance portico with classical-inspired Corinthian columns and simple cornice with classical and Renaissance-inspired ornament are characteristic of the style.

 

Cast-iron storefronts can be found in New York City as early as 1825 and continued to be constructed long after cast-iron fronted buildings ceased to be constructed at the end of the 19century.

 

The use of cast-iron in the construction of storefronts permitted large display windows. The two storefronts at the Keller Hotel feature a continuous cornice and columns with a stylized floral design at the capitals.

 

Description

 

The six-story (plus basement) Renaissance Revival style Keller Hotel is located on the southeast corner of Barrow and West Streets. It has 48 foot frontage on Barrow Street and 70 foot frontage on West Street.

 

The building is clad in light-colored brick laid in stretcher bond with two cast iron storefronts at the West Street façade. There are five bays at upper floors of the West Street façade and six bays at the Barrow Street facade.Each bay at the Barrow and West Street façades has a single window at the second through six floors, except the western-most and eastern-most bays at the Barrow Street facade, which have paired windows.

 

The window configuration at the upper floors is square-headed one-over-one double-hung.

 

All the windows have aluminum replacement sash. The ground floor has an entrance to the hotel on Barrow Street and two storefronts on West Street, one of which is a corner storefront with two bays at the Barrow Street facade. Stone stringcourses between all the upper floors, a metal cornice at the ground floor and a projecting cornice, with modillions, frieze with circular designs and dentils, at the roof wrap around both street facades.

 

The upper floors have remnants of red paint. A metal hotel sign is located at the corner of the street facades at the second floor. It was installed prior to 1939-1941 on the West Street façade near the corner and was re-installed at the corner of the two street facades prior to 1964.

 

The building is substantially intact except for the removal of the entrance portico and infill at the storefronts. Barrow Street façade The entrance to the hotel had a square-shaped stone portico with Corinthian columns that was removed between 1964 and 1979.

 

A paneled wood door reveal and paneled wood and glass double-doors with a segmental arch-headed transom remain; however, the left leaf has been replaced or altered by the addition of metal cladding. There is a segmental arch-headed stone door surround with a cartouche flanked by stone Corinthian pilasters.

 

A stone platform at the entrance has been covered with concrete.

 

A non-historic metal awning frame and light fixtures have been installed above the entrance doors. The ground floor is constructed of brick, which has been painted a light color, and has a metal cornice, except above the entrance door where the portico was located. The ground floor has three square-headed window openings with quoined stone surrounds and lintels with keystones and a small round window opening with a stone surround with keystones.

 

The basement has two segmental arch-headed openings at the basement with stone lintels with keystones.

 

The ground floor window openings and the basement openings have non-historic infill.

 

The stairs to the basement openings have been covered by diamond plate. Wrought-iron railings that flanked the basement entrances have been removed. The windows at the upper floors have stone window surrounds with triangular pediment lintels at the second floor, square lintels at the third and fifth floors and segmental arched lintels at the fourth floors.

 

The lintels at the second, third and fourth floors are bracketed.

 

The paired windows at the eastern-most and western-most bays have shared lintels at the second through fifth floors.

 

Rooftop railings at the West Street and east facades, rooftop mechanical equipment and a one-story rooftop addition with white cladding are visible from the south on West Street. West Street façade The ground floor has two storefronts with cast-iron columns, a continuous metal cornice and recessed door openings with transoms.

 

The columns have capitals with a stylized floral design. The southern-most storefront is located at the corner of the building and has two bays on Barrow Street.

 

Both storefronts are boarded-up.

 

The windows at the upper floors have stone window surrounds and lintels that are identical to the ones on the Barrow Street facade. A rooftop railing is visible from Hudson River Park. East facade The east facade is visible over the adjacent one-story garage.

 

It is constructed of red brick and has four bays of square-headed window openings with stone lintels and sills.

 

The cornice wraps around the corner from Barrow Street.The window configuration is one-over-one double-hung.All the windows have aluminum replacement sash. The window openings at the two center bays have been altered. There is a fire escape at the two center bays and a fire stairs at the south end of the facade. There is a white gutter with a white downspout at the north end of the façade. A rooftop railing and the one-story rooftop addition with white cladding are visible over the east wall.

 

- From the 2007 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Jacksonville Port Authority (JAXPORT) tenant SSA Atlantic recently shipped a container filled with relief aid to the victims of Hurricane Dorian in The Bahamas. The container was donated by Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) and shipped to Freeport from JAXPORT aboard an MSC vessel.

 

The donated items, which include first aid kits, emergency blankets, food, toiletries, clothes, diapers and more, were collected, packed and shipped during a donation drive organized by SSA Atlantic, with support from other Blount Island Marine Terminal tenants, Jacksonville labor unions and maritime service providers.

 

“It’s going to be a marathon, not a sprint—and there’s much more work to be done,” said SSA Atlantic Vice President Florida Operations Frank McBride. “We are thankful to MSC and our maritime partners here in Jacksonville for taking action and helping us get these much-needed supplies to the island as quickly as possible.”

Other participants in the effort included TraPac Jacksonville, ILA Local 1408, ILA Local 1593, C&K Trucking, MSC, AMPORTS, Marine Repair Service, BJ’s Wholesale and the Jacksonville Maritime Association.

 

SSA and MSC will be shipping two more containers to the island over the next couple of weeks—one of those will include 10 pallets of rice donated by Mars Food Us LLC and the second to include donations collected from Fernandina Beach High School and others in the community.

 

The American Red Cross and JAXPORT have also established a website for cash donations to help victims of Hurricane Dorian.

 

JAXPORT offers regular containerized cargo service to Nassau and Freeport in The Bahamas, as well as year-round cruise service to the island aboard Carnival Cruise Line’s 2,056-passenger Carnival Ecstasy.

 

Tour map for Dorena Genetic Resource Center's 50th anniversary celebration. Cottage Grove, Oregon.

 

Photo by: Richard Sniezko

Date: August 25, 2016

 

Credit: USDA Forest Service, Region 6, Umpqua National Forest, Dorena Genetic Resource Center.

Source: Richard Sniezko, Cottage Grove, Oregon.

 

From the news release for the event:

"The USDA Forest Service’s Dorena Genetic Resource Center is celebrating 50 years of serving as a regional service center for Pacific Northwest tree and plant genetics.

 

Dorena GRC houses disease-resistance breeding programs for five-needled pines and Port-Orford-cedar, a native plant development program, and a national tree climbing program for the Forest Service. Their program is known internationally as a world leader in development of populations of trees with genetic resistance to non-native diseases.

 

The public is invited to the 50th celebration on Thursday, August 25 at the Cottage Grove-based center located 34963 Shoreview Road. The Open House and public tours are scheduled from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Tours of the center will include:

 

Genetic Resistance Trials

Inoculation ‘Fog’ Chamber

Tree Improvement Activities of Grafting, Pollination, & Seed Production

Port-Orford-cedar Containerized Orchards

Native Species Plant Development

Seed and Pollen Processing

Tree Climbing

 

A special guest at the event will be Jerry Barnes, the first manager at Dorena when established in 1966. All guests will be able to enjoy viewing informative posters about the programs and activities at the Center. ..."

For more see: www.fs.usda.gov/detail/umpqua/news-events/?cid=FSEPRD513088

 

Image provided by USDA Forest Service, Region 6, State and Private Forestry, Forest Health Protection: www.fs.usda.gov/main/r6/forest-grasslandhealth

SF Bay RR, 21 June 2018

 

The San Francisco Bay RR operates on the southeast side of San Francisco on and near the port. It uses two Alco S2 switchers that were built for the State Belt RR, later the San Francisco Belt RR, the line that served the piers of the Port of San Francisco for many years.

 

As shipping companies moved to containerization, the Port of Oakland became the big northern California container terminal and most of the piers of the Port of San Francisco were abandoned or converted to uses other than marine freight, so the SF Belt RR found itself out of a job. After 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the Embarcadero Freeway, which had run over the SF Belt for most of its length, the freeway was removed, opening up San Francisco's waterfront and much of the Belt's trackage as converted for use by the Muni F line, which runs historic streetcars to Fishermen's Wharf, and the Muni lines that now server the Caltrain station.

 

Meanwhile, Pier 96, near Hunter's Point was converted to a container facility and the railroad's operations survived there. The line was renamed the San Francisco Bay RR and continued to use Alco S2s 23 and 25 to switch its customers.

 

Today, the railroad's main business is transloading dirty dirt from constructions and clean up sites in the Bay Area from trucks to railcars. It is owned by Waste Solutions Group, which also owns a fleet of hopper cars. The SF Bay and UP interchange on an as needed basis, with UP's South City job running into the SF Bay's yard on Cargo Way with empties and taking away loads.

 

A couple of railfans, Ryan and Ben, work for the railroad and Ryan invited me to come by for a visit. I had stopped by one afternoon a couple of years ago, and lucked out to see an S2 running around the yard a bit, but the railrroad usually goes on duty betweeen 4 and 5 am, switches cars for a few hours and then is done for the day. So, a visit to the SF Bay from Sacramento entailed a night in a hotel. It took a few tries for me to get time off from work scheduled on the same day the railroad was running.

 

Eventually, it all lined up and my alarm went off at 0315 at a hotel in Daly City, just south of the SF city limit.

 

I was at the yard by 4 and met Ben, who went out and started Alco 23. 25 is out of service with a bad bearing on the radiator fan drive shaft. Ryan explained that the SF Belt had done a jerry rigged repair of the shaft at some point and it was never documented, so nobody knew about the bearing until it failed. As a new low emission unit will be delivered in the next few months, there is no reason to repair 25. 25 will be put on display somewhere, perhaps near the Ferry Building, while 23 will be held as backup for the new unit.

 

But for now, an S2 built in 1944 is doing the job it was built to do. If you think about it, that is as though the Virginia and Truckee had still been using the Reno and Genoa during WW2.

 

Shorty after I got there, Ben went out and fired up the 23. It has a block heater, so it started easily with a puff of white smoke. He did an inspection of the engine, including checking the journal boxes. We then went back into the office and waited for Ryan, brakeman Johnny, and engineer Nick to arrive. The crew plotted their switching moves for the day. Ryan, who is yard operations manager, suggested that I get some blue hour photos from the ground as empties were switched and then we rode 23 while they switched loads.

 

Each car has dirt from one particular construction site and the dirt from sites cannot be mixed as different sites will have different contamination. UP ships it to a dump site in Nevada, where it is processed. Ryan explained that sometimes they can use dividers in a car to separate dirt from different projects if there is not that much.

 

Right now transshipping dirty dirt is the SF Bay's only business, but there a couple of other industries are interested in bringing new business. The line that crosses the Illinois St. bridge has been out of service for a couple of years as there currently no customers north of Islais Creek.

 

We rode the S2 for a while after the day brightened, then got down and Ryan drove me around in a company car to get some more angles as they switched. He then had other work to do and I shot the end of 23's work day as well as 25, some spare Alco parts and another project of Waste Solutions, goats that are leased out for natural weed control. Ryan said that since Waste Solutions got more cars, they can't use their goats as much for weed control in the yard as most of the yard tracks are occupied.

 

The crew called it a day for switching about 0800 and then would be doing other work in the yard for the rest of their work day.

 

All of these photos were taken with permission after signing a release and while wearing required PPE.

 

I want to than Ryan, Ben, Johnny and Nick for their hospitality. I had a great time.

In the new model (according to Tapscott) we're realizing knoledge can't be containerized, an effective knowledge strategy depends on collaboration and reaching across the business web and organizational boundaries.

Meatpacking District, Gansevoort Market Historic District, Manhattan

 

This six-story store-and-loft building was constructed in 1903-04 for Diedrich and George A. Fink, paper and woodware merchants. By 1909, both Finks were deceased and the property was transferred to John Jordan, its builder. Also in 1909, the building concern of John Jordan & Son went bankrupt. Adeline S. Fink, presumably the widow of one of the Finks, married Jordan in 1910. This structure appears initially to have been used mostly for storage, packing, and offices. It was owned briefly in 1919-21 by poultry dealer August Silz [see 414-418 West 14th Street and 419 West 13' Street].

 

In 1921 (Alt. 2587-1921) the structure was converted into a cold storage warehouse for meatpackers. Edward Davis, Inc., supplier of meat and poultry for hotels, restaurants and steamships, was a long-term tenant. A painted sign advertising "Edward Davis, Inc." is still partially visible above the fourth story. Between 1966 and 1970, the building was owned and used by the New York Loin Corp. The next owner was Alfred P. Seligman, also owner of the Imperial Veal & Lamb Co., located here, and 426 West 14" Street [see], which becanie associated this building after its purchase by Seligman in 1977. In 1996-99, the upper stories were converted into offices.

 

This neo-Classical style building, which is largely intact, contributes to the historically mixed architecture and varied uses - including market-related functions - of the Gansevoort Market Historic District. Constructed in 1903-04, during one of the major phases of development of the district, when buildings were constructed for storage- and produce-related businesses and other market uses, this building further contributes to the visual cohesion of the district through its brick and stone facade, metal cornice, and metaI canopy.

 

Commercial Tenants Diedrich and George A. Fink, paper and woodware (1904-09); A. Silz, Inc., poultry (1906); William A. Vanwoert & Co., produce (1906); Edward Davis, Inc., meat and poultry for hotels, restaurants and steamships; Renid Sterilizing Corp (1929-65); Great Western Distributors (1939); Jiffy Foods, Inc. (1942); New York Loin Corp. (1966-70); Imperial Veal &Lamb Co. (1970-88); Heller Gallery (1999-2002)

 

----About the district----

 

The Gansevoort Market Historic District - consisting of 104 buildings - is distinctive for its architectural character which reflects the area's long history of continuous, varied use as a place of dwelling, industry, and commerce, particularly as a marketplace, and its urban layout. The buildings, most dating from the 1840s through the 1940s, represent four major phases of development, and include both purpose-built structures, designed in then-fashionable styles, and those later adapted for market use.

