Joseph Papin – Boats in the East River – NYC

I am fond of children’s literature and of the passage in The Wind in the Willows when Ratty says to Mole: “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats” (Kenneth Grahame, 1908). The people crewing these boats were not “messing about in boats” but rather working for their living. Nonetheless, the allure of the water may well have been a part of what drew them to their work.

I found this white lines on black background photostat of Joseph Papin’s drawing and then inverted it in Photoshop to change it to black lines on a white background in order to show the drawing more clearly. It reads, “Tramp steamer and barge, Lower East Side docks, Papin.” I believe it was drawn in the late 1950s.

The large ship is the steamer and the smaller ship is the barge. Britannica.com defines a tramp steamer: “One of the two principal types of merchant ships as classified by operating method (the other is the ocean liner). The tramp steamer, in contrast to the liner, operates without a schedule, going wherever required to deliver its cargoes. The tramp is a descendant of the early merchant ships whose masters (who were also their owners) loaded them with cargo at home to sell abroad, and vice versa. Tramps are used mainly for carrying bulk commodities or homogeneous cargoes in whole shiploads, with each voyage separately negotiated between the ship’s owner and the shipper, usually through a broker.” (https://www.britannica.com/technology/tramp-steamer) [Note that there is an interesting website post about tramp steamers at https://iancoombe.tripod.com/id37.html]

I’ve tried to find out more about the drawing of the tramp steamer and barge above and the interesting barge pictured below but have not met with any success so far. The notation on the drawing below says “Geo [George] W. Rogers, 6 Church St.” Like the drawing of the tramp steamer, Papin would have drawn it circa 1957 or 1958:

Joseph Papin drew a very similar drawing of the same boat tied up at a pier and gifted it to his friend, Sid Levin, and Sid kindly gifted it back to me prior to his passing.

I believe that this barge is a derrick lighter scow which is a smaller type of barge.

A derrick lighter is “a deck scow with much more powerful lifting apparatus, usually in the form of an A-frame instead of a mast.” (The Water Level Route Takes to the Water: NYC Marine Operations in New York Harbor, by Thomas Flagg, https://nycshs.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/marineops4.pdf)

“Most of these craft, the carfloats excepted, had cabins for the captain, who generally spent much time aboard the craft. … The reason was that someone had to be present to handle the lines when the craft was attached to a pier or a tug, to oversee the loading and unloading, to deal with the paperwork involved in terminal work, and to keep watch on the merchandise.” (The Water Level Route Takes to the Water: NYC Marine Operations in New York Harbor, by Thomas Flagg, https://nycshs.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/marineops4.pdf)

The photo shown below is also from the Thomas Flagg article and looks very similar to the boat in the drawing:

https://nycshs.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/marineops4.pdf

The following advertisement for a model kit also looks very similar:

For readers who are not familiar with NYC: “The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary or strait in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island, with the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, from Manhattan Island, and from the Bronx on the North American mainland.[1] … The tidal strait changes its direction of flow regularly, and is subject to strong fluctuations in its current, which are accentuated by its narrowness and variety of depths. The waterway is navigable for its entire length of 16 miles (26 km), and was historically the center of maritime activities in the city.[1][3].” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_River)

I’ve searched for registers that might have records of these barges without coming up with much. If anyone reading this has any thoughts on where I might find any more information I would very much appreciate it. Thanks!