eWaterStories experiences selected by PortSide for the pandemic era

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Sunset seen from the deck of portside’s flagship, the mary a. whalen, in red hook, brooklyn

Sunset seen from the deck of portside’s flagship, the mary a. whalen, in red hook, brooklyn

For you! Specially selected #eWaterStories, virtual maritime and marine life programs for the COVID19 period, to educate and entertain while we all do our part at #socialdistancing and staying inside to flatten the curve. There is an ocean of resources out there produced by a wide variety of marine science organizations, museums, aquariums and educational sites. This is a growing list of selections I made to provide programs during the coronavirus era.

I list the organization websites first, and then break out the offerings such as virtual tours, live cams, games, and educational material into their own headings.

PortSide has our own virtual museum RedHookWaterstories.org, full of oral and written histories, anecdotes, maps, photographs, and other water stories (from cats to quarantines) related to Red Hook, Brooklyn on land and water.

Please check back for updates, and if you have something good to recommend, please let me know.

Peter Rothenberg
Curator, PortSide NewYork

Index

General websites

PortSide NewYork's own offerings – some quick links

  • portsidenewyork.org

    • PortSide NewYork's African American Maritime Heritage program's website, a jumping off point for exploring the waterstories of African Americans;stories of black achievement, struggles against the sea, struggles against racism, and aspects of daily life and work. It includes short synopses and links.

    • PortSide NewYork's blog

  • redhookwaterstories.org
    PortSide's virtual museum full of written and oral histories, anecdotes, maps, photographs, and other water stories (from cats to quarantines) related to Red Hook, Brooklyn on land and water. Updated often.

  • facebook.com/portsidenewyork
    Live streams of the sunset, from the top of the MARY A WHALEN's wheelhouse, looking out on the Atlantic Basin with the Statue of Liberty in the distance every evening starting around 7:30 by PortSide's Executive Director Carolina Salguero. These have turned into a conversation and harbor tour.

  • youtube.com/user/PortSideNewYork

  • Audio Tour of PortSide NewYork’s MARY A WHALEN
    https://redhookwaterstories.org/items/show/1738

Audio

Coloring Books (with a story to tell)

Children's Books – downloadable

Children's Books Read-a-loud (YouTube videos)

Education

Games

Graphic Novellas, Comic Books and Illustrated E-books

Google Expeditions

Designed to viewed on a phone with VR (virtual reality) glasses using the app but can also just be used on a computer screen, or phone screen. [Google Cardboard viewers were sort of a thing in 2014 and information about on how to make them or buy them are available on line.]
https://edu.google.com/products/vr-ar/expeditions/
Google’s spreadsheet of Google Expeditions (Google doc): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uwWvAzAiQDueKXkxvqF6rS84oae2AU7eD8bhxzJ9SdY/edit#gid=0

Here are some marine related ones

  • 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Explore an artists interpretation of the underwater world created by Jules Verne in 1872.
    “Join Pierre Aronnax, Conseil and Ned Land as they inadvertently embark on an underwater journey on board the submarine Nautilus commanded by the enigmatic Captain Nemo. A voyage covering 20,000 leagues in a submarine years ahead of its time, you will feel part of the action journeying through realistic underwater scenes. Jules Verne himself would surely recommend bringing his wonderful novel to life using the magic of virtual reality.”
    https://poly.google.com/view/c2BA_10LmWW

  • Alice Austen: Early American Photographer
    Dr. Doty and the Quarantine
    ”In the early 1890s, 500,000 immigrants per year were sailing past Clear Comfort into New York Harbor to Ellis Island. If there were signs of infectious disease on the boat, the passengers and goods abroad and the vessel had to be inspected and sanitized. In the late 1890s, Austen was asked by a Public Health Service doctor, Dr. Alvah H. Doty, to document the quarantine stations located on Hoffman and Swinburne Islands close to the Austen family home. Austen continued to travel to the islands for over a decade to document advances in technology and conditions at the quarantine stations. She processed these photographs in this darkroom.”
    https://poly.google.com/view/fsGxNPolkGj

  • USS Midway Museum, The USS Midway was the largest Navy ship in the world for a decade after it was commissioned in 1945. She is also the longest-serving aircraft carrier of the 20th century (47 years)
    https://poly.google.com/view/1u1aO9S1sYW

  • Titanic Belfast . Stand in a spot and look around the SS Nomadic. “Built in 1911 as a luxury tender, she ferried 1st and 2nd class passengers to ocean liners moored off the French port of Cherbourg, which was too shallow to accommodate the big ships. (Her sister ship, SS Traffic, carried the 3rd class passengers.) In her lifetime, Nomadic served as a minesweeper, a tugboat, and a restaurant and nightclub. Nomadic has survived over 105 years of turbulent events to make it back to Belfast in one piece.
    https://poly.google.com/view/6tjWCUFYtjK

Knots

Maybe now is a good time to learn some handy knots, knowing a few good ones can be useful and satisfying.