 

The architecture of the district tells the story of an important era in New York City's history when it became the financial center of the country and when its markets were expanding to serve the metropolitan region and beyond. Visual cohesion is provided to the streetscapes by the predominance of brick as a facade material; the one- to six-story scale; the presence of buildings designed by the same architects, a number of them prominent, including specialists in market-related structures; the existence of metal canopies originally installed for market purposes; and the Belgian block paving still visible on most streets.

 

The street layout is shaped by the transition between the irregular pattern of northwestern Greenwich Village (as far north as Gansevoort Street) and the grid of the 1811 Commissioner's Plan. Unusually large and open intersections contribute to the area's unique quality, particularly where Ninth Avenue meets West 14'~S treet and Gansevoort Street (which was widened in l887), and provide sweeping vistas that showcase the unusual building typology and mixed-use quality of the district. Aside from Tribeca, the Gansevoort Market Historic District is the only remaining marketplace district that served the once-flourishing Hudson River commercial waterfront.

 

The earliest buildings in the historic district date from the period between 1840 and 1854, most built as rowhouses and town houses, several of which soon became very early working-class tenements (all eventually had stores on the ground floor). The area's early mixed use, however, is evident in the rare surviving early factory building (c. 1849-60), on a flatiron-shaped lot, for Col. Silas C. Herring, a nationally significant manufacturer of safes and locks, at 669-685 Hudson Street.

 

This mixed use, consisting of single-family houses, multiple dwellings, and industry was unusual for the period. The stretch of Ninth Avenue between Gansevoort and West 15' Streets, albeit altered and interrupted with later additions, offers the vista of a distinctive Manhattan streetscape featuring twenty buildings of the 1840s: the rowhouses at Nos. 3-7 (c. 1849) and Nos. 21-27 (c. 1844-46), the Herring factory, and culminating in the rare, picturesque ensemble of twelve rowhouses and town houses, Nos. 44-60 Ninth Avenue and 351-355 West 14th Street (c. 1841-46), at the wide, angled intersection with Hudson and West 14" Streets. Another business from this period was the woodworking factory of the prominent building firm of James C. Hoe & Co. (c. 1850-54) at 52-58 Gansevoort Street (later altered).

 

After the Civil War, the area began to flourish commercially as New York City solidified its position as the financial center of the country, and construction resumed in the district in 1870. Two major businesses located here were A.H. Wellington's Merchants' Print Works (1 874, S. W. Johnson), cotton printers at 416-418 West 14" Street (later altered); and the Italianate style Centennial Brewery (1876, John B. Snook) at 409-41 1 West 14' Street.

 

The bulk of the buildings in the district date from the 1880s through the 1920s and were designed in then-popular historical revival styles. Residential and commercial development, including a variety of building types, was particularly spurred in the 1880s by two major factors. The first was the creation of two nearby municipal markets: the open-air Farmers' or Gansevoort Market (1 879), for regional produce, at Gansevoort and Washington Streets (adjacent to the historic district), and the West Washington Market (1889), for meat, poultry, and dairy products, on the river side of West Street. From the 1880s until World War II, wholesale produce, fruit, groceries, dairy products, eggs, specialty foods, and liquor (until Prohibition) were among the dominant businesses within the district in response to the adjacent markets, particularly along Gansevoort, Little West 12', and Washington Streets. The first of the two-story, purpose-built market buildings in the district were erected in 1880.

 

These vernacular and neo-Grec style structures typified the low-rise market buildings constructed in the district over the next 90 years: produce (or, later, meat) handling on the ground story, shielded by a metal canopy over the sidewalk, and offices on the second story.

 

Commercial construction during this period, which represents the highest percentage of the district's varied yet distinctive building stock, included not only low-rise purpose-built market buildings, but also, in a variety of period styles, stables buildings, and five- and six-story store-and-loft buildings and warehouses were constructed to house and serve these businesses. The warehouses, in particular, are among the most monumental structures in the district.

 

The second factor spurring development within the historic district was the 1878 partition of real estate owned by the Astor family, which had remained underdeveloped since John Jacob Astor 1's acquisition in 1819. Of the 104 buildings in the district, over one-third of them were constructed by the Astors and related family members. Astor improvements included the market buildings at 823-833 Washington Street and 32-36 Little West 12" Street (1880, Joseph M. Dunn, James Stroud); the distinguished Queen Anne style French flats building (with stores) at 440 West 14" Street (1887, James W. Cole), the block-long Queen Anne style produce market building at 859- 877 Washington Street (1887, Cole), and the handsome Romanesque Revival style stables building (1893, Thomas R. Jackson) for the New York Biscuit Co. (later Nabisco), the world's largest supplier of crackers, at 439-445 West 14" Street.

 

A number of other prominent owners also invested in real estate here and began to develop their properties: the Goelet family constructed the unusual flatiron-shaped store-and-loft building at 53-61 Gansevoort Street (1887, Dunn), which housed E.S.

 

Burnham & Co., clam canners; James AlfredRoosevelt owned the warehouse at 400 West 14thS treet (1886, Dunn); and former New York Mayor Hugh J. Grant developed the neo-Romanesque style warehouses (1 899-1900, George P. Chappell) at 97-103 Horatio Street. The Astors and other owners gave several commissions to architects Joseph M. Dunn, who designed seven buildings in the district, and James W. Cole, who designed three buildings in the district. These multiple commissions in the then-fashionable neo-Grec or Queen Anne styles contribute to the district's visual cohesion.

 

Between 1897 and 1935, nearly the entire block bounded by Gansevoort, Horatio, Washington, and West Streets was developed with a handsome neo-Classical style ensemble in tan brick, by noted architects Lansing C. Holden, J. Graham Glover, and John B. Snook Sons, that included a power plant and nine cold storage warehouses for the Manhattan Refrigerating Co. (incorporated 1894).

 

The company was responsible for installing the system of underground pipes that carried refrigeration to market-related structures throughout the district by about 1906. This infrastructure, along with the completion by the N.Y.C. Dept. of Docks of the nearby Gansevoort Piers (1894-1902) and Chelsea Piers (1902-10, with Warren & Wetmore), docks for the great trans- Atlantic steamships (and the busiest section of New York's port), had profound impacts on the district. The distribution of wholesale meat, poultry, and seafood, particularly for hotels, restaurants, and steamships, emerged as an important business throughout the district, resulting in new construction as well as bringing new uses to existing buildings. Some companies were subsidiaries of major national meatpackers, while other independent firms were among the nation's largest.

 

The underground refrigeration system, the new piers, and the emergence of new uses relating to the burgeoning hotel and steamship industry further triggered the 20th-century construction and architectural change and flexibility that has shaped the character of the Gansevoort Market Historic District. Typically, commercial redevelopments of neighborhoods in New York City involved the demolition of earlier buildings for structures housing new uses. However, one of the district's unique qualities is that earlier buildings were retained and altered to market uses. Earlier examples include the Centennial Brewery (409-41 1 West 14" Street), converted to meat, produce, and dairy use in 1901, and 21-27 Ninth Avenue, rowhouses adapted in 1923-24 as meat market buildings.

 

Over the years, the Astors continued their policy of high-quality architectural commissions by hiring distinguished architects known for their significant public, commercial, and residential buildings, such as the neo-Classical style offices and printing plant (1901-02, Trowbridge & Livingston) of P.F. Collier & Son, publisher of books and the nationally-known magazine Collier's, at 416-424 West 13' Street; the neo-Romanesque style liquor warehouse at 29-35 Ninth Avenue (1902-03, Boring & Tilton); and the Arts and Crafts style warehouse building (1913, LaFarge, Morris & Cullen) at 5 Little West 1 2 '~S treet.

 

The completion of the Holland Tunnel (1927), the elevated Miller Highway (1931), and the New York Central Railroad's elevated freight railway (1934) providedeasier access between the area and the metropolitan region and spurred another major phase of new low-rise construction and the functional conversion of existing buildings for market use in the district. New structures included the earlyInternationa1 style General Electric Co. annex (1929-30, Lockwood Greene Engineers, Inc.) at 414 West 14' Street, and the Moderne style John Morrell & Co. meat market building (1936-37, H. Peter Henschien) at 446-448 West 14'~S treet.

 

The unusually wide Gansevoort Street assumed its distinctive character of low-rise market buildings with metal canopies at this time, through such new construction as the fruitlproduce market building (1938-39, Charles H. Stadler) at No. 46-50, and the Moderne style R&L Restaurant (1949), at No.69, and newly adapted structures, including No. 52-58 (formerly James C. Hoe & Co.), altered as a market building in 1937, and No. 60-68 (1880-81 tenements), reduced to a two-story market building in 1940.

 

By World War II, poultry- and meat- packing had consolidated as the main commercial activity within the district. Maritime commerce along the Hudson River waterfront declined by the 1960s, however, with the end of the ocean liner era and the rise of containerized shipping. Changes in the meat and poultry industries meant a lessening presence in this area. The Manhattan Refrigerating Co. closed in 1979 and its buildings were subsequently converted to apartments.

 

The completion of several more transportation and development projects (most located outside the historic district) in the 1930s spurred another major phase of new low-rise construction and functional conversion for market use of existing buildings within the historic district. Easier access was provided between the market area and the metropolitan region. The construction of the elevated Miller Highway (1929-3 1) necessitated the displacement of some produce and meat and poultry merchants in both the Gansevoort and West Washington Markets, including the demolition of several buildings at the latter. The Port of New York Authority built the Union Inland Terminal No. 1 (1931-32, Abbott, Merkt & Co.), a unified truck-rail terminal (modeled functionally after the Starrett-Lehigh Building), just northeast of the district and occupying the entire block at Ninth Avenue and West 15" Street.

 

The New York Central Railroad's elevated freight railway (193 1-34) passed through some thirty buildings on its route southward to the new St. John's Park Freight Terminal at West and Clarkson Streets. This railway also used part of the Gansevoort Market site, and additionally, the City constructed a meat processing plant on the market site (1939). The Lincoln Tunnel (1937) provided a second automotive route to New Jersey. The Ninth Avenue el, which ran through the district, was demolished (c. 1940); streetcar tracks located below the el had been taken up in 1936.

 

The first new purpose-built low-scale (one-story) market building in the historic district was 14-20 Little West 12" Street (1928, John B. Snook Sons), for the Wendel family and used initially by produce merchants. The P.F. Collier & Son building at 416-424 West 13" Street became a warehouse of the General Electric Co. in 1929; an early International style annex (1929-30, Lockwood Greene Engineers, Inc.) was constructed next door at 414 West 14" Street. Owned by Vincent Astor, this was the last of the Astor improvements within the district. 13 and 15 Little West 12' Street (1933, Martin Smith) were one-story fruit market buildings. Designed in the Moderne style were the John Morrell & Co. meat market building (1936-37, H. Peter Henschien) at 446-448 West 14th Street; the meat market building at 837-843 Washington Street (1938, David M. Oltarsh); and the fruitlproduce market building at 46-50 Gansevoort Street (1938-39, Charles H. Stadler).

 

Built at a time when the growing prevalence of the automobile resulted in the predominance of new market types throughout the U.S. (such as drive-in markets, chain grocery stores, and supermarkets), these buildings are rare and late examples of the older market building typology.34 Many of the buildings in the district that were architecturally adapted for market functions were properties acquired through foreclosure at the height of the Depression. Most of these buildings were functionally maximized at two stories (vacant, formerly residential, upper stories were no longer necessary): the lower story was refrigerated for produce or meat use and the upper story held offices. The unusually wide Gansevoort Street assumed its distinctive character of low-rise market buildings with metal canopies at this time, largely through such newly-adapted structures, including the vernacular style No. 52-58 (formerly James C. Hoe & Co.), altered as a fruit and produce market building in 1937 (S. Walter Katz); the neo-Grec style No. 60-68 (five 1880-81 tenements), reduced to a two-story market building in 1940 (Voorhees, Walker, Foley & Smith); and No. 7 1-73 (aka 8 17- 821 Washington Street) (three 1886-87 Queen Anne style French flats buildings), reduced to three stories in 1940 for use as a meat market building. The neo-Grec and utilitarian style 823-833 Washington Street and neo-Grec style 32-36 Little West 12" Street, 1880 two-story market buildings, were also altered in 1940-41 for meat merchants.

 

By World War II, poultry- and meat- packing had consolidated as the main commercial activity throughout the district. The opening of the Queens Live Poultry Terminal Market (1941) caused poultry dealers to move from the West Washington Market, replaced in part by produce merchants. The creation in 1950 of the Gansevoort Market Meat Center on the site of Gansevoort Market and the demolition of the remaining West Washington Market buildings, with the associated displacement of the businesses at both locations, hastened changes within the district. In 1959, the Gansevoort Market area was referred to in the New York Times as "the largest meat and poultry receiving market in the world. In the district, 408-412 West 13" Street (1941, Charles N. & Selig Whinston) was a new two-story market building used by hides/skins and meat businesses, while 36- 40 Gansevoort Street (aka 831-835 Greenwich Street) (1947-48, Horace Ginsbern & Assocs.), for poultry businesses, was the last new purpose-built market building in the district. The Moderne style R & L Restaurant (1949), 69 Gansevoort Street, resulted from the alteration of a three-story house.

 

Alterations associated with conversions to meat market uses included 809-813 Washington Street (aka 70-74 Gansevoort Street) (1940-42, Voorhees, Walker, Foley & Smith), a freight trucking depot altered in 1950; 402-404 and 406 West 13th Street (1840s rowhouses) altered in1950 and 1955 (Abraham L. Seiden); and 15 and 13 Little West 12" Street (c. 1961 and 1969 additions, bylattributed to Seiden).

