Hello David,
The 123-foot ferryboat was named the Sylph and her scant remains are sometimes revealed when the beach at West 37th Street becomes eroded after storms. A few weathered pilings from the pier also can be seen and they mark the boat's location just to the west of the pier.
The ferry made scheduled commuter runs from Sea Gate to Manhattan until around 1950 when the service ended and the ferryboat was abandoned at the pier.
The Sylph was commissioned in 1898 as a naval patrol boat and also served briefly as the presidential yacht in the 1920s before being sold in 1929 for use as a party fishing boat out of Sheepshead Bay. The Sea Gate run began in 1939.
The boat was a fixture of my childhood and I remember playing on the wreck in the early 1960s, before a series of fires and storms leveled it to the waterline and it was buried beneath the beach. Here is a photo of the boat taken circa 1938 and one of the ruins at the pier taken in 1950 by Phil Horn.
Comments
I currently live in Coney Island West 5th to be exact. However, I once rode my bike from one end of the boardwalk to the other. At the end where Sea gate starts, there was a huge fence. On the other side I could see what looked like tents that gypsies live in. That end of the boardwalk was practically abandoned. And there, to the way of the water, was the hull of the Sylph. To tell you, they don't burn garbage there anymore. It's a very lonely place and I often wonder what's wrong with it...
No Gypsy Tents
I know this is super old but those are not gyspy tents but cabanas available for rent. You can't even walk through this gated community if you look unfamiliar. Imagine the folks of Sea Gate allowing gypsies to pitch tents! :)
I did some further reseaech, there are clr=early two different boats in the pictures, the bottom one is that of the Hellen C Julliard which was a hospital boat whose remains are still there today..Check it out
A childhood mystery solved. I played on it, and in it mid 50's, lived on Seagate Terrace(right outside of Seagate. It was in plain site right outside our back door as was the pier.
I am 90 and have lived in Houston for almost 50 years, but I well remember the two piers at the end of37th Street (I think). My grandparents owned rental bungalows at the end of 35th street and I stayed with them for several summers when I was 9 or 10 years old. My father worked at 140 West Street in Manhattan, and took the boat to the battery and home every day. It was faster than the subway, then Norton's Point trolley, then a long walk. During the days, the older boys used to dive off the docks. My memory is understandably hazy, but it seems to me they used the eastern pier. The boats used the western one.
Sunken ship
I remember back around 1960 or so there was a ship that sunk in whats called today the Verrazano narrows.
The ship sunk not far off a concrete path adjacent to the Belt Pkwy at Bay 8th st. I can't remember the name of the ship nor can any of my friends. The area is in Brooklyn NY in the Gravesend Bay. I haven't had any luck with the computer neither. I'm hoping someone out there remembers the name and mentions it on this web site. Thanks....Rick
ferry at Gravesend Bay
i was born(1951)/raised on Bayview Ave,and we played/fished/crabbed off the pier and the adjacent ship we knew as The Julliard
Pier and ship at gravesend
I was born in 1951 in Brookly,my family live on Bayview Ave until moving to north of Boston. My cousins Billy and Baron Dunphy and Patty Dunn lived on Bayview and along with my brother Paul, we all played on the pier and ship with BOBBY IZZO for many summers !
Coney Island 1940’s
I grew your on Bay View Ave. in Coney Island. I remember swimming and diving from the Julliard ship as a child. My older brother Fred Schaller shares these memories as well. Would like some info on that time period. Have great memories
Of Steeplechase too.
GRAVESEND BAY 1960s and 70s
Wow, love reading all these comments. I grew up W. 36th St. and Bayview. I fished Norton point and there was a sandbar right where Seagate meets Bayview. Used to walk out on the flats.
But you had to be careful because they had in that area what was referred to as the black hole where some swimmers had drowned because of the whirlpool and undertow. I fished during when the Verrazano was being built. I saw two big ships colliding in the 70’s.
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