Live Cams - Nature

Live Cams - Port Views

Live Cams - Other

On-line Collections

Photographs, artifacts, sound and ephemera that one can browse through or search by keyword. Lose yourself meandering through thousands of items.

On-line exhibits

  • The Ben Franklin - Grumman/Piccard PX-15 Submersible - 50th Anniversary of the Gulf Stream Drift Mission:
    https://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/646/
    Related video: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10849

    • “At 8:56 P.M. (EDT) July 14, 1969, Grumman Aerospace Corporation's research submarine Ben Franklin slipped beneath the surface of the Atlantic off the coast of Palm Beach, Florida carrying a crew of six comprised of engineers, oceanographers and a former Navy captain. In addition, NASA sends along one crew member whose job it was to evaluate the use of the Ben Franklin as a space station analogue.
      The Ben Franklin's mission was to investigate the secrets of the Gulf Stream as it drifted northward at depths of 600-2,000 feet; to learn the effects on humans of a long-duration, closed-environment stressful voyage; to demonstrate the engineering-operational concepts of long term submersible operation; and to conduct other scientific oceanographic studies.
      This longest privately-sponsored undersea experiment of its kind ended more than 30-days and 1,444 nautical miles later, when the Franklin and its crew surfaced some 300 miles south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, at 7:58 A.M. August 14, 1969”

Photographs

Amazing sea creatures, oceans and related images

Video - Created for Kids

Video - Science & Sea Critters

This list is just a sampling, mostly from marine research institutions and aquariums
(see also ‘Live Cams’ and ‘Video - Documentaries” ) .

Videos – Documentaries

  • After the Fire, It's Happening, Oregon Public Broadcasting, 1967 - “Here's a duffy little tugboat”

    Includes a short segment on moving a raft of logs (8:30). [Red Hook was once a destination for such log rafts.]
    “Here's a duffy little tugboat. A rugged little machine built out of solid steel, has a powerful engine and the operator on it is very much like a cowboy rounding up cattle as he pushes and shows and noses these logs away from the point where they're dropped into the water into the rafting area. There are some rather skilled workers walk around with their calked boots on top of these logs and push them into the arrangement that they would like to have.

    https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_153-91fj71x1#at_575.759_s

  • American Fisheries, Telemark Films, 2008

    “Explores both the transformation of the living ocean and the embattled fishing industry. Bringing to light one of the most significant environmental disasters in history, it nevertheless raises hope for the future.

    https://vimeo.com/194707359

  • Around Cape Horn, 1929

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=114&v=9tuTKhqWZso&feature=emb_logo

    On the Peking – Dramatic footage.

  • Around the World in a Square Rigged Ship, 1939
    Outward from Copenhagen to Australia by way of Cape of good hope in 91 days and returning via Cape Horn to England in 98 days. Four masted ship PASSAT
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96cRjLkIKlE

  • Black Journal, WNET New York Public Television. 1969

    Includes a section on blacks working in a shipyard in New Orleans

    https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_512-7659c6sv19

  • Ferryboats of the Connecticut River, Telemark Films, 2017

    The history, heritage, controversy and uncertain future of the last remaining ferryboats on the Connecticut River.

    https://vimeo.com/235225805

  • Filter Feeders. A look at the oyster restoration movement in New York City, as its concerned citizens work together to improve the water quality of New York Harbor and Flushing Bay. Made in 5 days concept to finish for the Project Earth Documentary Challenge hosted by The Audience Awards and Fusion Network.
    https://vimeo.com/183121528

  • Following the Seas, Journeyman Pictures, 2017
    Bob and Nancy Griffith made twenty ocean voyages over two decades, fulfilling a dream of freedom and adventure in their 53-foot sailboat
    https://vimeo.com/ondemand/followingseas

  • History of Tugboats
    Late 1990s documentary
    https://youtu.be/vux2zpwawMU