 

Today, the Gansevoort Market Historic District is a vibrant neighborhood of remaining meatpackers, high-end retail commerce, restaurants, offices, clubs, galleries, and apartments, that retains, despite recent changes, a strong and integral sense of place as a market district, due to its distinctive streetscapes, metal canopies, notable buildings, both purpose-built and those adapted over the years for market use, and unusual street pattern with its Belgian block paving.

 

- From the 2003 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Mammoet PTC (Platform Twinring Containerized)crane (pronounced Mammoot) in 1/50th scale, over six feet tall, so actual machine is over 300 feet tall.

Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

 

The Keller Hotel was constructed in 1897-98 to the Renaissance Revival style design of Julius Munckwitz. He was Supervising Architect and Superintendent of Parks in New York City and maintained an architectural practice in Harlem. Most of the buildings that Munckwitz designed have been demolished.

 

The building was built by William Farrell, a prominent coal merchant. The hotel was operated by several proprietors including Fritz Brodt, who had a contract with the United States government to provide food to immigrants at Ellis Island. The hotel was located near ferry and transatlantic cruise ship docks where thousands of visitors arrived. By at least 1935, it housed transient sailors.

 

After the decline of the maritime industry on the Hudson River, the Keller Hotel became a single-room occupancy hotel and the Keller Bar at the corner storefront became a popular bar catering to a gay clientele.

 

The building is currently vacant, but the interior is being altered to convert the upper floors to residential use. The building has two cast-iron storefronts at the ground floor of the West Street façade, which feature a continuous cornice and columns with a stylized floral design at the capitals. The upper floors are constructed of brick with stone trim and feature a restrained use of classical and Renaissance-inspired ornament.

 

It is one of the last surviving turn-of-the-century Hudson River waterfront hotels.

 

The building, situated along the Hudson River, is a significant reminder of the era when the Port of New York was one of the world’s busiest and the section of the Hudson River between Christopher and 23 Streets was the heart of the busiest section of the Port of New York.

 

DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

 

The Port of New York and the Greenwich Village Waterfront

 

By the early nineteenth century, New York City developed as the largest port in the United States and in the early twentieth century emerged as one of the busiest ports in the world. In Manhattan, South Street along the East River had been the primary artery for maritime commerce, but West Street became a competitor in the 1870s and supplanted the former by about 1890.

 

The construction, by the New York City Department of Docks, of the Gansevoort Piers (1894-1902) and Chelsea Piers (1902-10, Warren & Wetmore) between West 11 and West 23 Streets, just north of Barrow Street, had a profound impact on this section of the Hudson River waterfront.

 

These long docks accommodated large transatlantic liners. This area was described in 1914 as “in the heart of the busiest section of the port, adjacent to the transatlantic liners, coast and gulf vessels, between Christopher and 23 Streets, surrounded by 5,000 seamen of all nationalities” of the half a million seamen that come into the harbor each year.

 

By 1939, the Federal Writers’ Project’s New York City Guide described this “most lucrative water-front property in the world” as follows:

 

Although the western rim of Manhattan is but a small section of New York’s far-flung port, along it is concentrated the largest aggregate of marine enterprises in the world.

 

Glaciers of freight and cargo move across this stripe of … waterfront.

 

It is the domain of the super-liner, but it is shared by the freighter, the river boat, the ferry, and the soot-faced tug … Ships and shipping are not visible along much of West Street. South of Twenty-third Street, the river is walled by an almost unbroken line of bulkhead sheds and dock structures …

 

Opposite the piers, along the entire length of the highway, nearly every block houses its quota of cheap lunchrooms, tawdry saloons and waterfront haberdasheries catering to the thousands of polyglot seamen who haunt the “front.” Men “on the beach” (out of employment) usually make their headquarters in barrooms, which are frequented mainly by employees of lines leasing piers in their vicinity.

 

The Keller Hotel is one of last surviving turn-of-the-century Hudson River waterfront hotels. In addition to the Keller Hotel, the only other surviving waterfront hotels in Greenwich Village are the Great Eastern Hotel (180-184 Christopher Street aka 386 West Street, highly altered to combine three existing buildings and façade altered, 1888, John B. Franklin), the Holland Hotel (305 West 10 Street aka 396-397 West Street, 1904, Charles Stegmayer, located within the Weehawken Historic District), the American Seamen’s Friend Society Sailor’s Home and Institute (113-110 Jane Street aka 505-507 West Street, 1907-08, William A. Boring, a New York City designated landmark), and the Strand Hotel (455-53 10 Avenue aka 500-502 West 14Street, 2-4 11 Avenue, façade altered, 1908, Richard R. Davis).

 

Concern about the welfare of sailors in the port of New York goes back to the early 19century. In May 1828, the American Seamen’s Friend Society was established in New York City as one of a number of 19 century religious organizations concerned with improving the social and moral welfare of seamen throughout the United States and abroad.

 

The Society opened its first home for sailors in Manhattan in 1837 as an alternative to the “dives, dance, halls, saloons, and the sailors’ boarding houses” that line the waterfront.

 

So great was the concern about the welfare of sailors, that the legislature of the State of New York enacted laws in 1866 and 1882 to require sailors’ hotels and boarding houses in Manhattan and Brooklyn to be licensed by a Board of Commissioners.

 

The Keller Hotel was used as an accommodation by transient sailors and was listed as such along with the Seamen’s Institute and another hotel in Manhattan in the Emergency Relief Bureau directory of October 19, 1935.

 

The Architect: Julius Munckwitz

 

Julius F. Munckwitz was born in c.1829 in Leipzig, Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1849.

 

He held the post of Supervising Architect and Superintendent of Parks in New York City and resigned from the Parks Department in 1885.

 

His son, Julius F. Munckwitz, Jr., succeeded him as Architect to the Parks Department.

 

The senior Munckwitz maintained an independent architectural practice by 1862 until his death in 1902.

 

He was a prominent architect who designed commercial buildings (E.D. Farrell Furniture Company, West 125 Street, Manhattan, 1891, demolished), hotels (Marie Antoinette Hotel, West 66 Street, Manhattan, 1895, expanded in 1903 by

 

C.P.H. Gilbert, demolished), office buildings (three at Broadway and 65 Street, 1901-02, all demolished) and multi-family residential buildings (126 Riverside Drive, 1900, demolished; northwest corner of 56 Street and Park Avenue, 1888, demolished).

 

Munckwitz also designed the Lincoln Square Arcade at the northwest corner of 65 Street and Broadway (1902, altered in 1931 by John L. Miller, Jr., demolished).

 

In connection with his position at the Parks Department, he designed the Boathouse in Central Park (1872-76, designated New York City Landmark) with Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould, Riverside Park (1875-1900) with Samuel Parsons and Calvert Vaux based on the plans of Frederick Law Olmsted, and the stone retaining wall at Morningside Park (1881-87) with Jacob Wrey Mould and Montgomery Kellogg. He was a member of the New York Chapter AIA, and elected a Fellow in 1864.

 

Knickerbocker and Keller Hotels

 

The large number of people that came through the Hudson River section of the Port of New York, especially between Christopher and 23 Streets with its ferry and transatlantic cruise line docks, included both travelers and sailors and created a demand for hotels along the Hudson River waterfront.

 

William Farrell, a prominent coal merchant, was born in Ireland c. 1827 and came to this country as a young boy.

 

He opened a coal yard at 144, 146, 148 and 150 Barrow Street in 1875, a branch yard at 622-628 Greenwich Street in 1884 and another yard at 129 Street and the Boulevard in 1887.

 

Farrell bought five lots comprising 385 West Street, 384 West Street aka 150 Barrow Street, 144, 146 and 148 Barrow Street from John S. McLean on December 10, 1890.

 

He built the hotel building on two of the lots in 1897-98 at an estimated cost of $68,000.His coal business continued in operation after his death in 1910 with Thomas F. Farrell as the president.

 

The first hotel to operate in the building was called the Knickerbocker Hotel.

 

It remained in business until about 1910.

 

Thomas F. Farrell, a merchant who operated a coal business at the same address on Barrow Street as William Farrell, was the proprietor of the hotel until 1903.

 

After 1903 Thomas F. Farrell continued in business as a successful coal merchant.

 

In 1903, Fritz Brodt (aka Fred Brodt) took over as proprietor of the Knickerbocker Hotel under a sub-lease from Thomas F. Farrell.

 

He ran the hotel and a saloon on the premises until about 1910. Brodt was born in France in 1845. From 1908 to 1910, Brodt had a contract with the United State government to furnish food to immigrants being detained at Ellis Island.

 

His contract was terminated by the Commissioner of Immigration William Williams after the Commissioner accused Brodt’s employees of coercing immigrants to purchase expensive packages of food.

 

The hotel operated under the name New Hotel Keller from about 1911 to about 1929, by the New Hotel Keller Co., Inc. with Joseph P. Mullarkey as the president.

 

The New York Telephone Directories list the hotel as the Keller Abington Hotel from 1929 to 1993 and as the Keller Hotel from 1993 to 2000.

 

The hotel was located directly across from the Hoboken ferry and close to other ferries and transatlantic cruise ships. In this location it could have attracted travelers who were newly arrived by ship or who had come by ship for a short stay, as well as sailors.

 

The Emergency Relief Bureau directory of October 19, 1935 listed the Keller Hotel as one of three hotels in Manhattan for transient sailors.

 

In the 1980s the Keller Hotel became a single room occupancy hotel in which the City housed indigent people.

 

It is now vacant but the interior is being altered to convert the upper floors into residential apartments.

 

Later History of the Greenwich Village Waterfront

 

After 1960, with the introduction of containerized shipping and the accompanying need for large facilities (space for which could be accommodated in Brooklyn and New Jersey), the Manhattan waterfront rapidly declined as the center of New York’s maritime commerce.

 

In addition, airplanes replaced ocean liners carrying passengers overseas.

 

Most of the piers and many of the buildings associated with Manhattan’s Hudson River maritime history have been demolished.

 

By the early 1970s, the western end of Christopher Street and adjacent blocks along West Street, long established with waterfront taverns, had become a nucleus for bars catering to a gay clientele.

 

The June 1969 rebellion by patrons of the Stonewall Bar, 55 Christopher Street, against police harassment, helped to launch a renewed national gay rights movement and made Christopher Street the social and cultural center of New York’s lesbian and gay community.

 

Subsequent History

 

The Keller Hotel building was owned by William Farrell’s estate until 1946 when it was sold to Sophia Lent.

 

Subsequent owners of the building include Montceil Realty Corp., who acquired it from Sophia Lent in 1950; William Gottlieb, who then purchased it in 1985 from Montceil. William Gottlieb (c. 1935-1999), a real estate investor, owned hundreds of buildings in Greenwich Village, Gansevoort and the Lower East Side and was known not to sell or re-develop his real estate properties.

 

Upon his death, his holdings passed to his sister, Mollie Bender.

 

The corner storefront at 384 West Street had been occupied as a restaurant, bar or saloon since at least the 1930s by a succession of tenants (Renee Tavern, 1939-1949, Charles Bar & Grill, 1950-1955, Keller Bar 1956-1998). The Keller Bar was reputed to be the oldest gay “leather” bar in the City.

 

The northern storefront at 385 West Street has been occupied by a number of different businesses, including John Dees, billiards (1940), Bering Marine Service Corp. field office (1945), Jerome Jawitz, electrical engineer (1950), Eastern Tire and Supply Company (1953-58) Lou Berg, seamen supplies and work clothes (1959-1970) and QQFS, catering (1973-1975).

 

Design and Construction

 

The Keller Hotel is a Renaissance Revival style masonry building with cast-iron storefronts. Classical and Renaissance-inspired architecture gained favor beginning in the 1880s, lasting into the 1920s.

 

The styles were popularized by American architects and patrons who had visited Europe or had seen pictures of European buildings, and were familiar with the masterpieces of classical, Renaissance, and neoclassical architecture.

 

These styles, which were used for all types of buildings, including commercial and residential, feature classical design forms and detailing used in various combinations and degrees of restraint or exuberance.

 

Julius F. Munckwitz, as a native of Leipzig, Germany, would have had first hand familiarity with Renaissance and neoclassical architecture. The Keller Hotel is an example of an elegant, restrained use of Renaissance-inspired ornament concentrated at the entrance door of the hotel and around the window openings.

 

The string courses between each floor, entrance portico with classical-inspired Corinthian columns and simple cornice with classical and Renaissance-inspired ornament are characteristic of the style.

 

Cast-iron storefronts can be found in New York City as early as 1825 and continued to be constructed long after cast-iron fronted buildings ceased to be constructed at the end of the 19century.

 

The use of cast-iron in the construction of storefronts permitted large display windows. The two storefronts at the Keller Hotel feature a continuous cornice and columns with a stylized floral design at the capitals.

 

Description

 

The six-story (plus basement) Renaissance Revival style Keller Hotel is located on the southeast corner of Barrow and West Streets. It has 48 foot frontage on Barrow Street and 70 foot frontage on West Street.

 

The building is clad in light-colored brick laid in stretcher bond with two cast iron storefronts at the West Street façade. There are five bays at upper floors of the West Street façade and six bays at the Barrow Street facade.Each bay at the Barrow and West Street façades has a single window at the second through six floors, except the western-most and eastern-most bays at the Barrow Street facade, which have paired windows.

 

The window configuration at the upper floors is square-headed one-over-one double-hung.

 

All the windows have aluminum replacement sash. The ground floor has an entrance to the hotel on Barrow Street and two storefronts on West Street, one of which is a corner storefront with two bays at the Barrow Street facade. Stone stringcourses between all the upper floors, a metal cornice at the ground floor and a projecting cornice, with modillions, frieze with circular designs and dentils, at the roof wrap around both street facades.

