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The ship that made New York
Thursday 29 July 2010
AN 18th century ship that surfaced, quite literally, from 20 ft below street level across from ground zero in New York is being dismantled in the hope it can be reassembled and put on display.
The archaeological wonder emerged earlier this month as workers dug for the rebuilt World Trade Center’s car park. Some people thought it quaint that such a relic should have lain buried for centuries under office towers, but old-timers and historians pointed out the ship is true to New York’s roots as a trading post.
Archaeologists believe the ship had already been scrapped when it was used as fill around 1810 to extend the shores of lower Manhattan. The 32 ft section looks like the ship’s bow, experts say. Its exact age will be determined by lab analysis as each plank is labelled and freeze-dried so conservators know where to put it back.
What is even more remarkable is that, according to historians, the ship was of a type so commonplace 200 years ago nobody preserved any drawings of it.
University of Maine historian Warren Riess, who specialises in 18th century ships, said: “It is probably something that was like a coastal schooner or brigantine or sloop, which probably sailed from New York to Boston or to Virginia or Barbados carrying goods such as flour, bricks or hay.
“A merchant ship, a jack of all trades — that is my first guess. It is the kind of ship that made New York, when you think about it.”
Tower Bridge speaks out
TERMINATOR/Matrix/Westworld (pick your favourite era)-esque apocalyptic visions of a hellish future in which the machines have taken over have long given Last Word nightmares.
What are we talking about? — well, what the devil is Tower Bridge doing talking at all? That’s right, the iconic London structure is now announcing to the world when it is opening and closing via its very own twitter feed (http://twitter.com/towerbridge).
One assumes there is a human hand behind this, but it ain’t half unnerving to have a large piece of infrastructure issuing utterances in the first person.
Of course, the IT darlings of the internet revolution, intent on ushering us all into a virtual existence, have come up with an app for London commuters who have to cross the bridge to and from work, and unlike the tourists who crowd the bridge’s pavements, aren’t remotely interested in having their journey delayed while some sailing barge with five passengers punches against the tide. Check out Bridget, the bridge widget, at http://www.thanatopsic. org/bridget/
Stowaway security threat
THANK goodness some stowaways have no sense of direction.
Atlantic Container Line continues to be plagued by unwanted passengers, but not all get very far. Just last week, two Moroccans crept onto one of ACL’s ships in Liverpool under the impression it was heading to North America. Instead, they found themselves bound for Antwerp, where they were returned to Liverpool and arrested.
ACL, which operates multipurpose ships across the Atlantic, has been targeted by stowaways keen to reach Canada who find the line’s ro-ro vessels relatively easy to access.
But soon they could be making the voyage under lock and key. Frustrated by lack of interest from Brussels or law enforcement agencies, ACL is converting 40 ft containers into cells, as Lloyd’s List reported a few months ago.
The first should be in place by September, according to ACL chief executive Andy Abbott, who cannot understand why the authorities seem so unconcerned about breaches at ports that enable stowaways to board ships, but which could also pose a threat to national security.