  • Lamu New Year’s Dhow Race, Kenya

    “Every January 1, on the island of Lamu off the Kenyan coast, crews of local watermen gather on Shela Beach for the most prestigious race of the year. The traditional Arab dhows, unchanged for centuries, are made by hand from local mangrove wood and fabric.”

    https://vimeo.com/156870692?fbclid=IwAR0VIWun4ZxIrkFrOCF7iFnaDir5Mj7jfvbTKJSfydQbAn6l9ZTrxWuBuwM

  • Lightship Overfalls (6:40)

    A visitor's tour of the Lighship OVERFALLS

    “Lightships were permanently stationed at fixed locations off the coast where lighthouses could not be located. GPS has made them obsolete and none remain in service. When I was young I fished with my father near Scotland Lightship outside New York Harbor. This is an inside tour of one such ship.”

    https://vimeo.com/261710445

  • Microplastic Madness (trailer)
    Cafeteria Culture worked with Red Hook's PS 15 5th grade to make the movie, PortSide’s Carolina Salguero has a cameo.
    https://vimeo.com/361115158

  • New York in the mid 1930's in Color!
    Compilation that includes several harbor views, including the SS Normandie and RMS Queen Mary
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpXnEvW0XD0

  • New York Voices, #302, Thirteen WNET. 2002 “Is Red Hook, Brooklyn the New Bohemia?”

    Starts off with Sunny, Greg O'Connell, Nick FeFonte,

    https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_75-343r26zx

  • New York Voices, #324, Thirteen WNET. 2003
    History and changes on the water front. Includes last days of the Fulton Fish Market, Kenneth Jackson opining on the changing use of the waterfront, Sal Catucci of American Stevedoring talking about the

    Red Hook Container Terminal (13:40), discussion of Brooklyn Bridge Park (not yet built) and the City's changing views on an industrial waterfront.

    https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_75-31cjtb40

  • New York Voices, #502, Thirteen WNET. 2005

    Topics include the rezoning of a major portion of North Brooklyn's old industrial waterfront and Hidden Harbor Tours – with some footage of Erie Basin before Ikea (12:40).

    https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_75-72p5j143#at_1151.49_s

  • Replacing Z-Drives Onboard the Coast Guard Cutter BARBARA MABRITY, 2013

    Coast Guard Industrial Production Facility New Orleans renews two thirteen-ton Z-drive propulsion units onboard the Coast Guard Cutter Barbara Mabrity at their dockside facilities near New Orleans East, March 11, 2013. The Barbara Mabrity, a 175-foot buoy-tender, has since returned to their home port in Mobile, Ala

    https://vimeo.com/62447518

  • Saving Jamaica Bay – THIS IS A LIMITED TIME NO COST OFFER
    Watch the award-winning documentary, Saving Jamaica Bay. Follow the residents of Jamaica Bay as they battle against government and natural disasters to protect the rich ecosystem of the bay. http://www.jbrpc.org/video Worksheet for students
    https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AhTz7lJgvYOs0slyYNfcPMtqQfWXAKn2G_HlQ2OkAEc

  • Sea Rescue. Full length documentary
    https://youtu.be/Wa1NrfNQxWM

  • Shipyard Tools Tour, Mystic Seaport
    https://stories.mysticseaport.org/shipyard-tools-tour-digital-museum/

  • Sludge, The Robert MacNeil Report, 1976
    https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_507-9c6rx94090#at_904.679_s

  • Tanker Turning on the KVK (4:19)

    McAllister Tugs turning an oil tanker from the berth at IMTT Bayonne NJ and out to sea.

    https://vimeo.com/89970249

  • The Charles W. Morgan, Telemark Films, 2014
    Story about America’s last wooden whale ship and the incredible saga of the first global industry dominated by America.

    https://vimeo.com/194231226

  • The Fight for Maritime Unity, National Maritime Union ca. 1947.
    NYU Preservation YouTube channel
    Starts with an introduction by the head of the National Maritime Union, listing the goals of the union and a call for unity among all the unions in the industry. References to the merchant marines during WWII; longshoremen loading bulk cargo; chipping, scrapping and painting; heroes yesterday, bums today, the broken strike of 1921; “getting my coffee and doughnuts and praying in the mission”; “shipping crimps” (racketeers who controlled access to shipping jobs, often operated out of rooming houses – the seaman often ended up with a job but no pay to keep at the end of his stint); the shape up “a nightmare of intimidation and insecurity”; industrial unionism; 1934 West Coast waterfront strike; Marine Federation of the Pacific; victory; rotary hiring system; the need for greater unity to maintain and expand gains. Music by Pete Seeger and Joe Jaffe,