 

The upper floors have remnants of red paint. A metal hotel sign is located at the corner of the street facades at the second floor. It was installed prior to 1939-1941 on the West Street façade near the corner and was re-installed at the corner of the two street facades prior to 1964.

 

The building is substantially intact except for the removal of the entrance portico and infill at the storefronts. Barrow Street façade The entrance to the hotel had a square-shaped stone portico with Corinthian columns that was removed between 1964 and 1979.

 

A paneled wood door reveal and paneled wood and glass double-doors with a segmental arch-headed transom remain; however, the left leaf has been replaced or altered by the addition of metal cladding. There is a segmental arch-headed stone door surround with a cartouche flanked by stone Corinthian pilasters.

 

A stone platform at the entrance has been covered with concrete.

 

A non-historic metal awning frame and light fixtures have been installed above the entrance doors. The ground floor is constructed of brick, which has been painted a light color, and has a metal cornice, except above the entrance door where the portico was located. The ground floor has three square-headed window openings with quoined stone surrounds and lintels with keystones and a small round window opening with a stone surround with keystones.

 

The basement has two segmental arch-headed openings at the basement with stone lintels with keystones.

 

The ground floor window openings and the basement openings have non-historic infill.

 

The stairs to the basement openings have been covered by diamond plate. Wrought-iron railings that flanked the basement entrances have been removed. The windows at the upper floors have stone window surrounds with triangular pediment lintels at the second floor, square lintels at the third and fifth floors and segmental arched lintels at the fourth floors.

 

The lintels at the second, third and fourth floors are bracketed.

 

The paired windows at the eastern-most and western-most bays have shared lintels at the second through fifth floors.

 

Rooftop railings at the West Street and east facades, rooftop mechanical equipment and a one-story rooftop addition with white cladding are visible from the south on West Street. West Street façade The ground floor has two storefronts with cast-iron columns, a continuous metal cornice and recessed door openings with transoms.

 

The columns have capitals with a stylized floral design. The southern-most storefront is located at the corner of the building and has two bays on Barrow Street.

 

Both storefronts are boarded-up.

 

The windows at the upper floors have stone window surrounds and lintels that are identical to the ones on the Barrow Street facade. A rooftop railing is visible from Hudson River Park. East facade The east facade is visible over the adjacent one-story garage.

 

It is constructed of red brick and has four bays of square-headed window openings with stone lintels and sills.

 

The cornice wraps around the corner from Barrow Street.The window configuration is one-over-one double-hung.All the windows have aluminum replacement sash. The window openings at the two center bays have been altered. There is a fire escape at the two center bays and a fire stairs at the south end of the facade. There is a white gutter with a white downspout at the north end of the façade. A rooftop railing and the one-story rooftop addition with white cladding are visible over the east wall.

 

- From the 2007 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

National Forests utilize the Coeur D'Alene Nursery to obtain plantings for public land. The Coeur d'Alene Nursery is a full service facility that can provide bare root and containerized plant stock for publicly-owned lands.

 

Photos by the Flathead National Forest botany crew, 2018.

The Royal Victoria Dock is dominated by the ExCeL Exhibition Centre, constructed on the north quayside and opened in November 2000. This is where we were heading for the Women's Team Foil event. For the 2012 Summer Olympics, ExCeL London was divided into five sports halls with capacities ranging from 6,000 to 10,000 that were used for boxing, fencing, judo, taekwondo, table tennis, weightlifting, and wrestling.

 

Royal Victoria Dock was opened in 1855 on a previously uninhabited area of Plaistow Marshes. It was the first of the Royal Docks and the first London dock to be designed specifically to accommodate large steam ships.

 

The dock was an immediate commercial success, as it could easily accommodate all but the very largest steamships. By 1860, it was already taking over 850,000 tons of shipping a year - double that of the London Docks, four times that of St Katharine Docks and 70% more than the West India Dock and East India Docks combined. It was badly damaged by German bombing in World War II but experienced a resurgence in trade following the war. However, from the 1960s onwards, the Royal Victoria experienced a steady decline - as did all of London's other docks - as the shipping industry adopted containerization, which effectively moved traffic downstream to Tilbury. It finally closed to commercial traffic along with the other Royal Docks in 1980.

 

Focusun's engineering team is making sure this machine is ready to be shipped to the customer's site.

Focusun provides small and large capacity cube ice machine.

Jacksonville Port Authority (JAXPORT) tenant SSA Atlantic recently shipped a container filled with relief aid to the victims of Hurricane Dorian in The Bahamas. The container was donated by Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) and shipped to Freeport from JAXPORT aboard an MSC vessel.

 

The donated items, which include first aid kits, emergency blankets, food, toiletries, clothes, diapers and more, were collected, packed and shipped during a donation drive organized by SSA Atlantic, with support from other Blount Island Marine Terminal tenants, Jacksonville labor unions and maritime service providers.

 

“It’s going to be a marathon, not a sprint—and there’s much more work to be done,” said SSA Atlantic Vice President Florida Operations Frank McBride. “We are thankful to MSC and our maritime partners here in Jacksonville for taking action and helping us get these much-needed supplies to the island as quickly as possible.”

Other participants in the effort included TraPac Jacksonville, ILA Local 1408, ILA Local 1593, C&K Trucking, MSC, AMPORTS, Marine Repair Service, BJ’s Wholesale and the Jacksonville Maritime Association.

 

SSA and MSC will be shipping two more containers to the island over the next couple of weeks—one of those will include 10 pallets of rice donated by Mars Food Us LLC and the second to include donations collected from Fernandina Beach High School and others in the community.

 

The American Red Cross and JAXPORT have also established a website for cash donations to help victims of Hurricane Dorian.

 

JAXPORT offers regular containerized cargo service to Nassau and Freeport in The Bahamas, as well as year-round cruise service to the island aboard Carnival Cruise Line’s 2,056-passenger Carnival Ecstasy.

 

SF Bay RR, 21 June 2018

 

The San Francisco Bay RR operates on the southeast side of San Francisco on and near the port. It uses two Alco S2 switchers that were built for the State Belt RR, later the San Francisco Belt RR, the line that served the piers of the Port of San Francisco for many years.

 

As shipping companies moved to containerization, the Port of Oakland became the big northern California container terminal and most of the piers of the Port of San Francisco were abandoned or converted to uses other than marine freight, so the SF Belt RR found itself out of a job. After 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the Embarcadero Freeway, which had run over the SF Belt for most of its length, the freeway was removed, opening up San Francisco's waterfront and much of the Belt's trackage as converted for use by the Muni F line, which runs historic streetcars to Fishermen's Wharf, and the Muni lines that now server the Caltrain station.

 

Meanwhile, Pier 96, near Hunter's Point was converted to a container facility and the railroad's operations survived there. The line was renamed the San Francisco Bay RR and continued to use Alco S2s 23 and 25 to switch its customers.

 

Today, the railroad's main business is transloading dirty dirt from constructions and clean up sites in the Bay Area from trucks to railcars. It is owned by Waste Solutions Group, which also owns a fleet of hopper cars. The SF Bay and UP interchange on an as needed basis, with UP's South City job running into the SF Bay's yard on Cargo Way with empties and taking away loads.

 

A couple of railfans, Ryan and Ben, work for the railroad and Ryan invited me to come by for a visit. I had stopped by one afternoon a couple of years ago, and lucked out to see an S2 running around the yard a bit, but the railrroad usually goes on duty betweeen 4 and 5 am, switches cars for a few hours and then is done for the day. So, a visit to the SF Bay from Sacramento entailed a night in a hotel. It took a few tries for me to get time off from work scheduled on the same day the railroad was running.

 

Eventually, it all lined up and my alarm went off at 0315 at a hotel in Daly City, just south of the SF city limit.

 

I was at the yard by 4 and met Ben, who went out and started Alco 23. 25 is out of service with a bad bearing on the radiator fan drive shaft. Ryan explained that the SF Belt had done a jerry rigged repair of the shaft at some point and it was never documented, so nobody knew about the bearing until it failed. As a new low emission unit will be delivered in the next few months, there is no reason to repair 25. 25 will be put on display somewhere, perhaps near the Ferry Building, while 23 will be held as backup for the new unit.

 

But for now, an S2 built in 1944 is doing the job it was built to do. If you think about it, that is as though the Virginia and Truckee had still been using the Reno and Genoa during WW2.

 

Shorty after I got there, Ben went out and fired up the 23. It has a block heater, so it started easily with a puff of white smoke. He did an inspection of the engine, including checking the journal boxes. We then went back into the office and waited for Ryan, brakeman Johnny, and engineer Nick to arrive. The crew plotted their switching moves for the day. Ryan, who is yard operations manager, suggested that I get some blue hour photos from the ground as empties were switched and then we rode 23 while they switched loads.

 

Each car has dirt from one particular construction site and the dirt from sites cannot be mixed as different sites will have different contamination. UP ships it to a dump site in Nevada, where it is processed. Ryan explained that sometimes they can use dividers in a car to separate dirt from different projects if there is not that much.

 

Right now transshipping dirty dirt is the SF Bay's only business, but there a couple of other industries are interested in bringing new business. The line that crosses the Illinois St. bridge has been out of service for a couple of years as there currently no customers north of Islais Creek.

 

We rode the S2 for a while after the day brightened, then got down and Ryan drove me around in a company car to get some more angles as they switched. He then had other work to do and I shot the end of 23's work day as well as 25, some spare Alco parts and another project of Waste Solutions, goats that are leased out for natural weed control. Ryan said that since Waste Solutions got more cars, they can't use their goats as much for weed control in the yard as most of the yard tracks are occupied.

 

The crew called it a day for switching about 0800 and then would be doing other work in the yard for the rest of their work day.

 

All of these photos were taken with permission after signing a release and while wearing required PPE.

 

I want to than Ryan, Ben, Johnny and Nick for their hospitality. I had a great time.

Containerized sedges and rushes planted in jute blanket to stabilize the engineered channel and help restore wetland and riparian habitat.

 

Brian Mihlbachler/USFWS

I had a little bit of luck tonight as I knew 60 020 had worked north on the Lime last night and was also later confirmed as working back with 6V71 Hardendale to Margam containerized lime. I had no idea if it was booked to stop in Shrewsbury for a crew change, but I decided to chance it may stop

My heart dropped when no driver got off a north bound unit (as did happen last time I went for 6V71) so I assumed the 60 would sail past with no chance of a night shot

However the last unit off Shrewsbury for Cardiff was on the wrong platform and the resulting shunting about delayed both the timber and the lime

Here Colas 56 096 / 56 105 with 6C37 Chirk to Carlisle empty timber made a short stop at Shrewsbury enabling me to grab a night shot

 

Along West 35th Street between 9th Avenue and Dyer Avenue in NYC on Thursday afternoon, 23 June 2022 by Elvert Barnes Photography

 

PILES OF BAGGED TRASH ON NYC SIDEWALKS Project

 

Learn about NYC Sidewalk Trash Collection at www.city-journal.org/new-york-sidewalk-garbage-problem

 

Learn about NYC CLEAN CURBS PILOT PROGRAM at www.nyc.gov/assets/dsny/site/our-work/containerized-waste...

 

Walk to Yotel Hotel

 

Elvert Barnes 52nd NYC GAY PRIDE 2022 at

elvertxbarnes.com/nyc-gay-pride

 

Elvert Barnes June 2022 docu-project at elvertxbarnes.com/2022

Durch die Aufrüstung ihrer Biogasanlagen-Standorte mit acht MWM BHKW Containern und MWM TCG 3016 Gasmotoren hat das Agrar-Unternehmen Gebrüder Nooren GbR die installierte elektrische Leistung der bestehenden Anlagen verdoppelt. Der erzeugte Strom wird in das öffentliche Netz gespeist.

 

MWM Container with TCG 3016 Gas Engines at Nooren Bioenergie, Germany:

By replacing the engines of its biogas plant locations with eight containerized MWM cogeneration power plants and MWM TCG 3016 gas engines, the agricultural company Gebrüder Nooren GbR has doubled the installed electrical output of the existing plants. The generated power is fed into the public grid.

 

Urheber/Creator: Nooren Bioenergie Verwaltungs GmbH

 

Copyright: Bestimmte Rechte vorbehalten. Alle Bilder und Logos unterliegen folgender Creative Commons Lizenzbestimmung: Namensnennung - Nicht-kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitung 2.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) // Some rights reserved. All images and logos are subject to the following creative Commons licence: Attribution - Non Commercial - No Derives 2.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

 

SF Bay RR, 21 June 2018

 

The San Francisco Bay RR operates on the southeast side of San Francisco on and near the port. It uses two Alco S2 switchers that were built for the State Belt RR, later the San Francisco Belt RR, the line that served the piers of the Port of San Francisco for many years.

 

As shipping companies moved to containerization, the Port of Oakland became the big northern California container terminal and most of the piers of the Port of San Francisco were abandoned or converted to uses other than marine freight, so the SF Belt RR found itself out of a job. After 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the Embarcadero Freeway, which had run over the SF Belt for most of its length, the freeway was removed, opening up San Francisco's waterfront and much of the Belt's trackage as converted for use by the Muni F line, which runs historic streetcars to Fishermen's Wharf, and the Muni lines that now server the Caltrain station.

 

Meanwhile, Pier 96, near Hunter's Point was converted to a container facility and the railroad's operations survived there. The line was renamed the San Francisco Bay RR and continued to use Alco S2s 23 and 25 to switch its customers.

 

Today, the railroad's main business is transloading dirty dirt from constructions and clean up sites in the Bay Area from trucks to railcars. It is owned by Waste Solutions Group, which also owns a fleet of hopper cars. The SF Bay and UP interchange on an as needed basis, with UP's South City job running into the SF Bay's yard on Cargo Way with empties and taking away loads.

