Cops and Pirates
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.. THE SEAMEN's CHURCH INSTITUTE OF NEw YoRK is a Seafaring shore center for merchant seamen who are between ships in this great port. The largest organization of its kind in the world, the Institute combines the services of a modern hotel with a wide range of educational, medical, a Career religious and recreational facilities needed by a profes- sion that cannot share fully the important advantages of home and community life. The Institute is partially self-supporting, the nature of its work requiring assistance from the public to provide By George M. Newton the personal and social services that distinguish it from a waterfront boarding house and so enable it to fulfill its true purpose: being a home away from home for merchant First Prize, AW Club seamen of all nationalities and religions. Essay Contest, 1955 A tribute to the service it has performed during the Drawing by John Fernandez past century is its growth from a floating chapel in 1844 to the thirteen-story building at 25 South Street known to merchant seamen the world around. dence. He is well paid and can change REAT men with magic in their pens jobs frequently. he finds no glamour at have written of the glamour of sea- If ~•179 G sea he has enough in his poke to buy ad- faring. Thq gave us delightful yarns. of venture ashore. He has free medical care, distant lands, running seas, and flymg insurance, and enjoys numerous advan- spume on the main. Enchanting writers tages not shared by shoreside brothers, have held us spellbound for long evenings 7h~ such as privileges offered by seamen's in- at firesides as we lived with swinging gim- stitutes and dispensations of agencies and bals and creaking ship timbers. Poets have laws that exist strictly for the seagoing beckoned to seafaring with all but irresis- ilk. Promotions are plentiful; qualifying eeis*8il=I~ tible charm. But these people who gave us ·· help for the unlicensed man is all but VOL. XLVII, No. 1 JANUARY, 1956 such stirring tales and swashbuckling char- acters were majestic liars. They wrote fan- thrust upon him. Graduation from "Ordi- Copyright 1956 by the tasy. In the old days sailing just wasn't nary" to "Master" in a few years through what it was cracked up to be. In fact, painless stages imposes no undue tensions SEAMEN'S CHURCH INSTITUTE OF NEW YORK on cerebral alignments, and reluctance to 25 South Street, New York 4, N. Y. BOwling Green 9-2710 shang~aiing was once an occupational necesstty, and the belaying pin applied advance brings no stigma. CLARENCE G. MICHALIS gene~ously Yes, seafaring is now an inviting career President in dark byways was a common sohCltor of crews. Such, in reality, was the sought by intelligent people. But the un- REV. RAYMOND S. HALL, D.D. TOM BAAB wary, stirred to the depths by these words Director Editor glamour-call of the sea. THOMAS ROBERTS FAYE HAMMEL I_ can forgive Stevenson and London and imbued with fierce desires to go sail- Secretary and Treasurer Associate Editor thetr fantastic lies because one man was ing, should be gently cautioned. Sea haz- Published Monthly $1.00 yearly 10c a copy a tubercular and the other an alcoholic ards still exist. Crews do not always rep- resent the most peaceful people. Hurri- Gifts to the Institute of $5.00 and over include a year's subscription ~~~ both h~d to make livings some way: f . Y descnbed certain hardships of sea- canes have disconcerting ways. Rough Eniered as second claJJ matter, ]t~ly 8, 1925 at New York, N. Y., finder da~m.g times can ride with ships. Duties are often the act of March 3, 1879 but credited it with glamour it ~ld~.t possess except in isolated instances. demanding, and a seaman can not leave orou 1 ~erhs knew that sailing wasn't glam- his ship for a holiday in mid-ocean- he s, t ey kne ·t treadmill of w ~ was a monotonous is aboard ship twenty-four hours a day cruelty s~arvat10n, filth, illness, and at sea. est ord; a 1~ e for the misfit of the low- It boils down to this: the man doing square ;~ a th eep round hole for every work he likes is fortunate and most sea- occupatioif f at came along. It was an men like their work. Most men who once THE COVER: Taking a first look at 1956, our lovely cover-gull poses for th e headed me or wooden ships and iron- start to sea go back again and again - camera of Gordon S. Smith. B n. without encouragement from belaying h ut, as Heracr t · ave a way f thus satd long ago things pins. My reasoning follows logically. It's 