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XIthhMpDc0&feature=youtu.be&mc_cid=7ac6d0e550&mc_eid=48691e2a2e

  • The Old Tugboat That Still Can, NYC Lens (Columbia University) ca. 2012
    “The only thing that's changed about the 54-year-old steel tug Thornton Bros. is the crew that guides her through the choppy waters of New York Harbor”.

    https://vimeo.com/41218823

  • The Real McCoy, Telemark Films (56 minutes)

    The story of Bill McCoy, the pioneer rum runner of the Prohibition era, who fuelled the Roaring Twenties by transporting over 2 million bottles of "un-cut" alcohol to the Speakeasies of New York. McCoy never broke the law or diluted his alcohol, earning the name “The Real McCoy.” - Winner of 5 Emmy® Awards.

    https://vimeo.com/144350191

  • The Revolutionary River, Telemark Films, 2009

    The story of the Schuylkill River National and State Heritage Area, known as “The Revolutionary River” due to its involvement in the American Revolution, Industrial Revolution and Environmental Revolution.

    https://vimeo.com/194247881

  • The Salvage Prince, 1979 (22:22)

    “This is a documentary short filmed in 1979 about my parents, Jock, and the late Suzanna Brandis. I was told it was unavailable for purchase after so many years, so I wanted to share it with friends and family. Three intrepid individuals undertake the restoration of an old tugboat destined for the scrapyard. Through great inventiveness, they slowly rebuild it from recycled and scavenged materials.

    From a rusted hulk, it becomes a home, albeit without the luxuries. This documentary is as much an account of their life on and around the tug as a lyrical record of how they restored its battered hide.”

    https://vimeo.com/36329670

  • Timelapse videos of wharves, beaches and containerports by Keith Loutit, Sydney Australia

  • Traditions: Curtis Creek Ship Graveyard, Human Being Productions.(1:48)
    Archaeologist documenting a ship graveyard in Maryland
    https://vimeo.com/307756699

  • Traditions: Tugboats On The Harbor. Human Being Productions.

    “Drinking a beer at Ó Flynn’s on Hanover Street is where we met Captain Mark Stephen Rooney of McAllister Towing of Baltimore. There, he started to tell us all about his life growing up near the Port of Baltimore and the path that led him to becoming a Baltimore Tugboat Captain.”

    https://vimeo.com/237977283

  • Tugs. By Jessica Edwards, Narratively, 2011

    Profile of Millers Launch, includes footage of the annual Tugboat Race

    “The waterways are the city's sixth borough, with history, industry and recreation that are largely overlooked by most New Yorkers. Profiling the humble tugboat was my way of showcasing this unheralded part of the city.”
    https://narratively.com/tugs/ and https://vimeo.com/50619799

  • US Army Divers’ School, 1957
    https://vimeo.com/408430168

  • Using the Standard Deep Sea Diving Outfit - US Navy Training Film MN-9915c, 1966

    https://vimeo.com/399435619

  • Workhorses of the Harbor, ca. 1940

    Tug dispatchers in NY 1940s
    https://vimeo.com/113807700

  • Yacht Building; Maine Public Broadcasting, American Archive of Public Broadcasting, 1983
    The making of a fiberglass yacht

    https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_245-60cvdw1w

Video - Just for Fun (just a few random ones)

Virtual Tours 360°

These tours allow one to look around in all directions. Some have points to click on for more information while others are just unguided explorations. They can be viewed on a computer screen or on a phone, some with differing effects. [Also see the related Google Expeditions section.]

Virtual Tours (other or more than 360° tours)

  •  Virtual Erie Canal, Tugster: A Waterblog
    scenes from the sixth boro and gallivants beyond by any and all the crew
    ”    My information and photos result from working on the Canal for five of the past six years, returning there with a camera and drone in the off season, and lots of reading and conversation, all making an ongoing accretion of familiarity.” https://tugster.wordpress.com/virtual-canal-guide/

Other – These don't fall into the existing categories

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: PortSide NewYork launches Red Hook WaterStories

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: PortSide NewYork launches Red Hook WaterStories

On the occasion of the 4th anniversary of Sandy, PortSide NewYork launches Red Hook WaterStories. This is a digital museum with significant resiliency information. The site covers 400+ years of Red Hook waterfront history - NYC’s maritime story in microcosm - and reveals forgotten and overlooked stories from this evocative neighborhood.  

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