Rime of the American Mariner

Rime (n): a coating of ice

Last weekend I revisited one of my favorite spots in Buffalo for imagining "what if"--the foot of Michigan Avenue, where Michigan used to cross the City Ship Canal on a double-bascule bridge (historical image here).  Its removal by the City in 1964 compounded the challenge of getting from downtown Buffalo to the Outer Harbor, ever since.

My earliest visits to the spot were in early 2005, when I was doing a contract for Nicholson and Hall around the corner in the Cobblestone District.  Usually having to skip breakfast thanks to my long commute, at lunch time I would often venture over to the Swannie House for a big lunch, then explore a bit--often with Buffalo's Waterfront, a Guidebook (edited by Tim Tielman, published by the Preservation Coalition of Erie County) in hand.

But my most memorable visit there was in the company of one Newell Nussbaumer, on a tour of Buffalo waterfront sites with folks from the Project for Public Spaces who had taken notice of Buffalo Rising's taking notice of their published "10 Qualities of a Great Street." 

On that visit, almost as if on cue, a bicyclist rode up and wanted to know how to get to the Outer Harbor.  Not an easy question to answer then or now.  As Coleridge's Ancient Mariner might have put it, "Water, water, everywhere, nor any way across."   But now things may be looking up, with the recently completed sections of trail along the reconstructed Rt. 5, and planned connectors in the works.

On last weekend's visit, looking to my right, I was surprised to see a lake freighter tied up at General Mills, and seemingly icebound.  I've seen ships there before, but usually facing in the other direction, and never this one.  I got to wondering whether this ship was perhaps docked for the winter--perhaps I was looking at Buffalo's 2010 "winter fleet"?

And this is no "ordinary" lake freighter--from first glance it was clear that this is One Big Boat.  Also, the name was naggingly familiar.  A later query to Da Google returned this recent Buffalo News article by Mary Kunz Goldman indicating that this is the largest ship ever to navigate the Buffalo River (althought it's currently parked in the City Ship Canal).  Goldman's piece is outstanding in giving a sense of the current status of Buffalo's shipping industry and facilities, something that often gets lost in business section articles about banking and health sciences.

And as for the history of that industry, the "winter fleet" is a forgotten phenomenon in Buffalo now.  In Buffalo's shipping heyday, every year before freezing conditions brought an end to the navigation season, Buffalo's waterfront and harbors would fill with freighters of all kinds waiting for the spring thaw--often anchored close enough to walk between them.  Buffalo's ship chandlers and merchants of all kinds would provide whatever the ships and crews needed for the winter, this "downtime" was put to use to provide major maintenance for ships systems.  More information (including the photo to the right) on Buffalo History Works.

Nicholson and Hall began as an outfit to refit ship boilers, doing much of its business with the "winter fleet," with boiler workers sometimes walking from ship to ship as I've heard it told.  One day when I was at their office, they hauled old bound copies of their board minutes from the basement and showed me the references to servicing the winter fleet.  Looking at the numbers from the late 1950s to the 1960s, I could see the drastic drop in work after the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway.  Shipping began to bypass Buffalo, and the "winter fleet" became a memory.

Fortunately, the owners at the time embraced the need to diversify, and while Nicholson and Hall still works with boilers, they now regularly handle multi-million dollar, large-scale projects in multiple states.  They are also part of the "green economy," as their work often upgrades and retrofits outdated, relatively dirty power-generating facilities for much more efficient and clean operations.  And they recently invested in a major upgrade of their facilities there, just a stone's throw from the waterfront where their boiler workers once maintained the winter fleet, and where the American Mariner is currently moored.

So will the American Mariner be broken out of winter's icy grip, perhaps by a tugboat or the fireboat Cotter with its icebreaking capabilities (or by this weekend's warming trend)?  Or is it "frozen in place" till the spring, making it the flagship of this season's "winter fleet"?