 

A couple of railfans, Ryan and Ben, work for the railroad and Ryan invited me to come by for a visit. I had stopped by one afternoon a couple of years ago, and lucked out to see an S2 running around the yard a bit, but the railrroad usually goes on duty betweeen 4 and 5 am, switches cars for a few hours and then is done for the day. So, a visit to the SF Bay from Sacramento entailed a night in a hotel. It took a few tries for me to get time off from work scheduled on the same day the railroad was running.

 

Eventually, it all lined up and my alarm went off at 0315 at a hotel in Daly City, just south of the SF city limit.

 

I was at the yard by 4 and met Ben, who went out and started Alco 23. 25 is out of service with a bad bearing on the radiator fan drive shaft. Ryan explained that the SF Belt had done a jerry rigged repair of the shaft at some point and it was never documented, so nobody knew about the bearing until it failed. As a new low emission unit will be delivered in the next few months, there is no reason to repair 25. 25 will be put on display somewhere, perhaps near the Ferry Building, while 23 will be held as backup for the new unit.

 

But for now, an S2 built in 1944 is doing the job it was built to do. If you think about it, that is as though the Virginia and Truckee had still been using the Reno and Genoa during WW2.

 

Shorty after I got there, Ben went out and fired up the 23. It has a block heater, so it started easily with a puff of white smoke. He did an inspection of the engine, including checking the journal boxes. We then went back into the office and waited for Ryan, brakeman Johnny, and engineer Nick to arrive. The crew plotted their switching moves for the day. Ryan, who is yard operations manager, suggested that I get some blue hour photos from the ground as empties were switched and then we rode 23 while they switched loads.

 

Each car has dirt from one particular construction site and the dirt from sites cannot be mixed as different sites will have different contamination. UP ships it to a dump site in Nevada, where it is processed. Ryan explained that sometimes they can use dividers in a car to separate dirt from different projects if there is not that much.

 

Right now transshipping dirty dirt is the SF Bay's only business, but there a couple of other industries are interested in bringing new business. The line that crosses the Illinois St. bridge has been out of service for a couple of years as there currently no customers north of Islais Creek.

 

We rode the S2 for a while after the day brightened, then got down and Ryan drove me around in a company car to get some more angles as they switched. He then had other work to do and I shot the end of 23's work day as well as 25, some spare Alco parts and another project of Waste Solutions, goats that are leased out for natural weed control. Ryan said that since Waste Solutions got more cars, they can't use their goats as much for weed control in the yard as most of the yard tracks are occupied.

 

The crew called it a day for switching about 0800 and then would be doing other work in the yard for the rest of their work day.

 

All of these photos were taken with permission after signing a release and while wearing required PPE.

 

I want to than Ryan, Ben, Johnny and Nick for their hospitality. I had a great time.

Pictures of various equipment & machinery (mainly purchased from the Ritchie Brothers Auction) parked at Big Iron's shipping & containerization yard to be dismantled and containerized.

 

Visit us at www.bigiron4sale.com to get a quote to containerize your heavy equipment. We can transport it any port in the world as well, as for a quote.

Jacksonville Port Authority (JAXPORT) tenant SSA Atlantic recently shipped a container filled with relief aid to the victims of Hurricane Dorian in The Bahamas. The container was donated by Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) and shipped to Freeport from JAXPORT aboard an MSC vessel.

 

The donated items, which include first aid kits, emergency blankets, food, toiletries, clothes, diapers and more, were collected, packed and shipped during a donation drive organized by SSA Atlantic, with support from other Blount Island Marine Terminal tenants, Jacksonville labor unions and maritime service providers.

 

“It’s going to be a marathon, not a sprint—and there’s much more work to be done,” said SSA Atlantic Vice President Florida Operations Frank McBride. “We are thankful to MSC and our maritime partners here in Jacksonville for taking action and helping us get these much-needed supplies to the island as quickly as possible.”

Other participants in the effort included TraPac Jacksonville, ILA Local 1408, ILA Local 1593, C&K Trucking, MSC, AMPORTS, Marine Repair Service, BJ’s Wholesale and the Jacksonville Maritime Association.

 

SSA and MSC will be shipping two more containers to the island over the next couple of weeks—one of those will include 10 pallets of rice donated by Mars Food Us LLC and the second to include donations collected from Fernandina Beach High School and others in the community.

 

The American Red Cross and JAXPORT have also established a website for cash donations to help victims of Hurricane Dorian.

 

JAXPORT offers regular containerized cargo service to Nassau and Freeport in The Bahamas, as well as year-round cruise service to the island aboard Carnival Cruise Line’s 2,056-passenger Carnival Ecstasy.

 

Foliage detail, California Poppy,

Eschscholzia californica

Taken from a containerized plant in camp as my wife and I live a mobile life of camp hosting.

13Apr14 BushPhoto

Eschscholzia californica

Papaveraceae

SF Bay RR, 21 June 2018

 

The San Francisco Bay RR operates on the southeast side of San Francisco on and near the port. It uses two Alco S2 switchers that were built for the State Belt RR, later the San Francisco Belt RR, the line that served the piers of the Port of San Francisco for many years.

 

As shipping companies moved to containerization, the Port of Oakland became the big northern California container terminal and most of the piers of the Port of San Francisco were abandoned or converted to uses other than marine freight, so the SF Belt RR found itself out of a job. After 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the Embarcadero Freeway, which had run over the SF Belt for most of its length, the freeway was removed, opening up San Francisco's waterfront and much of the Belt's trackage as converted for use by the Muni F line, which runs historic streetcars to Fishermen's Wharf, and the Muni lines that now server the Caltrain station.

 

Meanwhile, Pier 96, near Hunter's Point was converted to a container facility and the railroad's operations survived there. The line was renamed the San Francisco Bay RR and continued to use Alco S2s 23 and 25 to switch its customers.

 

Today, the railroad's main business is transloading dirty dirt from constructions and clean up sites in the Bay Area from trucks to railcars. It is owned by Waste Solutions Group, which also owns a fleet of hopper cars. The SF Bay and UP interchange on an as needed basis, with UP's South City job running into the SF Bay's yard on Cargo Way with empties and taking away loads.

 

A couple of railfans, Ryan and Ben, work for the railroad and Ryan invited me to come by for a visit. I had stopped by one afternoon a couple of years ago, and lucked out to see an S2 running around the yard a bit, but the railrroad usually goes on duty betweeen 4 and 5 am, switches cars for a few hours and then is done for the day. So, a visit to the SF Bay from Sacramento entailed a night in a hotel. It took a few tries for me to get time off from work scheduled on the same day the railroad was running.

 

Eventually, it all lined up and my alarm went off at 0315 at a hotel in Daly City, just south of the SF city limit.

 

I was at the yard by 4 and met Ben, who went out and started Alco 23. 25 is out of service with a bad bearing on the radiator fan drive shaft. Ryan explained that the SF Belt had done a jerry rigged repair of the shaft at some point and it was never documented, so nobody knew about the bearing until it failed. As a new low emission unit will be delivered in the next few months, there is no reason to repair 25. 25 will be put on display somewhere, perhaps near the Ferry Building, while 23 will be held as backup for the new unit.

 

But for now, an S2 built in 1944 is doing the job it was built to do. If you think about it, that is as though the Virginia and Truckee had still been using the Reno and Genoa during WW2.

 

Shorty after I got there, Ben went out and fired up the 23. It has a block heater, so it started easily with a puff of white smoke. He did an inspection of the engine, including checking the journal boxes. We then went back into the office and waited for Ryan, brakeman Johnny, and engineer Nick to arrive. The crew plotted their switching moves for the day. Ryan, who is yard operations manager, suggested that I get some blue hour photos from the ground as empties were switched and then we rode 23 while they switched loads.

 

Each car has dirt from one particular construction site and the dirt from sites cannot be mixed as different sites will have different contamination. UP ships it to a dump site in Nevada, where it is processed. Ryan explained that sometimes they can use dividers in a car to separate dirt from different projects if there is not that much.

 

Right now transshipping dirty dirt is the SF Bay's only business, but there a couple of other industries are interested in bringing new business. The line that crosses the Illinois St. bridge has been out of service for a couple of years as there currently no customers north of Islais Creek.

 

We rode the S2 for a while after the day brightened, then got down and Ryan drove me around in a company car to get some more angles as they switched. He then had other work to do and I shot the end of 23's work day as well as 25, some spare Alco parts and another project of Waste Solutions, goats that are leased out for natural weed control. Ryan said that since Waste Solutions got more cars, they can't use their goats as much for weed control in the yard as most of the yard tracks are occupied.

 

The crew called it a day for switching about 0800 and then would be doing other work in the yard for the rest of their work day.

 

All of these photos were taken with permission after signing a release and while wearing required PPE.

 

I want to than Ryan, Ben, Johnny and Nick for their hospitality. I had a great time.

Meatpacking District, Gansevoort Market Historic District, Manhattan

 

This was the second (1923) of two modern market buildings constructed on this block by developer John J. Gillen and his partner, architect James S. Maher [see Architects Appendix]. Their other building was 413-435 West 14" Street [see], constructed in 1913-14. Their firm, the owner of this structure, was the West 14" Street Corp.

 

The property had been purchased in 1923 from the estate of William Waldorf Astor, who had died in1919. Like their other building, this one was quite successful in attracting long-term tenants, which included both food-related and non-food-related businesses: George Cook Poultry Corp., and L.I. Duck Growers Assn.1 L.I. Duck Packing, poultry; Woolley & Hughes, Inc., produce; Rothschild-Bernstein, Inc., Edward J. Burbank Co., GothamHotel Supply Co., and M&W Packing, Inc., meat; Charles Wissman Co., provisions; Josephson Mfg. Corp., stationery; World Examining /Sponging Works; and the Coffee Pot and Blue Arrow Luncheonette, restaurants.

 

This Arts and Crafts style building, which is largely intact, contributes to the historicallymixed architectural character and varied uses - including market-related functions - of the Gansevoort Market Historic District. Constructed in 1923 during a major phase of development of the district, when buildings were constructed for produce- and meat-related businesses or other market uses, the building further contributes to the visual cohesion of West 14th Street through its prominent corner location, two brick and concrete facades, steel industrial windows, and the fact that it is one of three buildings on the street designed by architect James S. Maher, who was also a partner in its development.

  

----About the district----

 

The Gansevoort Market Historic District - consisting of 104 buildings - is distinctive for its architectural character which reflects the area's long history of continuous, varied use as a place of dwelling, industry, and commerce, particularly as a marketplace, and its urban layout. The buildings, most dating from the 1840s through the 1940s, represent four major phases of development, and include both purpose-built structures, designed in then-fashionable styles, and those later adapted for market use.

 

The architecture of the district tells the story of an important era in New York City's history when it became the financial center of the country and when its markets were expanding to serve the metropolitan region and beyond. Visual cohesion is provided to the streetscapes by the predominance of brick as a facade material; the one- to six-story scale; the presence of buildings designed by the same architects, a number of them prominent, including specialists in market-related structures; the existence of metal canopies originally installed for market purposes; and the Belgian block paving still visible on most streets.

 

The street layout is shaped by the transition between the irregular pattern of northwestern Greenwich Village (as far north as Gansevoort Street) and the grid of the 1811 Commissioner's Plan. Unusually large and open intersections contribute to the area's unique quality, particularly where Ninth Avenue meets West 14'~S treet and Gansevoort Street (which was widened in l887), and provide sweeping vistas that showcase the unusual building typology and mixed-use quality of the district. Aside from Tribeca, the Gansevoort Market Historic District is the only remaining marketplace district that served the once-flourishing Hudson River commercial waterfront.

 

The earliest buildings in the historic district date from the period between 1840 and 1854, most built as rowhouses and town houses, several of which soon became very early working-class tenements (all eventually had stores on the ground floor). The area's early mixed use, however, is evident in the rare surviving early factory building (c. 1849-60), on a flatiron-shaped lot, for Col. Silas C. Herring, a nationally significant manufacturer of safes and locks, at 669-685 Hudson Street.

 

This mixed use, consisting of single-family houses, multiple dwellings, and industry was unusual for the period. The stretch of Ninth Avenue between Gansevoort and West 15' Streets, albeit altered and interrupted with later additions, offers the vista of a distinctive Manhattan streetscape featuring twenty buildings of the 1840s: the rowhouses at Nos. 3-7 (c. 1849) and Nos. 21-27 (c. 1844-46), the Herring factory, and culminating in the rare, picturesque ensemble of twelve rowhouses and town houses, Nos. 44-60 Ninth Avenue and 351-355 West 14th Street (c. 1841-46), at the wide, angled intersection with Hudson and West 14" Streets. Another business from this period was the woodworking factory of the prominent building firm of James C. Hoe & Co. (c. 1850-54) at 52-58 Gansevoort Street (later altered).

 

After the Civil War, the area began to flourish commercially as New York City solidified its position as the financial center of the country, and construction resumed in the district in 1870. Two major businesses located here were A.H. Wellington's Merchants' Print Works (1 874, S. W. Johnson), cotton printers at 416-418 West 14" Street (later altered); and the Italianate style Centennial Brewery (1876, John B. Snook) at 409-41 1 West 14' Street.

 

The bulk of the buildings in the district date from the 1880s through the 1920s and were designed in then-popular historical revival styles. Residential and commercial development, including a variety of building types, was particularly spurred in the 1880s by two major factors. The first was the creation of two nearby municipal markets: the open-air Farmers' or Gansevoort Market (1 879), for regional produce, at Gansevoort and Washington Streets (adjacent to the historic district), and the West Washington Market (1889), for meat, poultry, and dairy products, on the river side of West Street. From the 1880s until World War II, wholesale produce, fruit, groceries, dairy products, eggs, specialty foods, and liquor (until Prohibition) were among the dominant businesses within the district in response to the adjacent markets, particularly along Gansevoort, Little West 12', and Washington Streets. The first of the two-story, purpose-built market buildings in the district were erected in 1880.