0 hno l onger a d c angin g. The seaman' 1s· a great life if you like it and your chances uman comma o~ .. He has evolved into a of liking it are excellent. When are you n mg respect and indepen- sailing, Mate? The oldest police precinct in New York patrol at Idlewild Airport, is a flat-bot- City and in the country, the Harbor Pre- tomed boat with a hollow keel, designed cinct was originally set up to do battle to plow its way through marshes; the with "river pirates" - murderous gangs Slattery, on duty at La Guardia Airport, of "wharf rats" who terrorized the water- is a hospital boat which has already minis- front in the 1850's. Famous among them tered medical aid in 20 plane crashes. The were the "Hook Gang" headed by "Slob- regulation equipment on every police bery Jim" and "Bum Mahoney" and the launch reflects the main concern of the Cops "Daybreak Boys," under the command of squad- to protoct life and property, more "Patsey the Barber" and "Socco the than to chase criminals. Each boat carries Bracer." To these thugs, it was child's play life-guns, heavy grappling irons for rais- to make a little night excursion to sailing ing sunken bodies or sunken property, ships anchored in the harbor, board them, power pumps for bailing out sinking ves- steal what they could, and dump any crew sels, rubber exposure suits, first-aid equip- members who protested into the drink. ment, and a ship-to-shore telephone. Thus and Or they pillaged boats tied up at docks armed, the harbor cops can cope with al- and disposed of victims in the same way. most any emergency on the waterfront, and Even small boatmen, peaceful Sunday ex- they usually get a chance to do just that. cursionists, were subject to attack on the One of the more frequent assignments waters. for the harbor cops is picking up a In 1858, the Marine Police, the fore- "floater." This term doesn't refer to a runners of the Harbor Precinct, went into bum or a ne'er-do-well, but to a body, Pirates action with a tiny navy consisting of a usually bloated and ballooned to unrecog- lumbering sidewheeler, the S.S. Seneca nizable proportions - a victim of homi- and 12 small rowboats. Armed with dirks cide, accident or suicide. Suicides, also and cutlasses, they bore down on the river known as "jumpers," are the biggest prob- pirates for a year of blood on the waters. lem. ''I'd swear there's a correlation be- They hanged so many pirates on Ellis tween the full moon and the number of NEW YORK'S Island that it came to be known as "Gibbet people who decide to jump off the Brook- Island." Within a year, the pirates were lyn Bridge or the Staten Island Ferry," re- largely routed. marked one of the harbor men. "When we HARBOR POLICE: The Harbor Police go about their busi- hear that a jumper is contemplating that ne_ss today with more efficient equipment. long, last leap, we rush to the scene. The Dtrks a~d cutlasses have given way to Emergency Service Division, of which THE WORLD'S BUSIEST WATERFRONT IS THEIR BEAT submachme guns and high-powered rifles, we're a part, tries to stop the person from to ward off modern river pirates: criminals going over. If they're too late, then a.ll we magneticallY attracted to precious cargoes can do is search for the body." Would-be HE days of Captain Kidd may be over, ing, boating and swimming clubs, the ~n l~~hterage ; or perhaps "junkies " who jumpers are just as much work for the T but pirates still ply the waters of New hundreds of ships and boats transiting the heg~tmately buy rope from ships' in the harbor cops as those who actually take York harbor. For proof, just ask any of harbor at all times, and 27 islands with!D h:~d~~ but who have~ reputation for light- the plunge. "We once spent 5 days look- the 186 members of New York City's the greater islands of the city. The harbor form ness around p1ers and loadingglat- ing for the body of a girl," said one of Harbor Precinct. The sailor-cops are on cops are responsible for protecting a bd· outboards; or thos e Wl·th an eye on the ancy the men. "She had told her mother she the job 24 hours a day, seven days a week, lion dollars worth of cargo that moves at ancho mo~rs, yachts and boats that lie was going to jump off the George Wash- patrolling 5 78 miles of waterfront to show through the port, and for keeping a surroundr~ge Ythe hundreds in the waters ington Bridge if she couldn't marry the mg th ·t · latter-day pirates - whether they be petty watchful eye on the millions of dollars The Water-thr e c_l y 111 the warm months.