Tag «New York City»

The Turtle: Infernal Vessel Became the First Submarine Used in War

David Bushnell (1740 – 1824), while a patriot student at Yale University, imagined a submersible craft capable of underwater attack upon enemy shipping. To achieve his vision, the future combat engineer and munitions expert had to develop several innovations that ultimately modernized naval warfare. But unfairly, history has pretty much credited Bushnell as the sole …

America’s First Great Slum – Built over New York City’s Collect Pond and Fresh Water Source for Two Hundred Years

Once, where now large buildings crowd downtown Manhattan, a substantial and beautiful pond spread out in a pristine valley between the forested countryside. Collect Pond, or Fresh Water Pond, was a body of fresh water near the southern tip of Manhattan in New York City, that covered approximately 48 acres (194,000 m²) and ran as …

Old Slips of New York City

As a small boy, Harold Goldstein recalls being taken on a walking tour of New York City’s waterfront.  He describes something that astonished and delighted him: “a number of small harbors, inlets from the East River, rectangular in shape and about the size of a city block, in which rusty freighters and even a few …