 

These vernacular and neo-Grec style structures typified the low-rise market buildings constructed in the district over the next 90 years: produce (or, later, meat) handling on the ground story, shielded by a metal canopy over the sidewalk, and offices on the second story.

 

Commercial construction during this period, which represents the highest percentage of the district's varied yet distinctive building stock, included not only low-rise purpose-built market buildings, but also, in a variety of period styles, stables buildings, and five- and six-story store-and-loft buildings and warehouses were constructed to house and serve these businesses. The warehouses, in particular, are among the most monumental structures in the district.

 

The second factor spurring development within the historic district was the 1878 partition of real estate owned by the Astor family, which had remained underdeveloped since John Jacob Astor 1's acquisition in 1819. Of the 104 buildings in the district, over one-third of them were constructed by the Astors and related family members. Astor improvements included the market buildings at 823-833 Washington Street and 32-36 Little West 12" Street (1880, Joseph M. Dunn, James Stroud); the distinguished Queen Anne style French flats building (with stores) at 440 West 14" Street (1887, James W. Cole), the block-long Queen Anne style produce market building at 859- 877 Washington Street (1887, Cole), and the handsome Romanesque Revival style stables building (1893, Thomas R. Jackson) for the New York Biscuit Co. (later Nabisco), the world's largest supplier of crackers, at 439-445 West 14" Street.

 

A number of other prominent owners also invested in real estate here and began to develop their properties: the Goelet family constructed the unusual flatiron-shaped store-and-loft building at 53-61 Gansevoort Street (1887, Dunn), which housed E.S.

 

Burnham & Co., clam canners; James AlfredRoosevelt owned the warehouse at 400 West 14thS treet (1886, Dunn); and former New York Mayor Hugh J. Grant developed the neo-Romanesque style warehouses (1 899-1900, George P. Chappell) at 97-103 Horatio Street. The Astors and other owners gave several commissions to architects Joseph M. Dunn, who designed seven buildings in the district, and James W. Cole, who designed three buildings in the district. These multiple commissions in the then-fashionable neo-Grec or Queen Anne styles contribute to the district's visual cohesion.

 

Between 1897 and 1935, nearly the entire block bounded by Gansevoort, Horatio, Washington, and West Streets was developed with a handsome neo-Classical style ensemble in tan brick, by noted architects Lansing C. Holden, J. Graham Glover, and John B. Snook Sons, that included a power plant and nine cold storage warehouses for the Manhattan Refrigerating Co. (incorporated 1894).

 

The company was responsible for installing the system of underground pipes that carried refrigeration to market-related structures throughout the district by about 1906. This infrastructure, along with the completion by the N.Y.C. Dept. of Docks of the nearby Gansevoort Piers (1894-1902) and Chelsea Piers (1902-10, with Warren & Wetmore), docks for the great trans- Atlantic steamships (and the busiest section of New York's port), had profound impacts on the district. The distribution of wholesale meat, poultry, and seafood, particularly for hotels, restaurants, and steamships, emerged as an important business throughout the district, resulting in new construction as well as bringing new uses to existing buildings. Some companies were subsidiaries of major national meatpackers, while other independent firms were among the nation's largest.

 

The underground refrigeration system, the new piers, and the emergence of new uses relating to the burgeoning hotel and steamship industry further triggered the 20th-century construction and architectural change and flexibility that has shaped the character of the Gansevoort Market Historic District. Typically, commercial redevelopments of neighborhoods in New York City involved the demolition of earlier buildings for structures housing new uses. However, one of the district's unique qualities is that earlier buildings were retained and altered to market uses. Earlier examples include the Centennial Brewery (409-41 1 West 14" Street), converted to meat, produce, and dairy use in 1901, and 21-27 Ninth Avenue, rowhouses adapted in 1923-24 as meat market buildings.

 

Over the years, the Astors continued their policy of high-quality architectural commissions by hiring distinguished architects known for their significant public, commercial, and residential buildings, such as the neo-Classical style offices and printing plant (1901-02, Trowbridge & Livingston) of P.F. Collier & Son, publisher of books and the nationally-known magazine Collier's, at 416-424 West 13' Street; the neo-Romanesque style liquor warehouse at 29-35 Ninth Avenue (1902-03, Boring & Tilton); and the Arts and Crafts style warehouse building (1913, LaFarge, Morris & Cullen) at 5 Little West 1 2 '~S treet.

 

The completion of the Holland Tunnel (1927), the elevated Miller Highway (1931), and the New York Central Railroad's elevated freight railway (1934) providedeasier access between the area and the metropolitan region and spurred another major phase of new low-rise construction and the functional conversion of existing buildings for market use in the district. New structures included the earlyInternationa1 style General Electric Co. annex (1929-30, Lockwood Greene Engineers, Inc.) at 414 West 14' Street, and the Moderne style John Morrell & Co. meat market building (1936-37, H. Peter Henschien) at 446-448 West 14'~S treet.

 

The unusually wide Gansevoort Street assumed its distinctive character of low-rise market buildings with metal canopies at this time, through such new construction as the fruitlproduce market building (1938-39, Charles H. Stadler) at No. 46-50, and the Moderne style R&L Restaurant (1949), at No.69, and newly adapted structures, including No. 52-58 (formerly James C. Hoe & Co.), altered as a market building in 1937, and No. 60-68 (1880-81 tenements), reduced to a two-story market building in 1940.

 

By World War II, poultry- and meat- packing had consolidated as the main commercial activity within the district. Maritime commerce along the Hudson River waterfront declined by the 1960s, however, with the end of the ocean liner era and the rise of containerized shipping. Changes in the meat and poultry industries meant a lessening presence in this area. The Manhattan Refrigerating Co. closed in 1979 and its buildings were subsequently converted to apartments.

 

The completion of several more transportation and development projects (most located outside the historic district) in the 1930s spurred another major phase of new low-rise construction and functional conversion for market use of existing buildings within the historic district. Easier access was provided between the market area and the metropolitan region. The construction of the elevated Miller Highway (1929-3 1) necessitated the displacement of some produce and meat and poultry merchants in both the Gansevoort and West Washington Markets, including the demolition of several buildings at the latter. The Port of New York Authority built the Union Inland Terminal No. 1 (1931-32, Abbott, Merkt & Co.), a unified truck-rail terminal (modeled functionally after the Starrett-Lehigh Building), just northeast of the district and occupying the entire block at Ninth Avenue and West 15" Street.

 

The New York Central Railroad's elevated freight railway (193 1-34) passed through some thirty buildings on its route southward to the new St. John's Park Freight Terminal at West and Clarkson Streets. This railway also used part of the Gansevoort Market site, and additionally, the City constructed a meat processing plant on the market site (1939). The Lincoln Tunnel (1937) provided a second automotive route to New Jersey. The Ninth Avenue el, which ran through the district, was demolished (c. 1940); streetcar tracks located below the el had been taken up in 1936.

 

The first new purpose-built low-scale (one-story) market building in the historic district was 14-20 Little West 12" Street (1928, John B. Snook Sons), for the Wendel family and used initially by produce merchants. The P.F. Collier & Son building at 416-424 West 13" Street became a warehouse of the General Electric Co. in 1929; an early International style annex (1929-30, Lockwood Greene Engineers, Inc.) was constructed next door at 414 West 14" Street. Owned by Vincent Astor, this was the last of the Astor improvements within the district. 13 and 15 Little West 12' Street (1933, Martin Smith) were one-story fruit market buildings. Designed in the Moderne style were the John Morrell & Co. meat market building (1936-37, H. Peter Henschien) at 446-448 West 14th Street; the meat market building at 837-843 Washington Street (1938, David M. Oltarsh); and the fruitlproduce market building at 46-50 Gansevoort Street (1938-39, Charles H. Stadler).

 

Built at a time when the growing prevalence of the automobile resulted in the predominance of new market types throughout the U.S. (such as drive-in markets, chain grocery stores, and supermarkets), these buildings are rare and late examples of the older market building typology.34 Many of the buildings in the district that were architecturally adapted for market functions were properties acquired through foreclosure at the height of the Depression. Most of these buildings were functionally maximized at two stories (vacant, formerly residential, upper stories were no longer necessary): the lower story was refrigerated for produce or meat use and the upper story held offices. The unusually wide Gansevoort Street assumed its distinctive character of low-rise market buildings with metal canopies at this time, largely through such newly-adapted structures, including the vernacular style No. 52-58 (formerly James C. Hoe & Co.), altered as a fruit and produce market building in 1937 (S. Walter Katz); the neo-Grec style No. 60-68 (five 1880-81 tenements), reduced to a two-story market building in 1940 (Voorhees, Walker, Foley & Smith); and No. 7 1-73 (aka 8 17- 821 Washington Street) (three 1886-87 Queen Anne style French flats buildings), reduced to three stories in 1940 for use as a meat market building. The neo-Grec and utilitarian style 823-833 Washington Street and neo-Grec style 32-36 Little West 12" Street, 1880 two-story market buildings, were also altered in 1940-41 for meat merchants.

 

By World War II, poultry- and meat- packing had consolidated as the main commercial activity throughout the district. The opening of the Queens Live Poultry Terminal Market (1941) caused poultry dealers to move from the West Washington Market, replaced in part by produce merchants. The creation in 1950 of the Gansevoort Market Meat Center on the site of Gansevoort Market and the demolition of the remaining West Washington Market buildings, with the associated displacement of the businesses at both locations, hastened changes within the district. In 1959, the Gansevoort Market area was referred to in the New York Times as "the largest meat and poultry receiving market in the world. In the district, 408-412 West 13" Street (1941, Charles N. & Selig Whinston) was a new two-story market building used by hides/skins and meat businesses, while 36- 40 Gansevoort Street (aka 831-835 Greenwich Street) (1947-48, Horace Ginsbern & Assocs.), for poultry businesses, was the last new purpose-built market building in the district. The Moderne style R & L Restaurant (1949), 69 Gansevoort Street, resulted from the alteration of a three-story house.

 

Alterations associated with conversions to meat market uses included 809-813 Washington Street (aka 70-74 Gansevoort Street) (1940-42, Voorhees, Walker, Foley & Smith), a freight trucking depot altered in 1950; 402-404 and 406 West 13th Street (1840s rowhouses) altered in1950 and 1955 (Abraham L. Seiden); and 15 and 13 Little West 12" Street (c. 1961 and 1969 additions, bylattributed to Seiden).

 

Today, the Gansevoort Market Historic District is a vibrant neighborhood of remaining meatpackers, high-end retail commerce, restaurants, offices, clubs, galleries, and apartments, that retains, despite recent changes, a strong and integral sense of place as a market district, due to its distinctive streetscapes, metal canopies, notable buildings, both purpose-built and those adapted over the years for market use, and unusual street pattern with its Belgian block paving.

 

- From the 2003 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

SF Bay RR, 21 June 2018

 

The San Francisco Bay RR operates on the southeast side of San Francisco on and near the port. It uses two Alco S2 switchers that were built for the State Belt RR, later the San Francisco Belt RR, the line that served the piers of the Port of San Francisco for many years.

 

As shipping companies moved to containerization, the Port of Oakland became the big northern California container terminal and most of the piers of the Port of San Francisco were abandoned or converted to uses other than marine freight, so the SF Belt RR found itself out of a job. After 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the Embarcadero Freeway, which had run over the SF Belt for most of its length, the freeway was removed, opening up San Francisco's waterfront and much of the Belt's trackage as converted for use by the Muni F line, which runs historic streetcars to Fishermen's Wharf, and the Muni lines that now server the Caltrain station.

 

Meanwhile, Pier 96, near Hunter's Point was converted to a container facility and the railroad's operations survived there. The line was renamed the San Francisco Bay RR and continued to use Alco S2s 23 and 25 to switch its customers.

 

Today, the railroad's main business is transloading dirty dirt from constructions and clean up sites in the Bay Area from trucks to railcars. It is owned by Waste Solutions Group, which also owns a fleet of hopper cars. The SF Bay and UP interchange on an as needed basis, with UP's South City job running into the SF Bay's yard on Cargo Way with empties and taking away loads.

 

A couple of railfans, Ryan and Ben, work for the railroad and Ryan invited me to come by for a visit. I had stopped by one afternoon a couple of years ago, and lucked out to see an S2 running around the yard a bit, but the railrroad usually goes on duty betweeen 4 and 5 am, switches cars for a few hours and then is done for the day. So, a visit to the SF Bay from Sacramento entailed a night in a hotel. It took a few tries for me to get time off from work scheduled on the same day the railroad was running.

 

Eventually, it all lined up and my alarm went off at 0315 at a hotel in Daly City, just south of the SF city limit.

 

I was at the yard by 4 and met Ben, who went out and started Alco 23. 25 is out of service with a bad bearing on the radiator fan drive shaft. Ryan explained that the SF Belt had done a jerry rigged repair of the shaft at some point and it was never documented, so nobody knew about the bearing until it failed. As a new low emission unit will be delivered in the next few months, there is no reason to repair 25. 25 will be put on display somewhere, perhaps near the Ferry Building, while 23 will be held as backup for the new unit.

 

But for now, an S2 built in 1944 is doing the job it was built to do. If you think about it, that is as though the Virginia and Truckee had still been using the Reno and Genoa during WW2.

 

Shorty after I got there, Ben went out and fired up the 23. It has a block heater, so it started easily with a puff of white smoke. He did an inspection of the engine, including checking the journal boxes. We then went back into the office and waited for Ryan, brakeman Johnny, and engineer Nick to arrive. The crew plotted their switching moves for the day. Ryan, who is yard operations manager, suggested that I get some blue hour photos from the ground as empties were switched and then we rode 23 while they switched loads.

 

Each car has dirt from one particular construction site and the dirt from sites cannot be mixed as different sites will have different contamination. UP ships it to a dump site in Nevada, where it is processed. Ryan explained that sometimes they can use dividers in a car to separate dirt from different projects if there is not that much.

 

Right now transshipping dirty dirt is the SF Bay's only business, but there a couple of other industries are interested in bringing new business. The line that crosses the Illinois St. bridge has been out of service for a couple of years as there currently no customers north of Islais Creek.

 

We rode the S2 for a while after the day brightened, then got down and Ryan drove me around in a company car to get some more angles as they switched. He then had other work to do and I shot the end of 23's work day as well as 25, some spare Alco parts and another project of Waste Solutions, goats that are leased out for natural weed control. Ryan said that since Waste Solutions got more cars, they can't use their goats as much for weed control in the yard as most of the yard tracks are occupied.

 

The crew called it a day for switching about 0800 and then would be doing other work in the yard for the rest of their work day.

 

All of these photos were taken with permission after signing a release and while wearing required PPE.

 

I want to than Ryan, Ben, Johnny and Nick for their hospitality. I had a great time.

Meatpacking District, Gansevoort Market Historic District, Manhattan

 

This was the second (1923) of two modern market buildings constructed on this block by developer John J. Gillen and his partner, architect James S. Maher [see Architects Appendix]. Their other building was 413-435 West 14" Street [see], constructed in 1913-14. Their firm, the owner of this structure, was the West 14" Street Corp.

 

The property had been purchased in 1923 from the estate of William Waldorf Astor, who had died in1919. Like their other building, this one was quite successful in attracting long-term tenants, which included both food-related and non-food-related businesses: George Cook Poultry Corp., and L.I. Duck Growers Assn.1 L.I. Duck Packing, poultry; Woolley & Hughes, Inc., produce; Rothschild-Bernstein, Inc., Edward J. Burbank Co., GothamHotel Supply Co., and M&W Packing, Inc., meat; Charles Wissman Co., provisions; Josephson Mfg. Corp., stationery; World Examining /Sponging Works; and the Coffee Pot and Blue Arrow Luncheonette, restaurants.

 

This Arts and Crafts style building, which is largely intact, contributes to the historicallymixed architectural character and varied uses - including market-related functions - of the Gansevoort Market Historic District. Constructed in 1923 during a major phase of development of the district, when buildings were constructed for produce- and meat-related businesses or other market uses, the building further contributes to the visual cohesion of West 14th Street through its prominent corner location, two brick and concrete facades, steel industrial windows, and the fact that it is one of three buildings on the street designed by architect James S. Maher, who was also a partner in its development.

  

----About the district----

 

The Gansevoort Market Historic District - consisting of 104 buildings - is distinctive for its architectural character which reflects the area's long history of continuous, varied use as a place of dwelling, industry, and commerce, particularly as a marketplace, and its urban layout. The buildings, most dating from the 1840s through the 1940s, represent four major phases of development, and include both purpose-built structures, designed in then-fashionable styles, and those later adapted for market use.

 

The architecture of the district tells the story of an important era in New York City's history when it became the financial center of the country and when its markets were expanding to serve the metropolitan region and beyond. Visual cohesion is provided to the streetscapes by the predominance of brick as a facade material; the one- to six-story scale; the presence of buildings designed by the same architects, a number of them prominent, including specialists in market-related structures; the existence of metal canopies originally installed for market purposes; and the Belgian block paving still visible on most streets.

 

The street layout is shaped by the transition between the irregular pattern of northwestern Greenwich Village (as far north as Gansevoort Street) and the grid of the 1811 Commissioner's Plan. Unusually large and open intersections contribute to the area's unique quality, particularly where Ninth Avenue meets West 14'~S treet and Gansevoort Street (which was widened in l887), and provide sweeping vistas that showcase the unusual building typology and mixed-use quality of the district. Aside from Tribeca, the Gansevoort Market Historic District is the only remaining marketplace district that served the once-flourishing Hudson River commercial waterfront.

 

The earliest buildings in the historic district date from the period between 1840 and 1854, most built as rowhouses and town houses, several of which soon became very early working-class tenements (all eventually had stores on the ground floor). The area's early mixed use, however, is evident in the rare surviving early factory building (c. 1849-60), on a flatiron-shaped lot, for Col. Silas C. Herring, a nationally significant manufacturer of safes and locks, at 669-685 Hudson Street.

 

This mixed use, consisting of single-family houses, multiple dwellings, and industry was unusual for the period. The stretch of Ninth Avenue between Gansevoort and West 15' Streets, albeit altered and interrupted with later additions, offers the vista of a distinctive Manhattan streetscape featuring twenty buildings of the 1840s: the rowhouses at Nos. 3-7 (c. 1849) and Nos. 21-27 (c. 1844-46), the Herring factory, and culminating in the rare, picturesque ensemble of twelve rowhouses and town houses, Nos. 44-60 Ninth Avenue and 351-355 West 14th Street (c. 1841-46), at the wide, angled intersection with Hudson and West 14" Streets. Another business from this period was the woodworking factory of the prominent building firm of James C. Hoe & Co. (c. 1850-54) at 52-58 Gansevoort Street (later altered).

 

After the Civil War, the area began to flourish commercially as New York City solidified its position as the financial center of the country, and construction resumed in the district in 1870. Two major businesses located here were A.H. Wellington's Merchants' Print Works (1 874, S. W. Johnson), cotton printers at 416-418 West 14" Street (later altered); and the Italianate style Centennial Brewery (1876, John B. Snook) at 409-41 1 West 14' Street.

 

The bulk of the buildings in the district date from the 1880s through the 1920s and were designed in then-popular historical revival styles. Residential and commercial development, including a variety of building types, was particularly spurred in the 1880s by two major factors. The first was the creation of two nearby municipal markets: the open-air Farmers' or Gansevoort Market (1 879), for regional produce, at Gansevoort and Washington Streets (adjacent to the historic district), and the West Washington Market (1889), for meat, poultry, and dairy products, on the river side of West Street. From the 1880s until World War II, wholesale produce, fruit, groceries, dairy products, eggs, specialty foods, and liquor (until Prohibition) were among the dominant businesses within the district in response to the adjacent markets, particularly along Gansevoort, Little West 12', and Washington Streets. The first of the two-story, purpose-built market buildings in the district were erected in 1880.

 

These vernacular and neo-Grec style structures typified the low-rise market buildings constructed in the district over the next 90 years: produce (or, later, meat) handling on the ground story, shielded by a metal canopy over the sidewalk, and offices on the second story.

 

Commercial construction during this period, which represents the highest percentage of the district's varied yet distinctive building stock, included not only low-rise purpose-built market buildings, but also, in a variety of period styles, stables buildings, and five- and six-story store-and-loft buildings and warehouses were constructed to house and serve these businesses. The warehouses, in particular, are among the most monumental structures in the district.

 

The second factor spurring development within the historic district was the 1878 partition of real estate owned by the Astor family, which had remained underdeveloped since John Jacob Astor 1's acquisition in 1819. Of the 104 buildings in the district, over one-third of them were constructed by the Astors and related family members. Astor improvements included the market buildings at 823-833 Washington Street and 32-36 Little West 12" Street (1880, Joseph M. Dunn, James Stroud); the distinguished Queen Anne style French flats building (with stores) at 440 West 14" Street (1887, James W. Cole), the block-long Queen Anne style produce market building at 859- 877 Washington Street (1887, Cole), and the handsome Romanesque Revival style stables building (1893, Thomas R. Jackson) for the New York Biscuit Co. (later Nabisco), the world's largest supplier of crackers, at 439-445 West 14" Street.

 

A number of other prominent owners also invested in real estate here and began to develop their properties: the Goelet family constructed the unusual flatiron-shaped store-and-loft building at 53-61 Gansevoort Street (1887, Dunn), which housed E.S.

 

Burnham & Co., clam canners; James AlfredRoosevelt owned the warehouse at 400 West 14thS treet (1886, Dunn); and former New York Mayor Hugh J. Grant developed the neo-Romanesque style warehouses (1 899-1900, George P. Chappell) at 97-103 Horatio Street. The Astors and other owners gave several commissions to architects Joseph M. Dunn, who designed seven buildings in the district, and James W. Cole, who designed three buildings in the district. These multiple commissions in the then-fashionable neo-Grec or Queen Anne styles contribute to the district's visual cohesion.

 

Between 1897 and 1935, nearly the entire block bounded by Gansevoort, Horatio, Washington, and West Streets was developed with a handsome neo-Classical style ensemble in tan brick, by noted architects Lansing C. Holden, J. Graham Glover, and John B. Snook Sons, that included a power plant and nine cold storage warehouses for the Manhattan Refrigerating Co. (incorporated 1894).

 

The company was responsible for installing the system of underground pipes that carried refrigeration to market-related structures throughout the district by about 1906. This infrastructure, along with the completion by the N.Y.C. Dept. of Docks of the nearby Gansevoort Piers (1894-1902) and Chelsea Piers (1902-10, with Warren & Wetmore), docks for the great trans- Atlantic steamships (and the busiest section of New York's port), had profound impacts on the district. The distribution of wholesale meat, poultry, and seafood, particularly for hotels, restaurants, and steamships, emerged as an important business throughout the district, resulting in new construction as well as bringing new uses to existing buildings. Some companies were subsidiaries of major national meatpackers, while other independent firms were among the nation's largest.

 

The underground refrigeration system, the new piers, and the emergence of new uses relating to the burgeoning hotel and steamship industry further triggered the 20th-century construction and architectural change and flexibility that has shaped the character of the Gansevoort Market Historic District. Typically, commercial redevelopments of neighborhoods in New York City involved the demolition of earlier buildings for structures housing new uses. However, one of the district's unique qualities is that earlier buildings were retained and altered to market uses. Earlier examples include the Centennial Brewery (409-41 1 West 14" Street), converted to meat, produce, and dairy use in 1901, and 21-27 Ninth Avenue, rowhouses adapted in 1923-24 as meat market buildings.

 

Over the years, the Astors continued their policy of high-quality architectural commissions by hiring distinguished architects known for their significant public, commercial, and residential buildings, such as the neo-Classical style offices and printing plant (1901-02, Trowbridge & Livingston) of P.F. Collier & Son, publisher of books and the nationally-known magazine Collier's, at 416-424 West 13' Street; the neo-Romanesque style liquor warehouse at 29-35 Ninth Avenue (1902-03, Boring & Tilton); and the Arts and Crafts style warehouse building (1913, LaFarge, Morris & Cullen) at 5 Little West 1 2 '~S treet.

 

The completion of the Holland Tunnel (1927), the elevated Miller Highway (1931), and the New York Central Railroad's elevated freight railway (1934) providedeasier access between the area and the metropolitan region and spurred another major phase of new low-rise construction and the functional conversion of existing buildings for market use in the district. New structures included the earlyInternationa1 style General Electric Co. annex (1929-30, Lockwood Greene Engineers, Inc.) at 414 West 14' Street, and the Moderne style John Morrell & Co. meat market building (1936-37, H. Peter Henschien) at 446-448 West 14'~S treet.

 

The unusually wide Gansevoort Street assumed its distinctive character of low-rise market buildings with metal canopies at this time, through such new construction as the fruitlproduce market building (1938-39, Charles H. Stadler) at No. 46-50, and the Moderne style R&L Restaurant (1949), at No.69, and newly adapted structures, including No. 52-58 (formerly James C. Hoe & Co.), altered as a market building in 1937, and No. 60-68 (1880-81 tenements), reduced to a two-story market building in 1940.

 

By World War II, poultry- and meat- packing had consolidated as the main commercial activity within the district. Maritime commerce along the Hudson River waterfront declined by the 1960s, however, with the end of the ocean liner era and the rise of containerized shipping. Changes in the meat and poultry industries meant a lessening presence in this area. The Manhattan Refrigerating Co. closed in 1979 and its buildings were subsequently converted to apartments.

 

The completion of several more transportation and development projects (most located outside the historic district) in the 1930s spurred another major phase of new low-rise construction and functional conversion for market use of existing buildings within the historic district. Easier access was provided between the market area and the metropolitan region. The construction of the elevated Miller Highway (1929-3 1) necessitated the displacement of some produce and meat and poultry merchants in both the Gansevoort and West Washington Markets, including the demolition of several buildings at the latter. The Port of New York Authority built the Union Inland Terminal No. 1 (1931-32, Abbott, Merkt & Co.), a unified truck-rail terminal (modeled functionally after the Starrett-Lehigh Building), just northeast of the district and occupying the entire block at Ninth Avenue and West 15" Street.

 

The New York Central Railroad's elevated freight railway (193 1-34) passed through some thirty buildings on its route southward to the new St. John's Park Freight Terminal at West and Clarkson Streets. This railway also used part of the Gansevoort Market site, and additionally, the City constructed a meat processing plant on the market site (1939). The Lincoln Tunnel (1937) provided a second automotive route to New Jersey. The Ninth Avenue el, which ran through the district, was demolished (c. 1940); streetcar tracks located below the el had been taken up in 1936.

 

The first new purpose-built low-scale (one-story) market building in the historic district was 14-20 Little West 12" Street (1928, John B. Snook Sons), for the Wendel family and used initially by produce merchants. The P.F. Collier & Son building at 416-424 West 13" Street became a warehouse of the General Electric Co. in 1929; an early International style annex (1929-30, Lockwood Greene Engineers, Inc.) was constructed next door at 414 West 14" Street. Owned by Vincent Astor, this was the last of the Astor improvements within the district. 13 and 15 Little West 12' Street (1933, Martin Smith) were one-story fruit market buildings. Designed in the Moderne style were the John Morrell & Co. meat market building (1936-37, H. Peter Henschien) at 446-448 West 14th Street; the meat market building at 837-843 Washington Street (1938, David M. Oltarsh); and the fruitlproduce market building at 46-50 Gansevoort Street (1938-39, Charles H. Stadler).

 

Built at a time when the growing prevalence of the automobile resulted in the predominance of new market types throughout the U.S. (such as drive-in markets, chain grocery stores, and supermarkets), these buildings are rare and late examples of the older market building typology.34 Many of the buildings in the district that were architecturally adapted for market functions were properties acquired through foreclosure at the height of the Depression. Most of these buildings were functionally maximized at two stories (vacant, formerly residential, upper stories were no longer necessary): the lower story was refrigerated for produce or meat use and the upper story held offices. The unusually wide Gansevoort Street assumed its distinctive character of low-rise market buildings with metal canopies at this time, largely through such newly-adapted structures, including the vernacular style No. 52-58 (formerly James C. Hoe & Co.), altered as a fruit and produce market building in 1937 (S. Walter Katz); the neo-Grec style No. 60-68 (five 1880-81 tenements), reduced to a two-story market building in 1940 (Voorhees, Walker, Foley & Smith); and No. 7 1-73 (aka 8 17- 821 Washington Street) (three 1886-87 Queen Anne style French flats buildings), reduced to three stories in 1940 for use as a meat market building. The neo-Grec and utilitarian style 823-833 Washington Street and neo-Grec style 32-36 Little West 12" Street, 1880 two-story market buildings, were also altered in 1940-41 for meat merchants.

 

By World War II, poultry- and meat- packing had consolidated as the main commercial activity throughout the district. The opening of the Queens Live Poultry Terminal Market (1941) caused poultry dealers to move from the West Washington Market, replaced in part by produce merchants. The creation in 1950 of the Gansevoort Market Meat Center on the site of Gansevoort Market and the demolition of the remaining West Washington Market buildings, with the associated displacement of the businesses at both locations, hastened changes within the district. In 1959, the Gansevoort Market area was referred to in the New York Times as "the largest meat and poultry receiving market in the world. In the district, 408-412 West 13" Street (1941, Charles N. & Selig Whinston) was a new two-story market building used by hides/skins and meat businesses, while 36- 40 Gansevoort Street (aka 831-835 Greenwich Street) (1947-48, Horace Ginsbern & Assocs.), for poultry businesses, was the last new purpose-built market building in the district. The Moderne style R & L Restaurant (1949), 69 Gansevoort Street, resulted from the alteration of a three-story house.

 

Alterations associated with conversions to meat market uses included 809-813 Washington Street (aka 70-74 Gansevoort Street) (1940-42, Voorhees, Walker, Foley & Smith), a freight trucking depot altered in 1950; 402-404 and 406 West 13th Street (1840s rowhouses) altered in1950 and 1955 (Abraham L. Seiden); and 15 and 13 Little West 12" Street (c. 1961 and 1969 additions, bylattributed to Seiden).

 

Today, the Gansevoort Market Historic District is a vibrant neighborhood of remaining meatpackers, high-end retail commerce, restaurants, offices, clubs, galleries, and apartments, that retains, despite recent changes, a strong and integral sense of place as a market district, due to its distinctive streetscapes, metal canopies, notable buildings, both purpose-built and those adapted over the years for market use, and unusual street pattern with its Belgian block paving.

 

- From the 2003 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Camp Smith, NY – SSG Eric Mace, SGT Peter Plakas, asd SGT Eric Monk, assigned to HSC, start the Tactically-Quiet Generator to power the Containerized Kitchen (CK) on Wednesday, June 22, 2016. The efficient CK is a new addition to the Army and replaces the 1975 Mobile Kitchen Trailer (MKT). (U.S. Army National Guard photo by CW2 Randy Burckhard/Released)

One of the harbormaster's patrol boats making its rounds in the port of Ensenada, Mexico at sunset. It was going between a containerized cargo facility and the Grand Princess, the cruise ship I was on in April, 2013.

SF Bay RR, 21 June 2018

 

The San Francisco Bay RR operates on the southeast side of San Francisco on and near the port. It uses two Alco S2 switchers that were built for the State Belt RR, later the San Francisco Belt RR, the line that served the piers of the Port of San Francisco for many years.

 

As shipping companies moved to containerization, the Port of Oakland became the big northern California container terminal and most of the piers of the Port of San Francisco were abandoned or converted to uses other than marine freight, so the SF Belt RR found itself out of a job. After 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the Embarcadero Freeway, which had run over the SF Belt for most of its length, the freeway was removed, opening up San Francisco's waterfront and much of the Belt's trackage as converted for use by the Muni F line, which runs historic streetcars to Fishermen's Wharf, and the Muni lines that now server the Caltrain station.

 

Meanwhile, Pier 96, near Hunter's Point was converted to a container facility and the railroad's operations survived there. The line was renamed the San Francisco Bay RR and continued to use Alco S2s 23 and 25 to switch its customers.

 

Today, the railroad's main business is transloading dirty dirt from constructions and clean up sites in the Bay Area from trucks to railcars. It is owned by Waste Solutions Group, which also owns a fleet of hopper cars. The SF Bay and UP interchange on an as needed basis, with UP's South City job running into the SF Bay's yard on Cargo Way with empties and taking away loads.

 

A couple of railfans, Ryan and Ben, work for the railroad and Ryan invited me to come by for a visit. I had stopped by one afternoon a couple of years ago, and lucked out to see an S2 running around the yard a bit, but the railrroad usually goes on duty betweeen 4 and 5 am, switches cars for a few hours and then is done for the day. So, a visit to the SF Bay from Sacramento entailed a night in a hotel. It took a few tries for me to get time off from work scheduled on the same day the railroad was running.

 

Eventually, it all lined up and my alarm went off at 0315 at a hotel in Daly City, just south of the SF city limit.

 

I was at the yard by 4 and met Ben, who went out and started Alco 23. 25 is out of service with a bad bearing on the radiator fan drive shaft. Ryan explained that the SF Belt had done a jerry rigged repair of the shaft at some point and it was never documented, so nobody knew about the bearing until it failed. As a new low emission unit will be delivered in the next few months, there is no reason to repair 25. 25 will be put on display somewhere, perhaps near the Ferry Building, while 23 will be held as backup for the new unit.

 

But for now, an S2 built in 1944 is doing the job it was built to do. If you think about it, that is as though the Virginia and Truckee had still been using the Reno and Genoa during WW2.

 

Shorty after I got there, Ben went out and fired up the 23. It has a block heater, so it started easily with a puff of white smoke. He did an inspection of the engine, including checking the journal boxes. We then went back into the office and waited for Ryan, brakeman Johnny, and engineer Nick to arrive. The crew plotted their switching moves for the day. Ryan, who is yard operations manager, suggested that I get some blue hour photos from the ground as empties were switched and then we rode 23 while they switched loads.

 

Each car has dirt from one particular construction site and the dirt from sites cannot be mixed as different sites will have different contamination. UP ships it to a dump site in Nevada, where it is processed. Ryan explained that sometimes they can use dividers in a car to separate dirt from different projects if there is not that much.

 

Right now transshipping dirty dirt is the SF Bay's only business, but there a couple of other industries are interested in bringing new business. The line that crosses the Illinois St. bridge has been out of service for a couple of years as there currently no customers north of Islais Creek.

 

We rode the S2 for a while after the day brightened, then got down and Ryan drove me around in a company car to get some more angles as they switched. He then had other work to do and I shot the end of 23's work day as well as 25, some spare Alco parts and another project of Waste Solutions, goats that are leased out for natural weed control. Ryan said that since Waste Solutions got more cars, they can't use their goats as much for weed control in the yard as most of the yard tracks are occupied.

 

The crew called it a day for switching about 0800 and then would be doing other work in the yard for the rest of their work day.

 

All of these photos were taken with permission after signing a release and while wearing required PPE.

 

I want to than Ryan, Ben, Johnny and Nick for their hospitality. I had a great time.

SF Bay RR, 21 June 2018

 

The San Francisco Bay RR operates on the southeast side of San Francisco on and near the port. It uses two Alco S2 switchers that were built for the State Belt RR, later the San Francisco Belt RR, the line that served the piers of the Port of San Francisco for many years.

 

As shipping companies moved to containerization, the Port of Oakland became the big northern California container terminal and most of the piers of the Port of San Francisco were abandoned or converted to uses other than marine freight, so the SF Belt RR found itself out of a job. After 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the Embarcadero Freeway, which had run over the SF Belt for most of its length, the freeway was removed, opening up San Francisco's waterfront and much of the Belt's trackage as converted for use by the Muni F line, which runs historic streetcars to Fishermen's Wharf, and the Muni lines that now server the Caltrain station.

 

Meanwhile, Pier 96, near Hunter's Point was converted to a container facility and the railroad's operations survived there. The line was renamed the San Francisco Bay RR and continued to use Alco S2s 23 and 25 to switch its customers.

 

Today, the railroad's main business is transloading dirty dirt from constructions and clean up sites in the Bay Area from trucks to railcars. It is owned by Waste Solutions Group, which also owns a fleet of hopper cars. The SF Bay and UP interchange on an as needed basis, with UP's South City job running into the SF Bay's yard on Cargo Way with empties and taking away loads.

 

A couple of railfans, Ryan and Ben, work for the railroad and Ryan invited me to come by for a visit. I had stopped by one afternoon a couple of years ago, and lucked out to see an S2 running around the yard a bit, but the railrroad usually goes on duty betweeen 4 and 5 am, switches cars for a few hours and then is done for the day. So, a visit to the SF Bay from Sacramento entailed a night in a hotel. It took a few tries for me to get time off from work scheduled on the same day the railroad was running.

 

Eventually, it all lined up and my alarm went off at 0315 at a hotel in Daly City, just south of the SF city limit.

 

I was at the yard by 4 and met Ben, who went out and started Alco 23. 25 is out of service with a bad bearing on the radiator fan drive shaft. Ryan explained that the SF Belt had done a jerry rigged repair of the shaft at some point and it was never documented, so nobody knew about the bearing until it failed. As a new low emission unit will be delivered in the next few months, there is no reason to repair 25. 25 will be put on display somewhere, perhaps near the Ferry Building, while 23 will be held as backup for the new unit.

 

But for now, an S2 built in 1944 is doing the job it was built to do. If you think about it, that is as though the Virginia and Truckee had still been using the Reno and Genoa during WW2.

 

Shorty after I got there, Ben went out and fired up the 23. It has a block heater, so it started easily with a puff of white smoke. He did an inspection of the engine, including checking the journal boxes. We then went back into the office and waited for Ryan, brakeman Johnny, and engineer Nick to arrive. The crew plotted their switching moves for the day. Ryan, who is yard operations manager, suggested that I get some blue hour photos from the ground as empties were switched and then we rode 23 while they switched loads.

 

Each car has dirt from one particular construction site and the dirt from sites cannot be mixed as different sites will have different contamination. UP ships it to a dump site in Nevada, where it is processed. Ryan explained that sometimes they can use dividers in a car to separate dirt from different projects if there is not that much.

 

Right now transshipping dirty dirt is the SF Bay's only business, but there a couple of other industries are interested in bringing new business. The line that crosses the Illinois St. bridge has been out of service for a couple of years as there currently no customers north of Islais Creek.

 

We rode the S2 for a while after the day brightened, then got down and Ryan drove me around in a company car to get some more angles as they switched. He then had other work to do and I shot the end of 23's work day as well as 25, some spare Alco parts and another project of Waste Solutions, goats that are leased out for natural weed control. Ryan said that since Waste Solutions got more cars, they can't use their goats as much for weed control in the yard as most of the yard tracks are occupied.

 

The crew called it a day for switching about 0800 and then would be doing other work in the yard for the rest of their work day.

 

All of these photos were taken with permission after signing a release and while wearing required PPE.

 

I want to than Ryan, Ben, Johnny and Nick for their hospitality. I had a great time.

Jacksonville Port Authority (JAXPORT) tenant SSA Atlantic recently shipped a container filled with relief aid to the victims of Hurricane Dorian in The Bahamas. The container was donated by Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) and shipped to Freeport from JAXPORT aboard an MSC vessel.

 

The donated items, which include first aid kits, emergency blankets, food, toiletries, clothes, diapers and more, were collected, packed and shipped during a donation drive organized by SSA Atlantic, with support from other Blount Island Marine Terminal tenants, Jacksonville labor unions and maritime service providers.

 

“It’s going to be a marathon, not a sprint—and there’s much more work to be done,” said SSA Atlantic Vice President Florida Operations Frank McBride. “We are thankful to MSC and our maritime partners here in Jacksonville for taking action and helping us get these much-needed supplies to the island as quickly as possible.”

Other participants in the effort included TraPac Jacksonville, ILA Local 1408, ILA Local 1593, C&K Trucking, MSC, AMPORTS, Marine Repair Service, BJ’s Wholesale and the Jacksonville Maritime Association.

 

SSA and MSC will be shipping two more containers to the island over the next couple of weeks—one of those will include 10 pallets of rice donated by Mars Food Us LLC and the second to include donations collected from Fernandina Beach High School and others in the community.

 

The American Red Cross and JAXPORT have also established a website for cash donations to help victims of Hurricane Dorian.

 

JAXPORT offers regular containerized cargo service to Nassau and Freeport in The Bahamas, as well as year-round cruise service to the island aboard Carnival Cruise Line’s 2,056-passenger Carnival Ecstasy.