Why Hundreds of New York Ships were Abandoned on Staten Island 

I went and experienced this for myself just a few months ago. I was down in Staten Island with some friends to visit another location and then we found this on Google maps. It looked like there was old remains of docks at one time?? Lot of pile ons sticking out of the mud in between them. Definitely a lot cooler and I thought it was going to be, had a good day walking around. Speaking of which I probably should make that video soon LOL. Thank you for doing this, I did not know the history of it

I live on STATEN ISLAND, there is soo much history and unknown facts about New York City's forgotten borough .

2:16 "Founded in the 1930s during the wake of WWII" I would think that a channel called 'It's History" would understand that the term "WAKE" refers to disturbance and repercussions left AFTER an historical event. WWII started for the US at the end of 1941. So the establishment of the Staten Island boat graveyard was not established in the "WAKE" of WWII. If it was established in the 30s it was more than likely the result of the depression and so many ships being sold for scrap because the owners couldn't afford to operate them. I would also bet that the yard was damn near empty with the exception of wooden boats as soon as manpower was available near the start of the war when scrap iron and steel were in very high demand.

I’ve done a lot of work here including cutting up old ferry’s, oil barges and many other things like bridges. I’ve worked for both Don Jon and other local tug companies in NY harbor.

The General Slocum Disaster: My Grandma's German immigrant family were members of St Mark's but they had decided not to attend the outing. She was about 6 yrs old that day, a day which almost might have prevented my existence, my Mom's, and the existence of my kids. WOWZA!

Sort of reminds me of Woodham Brothers in the UK that happened on another island Barry Island in Wales. It became prominent as they had 100s of steam Locomotives that they hadn't got round to scrapping yet and enthusiasts, preservationist and heritage railways went there to save them 213 in total and now most of the steam trains that run today in the UK were saved from that scrapyard.

I'm from Staten Island. A few things. So we have had issues with the guys that work for Don Jon scrapping. They once nearly ripped out an existing Air Con unit and claimed they thought it was scrap, meanwhile it was running and clearly being used. Also, we call then DON-JOHN. I was surprised learning they had so many functional vessels actually so I did learn something from this.

A couple of notes..... 1. This area of Staten Island was not highly industrialized at the time Witte dragged these boats there. It was in fact something of a resort area up until the creation of the landfill. 2. Witte illegally moved a great deal of these boats onto adjacent landowner lands without their permission. No one spoke up largely because at that point the waterfront had been ruined with the advent of the landfill being put in place. Also, as you can see in the video, any semblance of a shoreline was done in by the mud flats that were created by dredging a channel in the waters of the Arthur Kill. So the waterfront potential was rendered fairly useless at this point. Other than that, This video is well researched and documented. Good Job.

hi everyone, i'm the grumpy old fart from n.h. i was on nauset beach, in orleans, ma., about the same time, and place that the photo of a wave breaking up over the ship. i was very impressed by the power of the sea, when giant sparks came flying off the bow from the anchor chain. it was quite a call to be sure, i joined fellow chatham fire fighters, and personel from chatham coast guard station, and got help with unloading the crew from the chopper depicted in the painting. that pilot was quite talented to say the least. john

9:16 D-day wasn't disastrous it went exceptionally well it was pyrrhic for the Americans on Omaha but that was it

This was in my grandmothers back yard along with Valero oil silo & cemetery. My cousins and i used to play in the barge and its nice to know its still intact

Kind of annoying that people try to buy certain boats there, and the scrapyard doesn’t let them. Like what’s the point? They’re not doing their job, why not let someone else have them.

When I was a little kid my Dad drove me out to Cape Cod to see the Eldia when she was on the beach after being driven ashore during the storm. I always wondered what became of her.

I kayaked through there a few years ago. Pretty neat. But be careful. The water isn't clear and there's lots of junk just below the surface. I hit some and fell in during November. Not the warmest, but worth the trip.

I grew up not too far from there but didn’t know anything about the boat graveyard until I went there just to scrap an old engine block after clearing my garage. Couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It’s really quite a sight especially if you’re not expecting it.

Excellent video! Old Bermuda Inn, just across Arthur Kill is also claimed to be haunted.

Oh spray paint is so ethnic and beautiful- Matches the litter , dirty needles and plastic very well

I always had a love for the old steam tugs. It’s a shame they don’t allow people of means that are able to restore some of these vessels for museum pieces, to save our history. Imagine if the USS Ironsides was left there to rot.

My hometown. At low tide, you can see most of these interesting and historical ships and tugboats

It's sad how they sunk them so they could just rust to death!!! Isn't that a hazard to the water having all those ships rusting away??? They probably got all kinds of nasty crap that shouldn't be going in the water!!!

15:44 was my first ship with M.S.C. I checked aboard on my birthday. It was upstream from the S.S. Savanna.

Me and my friends been there so many times and there’s a part of the graveyard where you have to jump around 6 ft from boat to boat to get to the rest of the graveyard

The house my great grandfather built overlooks the Arthur Kill and is about a 15 minute boat ride from the boat cemetery. Thirty years ago after Mom died in this house a friend motored us down past it. Somehow it seemed appropriate.

Kayaked here a few times cool place thanks for the vid nice to learn more about it

I've always went to Don Jon for scraping and saw the ships but never knew why they were their, thanks for the video

Thank you for the video!

When I was a teen decades ago my friends and I somehow ended up here. It was the coolest thing to see in the 90s. I’ve never forget the hidden gem behind the metal fence we came across. Knowing it’s history makes it so much better now

Very nice footage. New subscriber. Thanks.

That old wharf is cool also. I can only imagine how important that was when there was 400 boats there

This video topic is fascinating. 👏

It’s Arthur kill road… most of the areas you have mentioned are sadly highly developed and their history was taken with them…. I pass the cemetery and boats everyday going to work and coming back home with little thought to me or any of my friends until I went to college and did similar research

Great video. Love how you acknowledge the different pronunciations & how you mentioned to let you know in the comments (as most often do). Wink, wink indeed. Have a great night.

It was a lot more scenic 50 years ago, but yeah, the cleanup is needed

Excellent piece.

A great nugget of American history. Thanks a lot, Colin UK 🇬🇧

Was the Rossville cemetery in Staten Island too? The picture showed a Texas historical marker.

Such a beautiful place

That Dump should be cleaned up yesterday not today.Is their any laws guarding the long term health of locals and others in the area?As for historic yes indeed,but preserve pars off them or recycle the metal.

Great drone video!

These vessels are the equivalent of my mom's mousy old abandoned homes. They're like time capsuls BUT...health and safety violations. They all need a match.

Love your videos!! Ive lived in this area most of my life and recently took my son here he loved it! It's funny vast majority of people who live here have no idea about the boat or blazing star graveyard.

This was a really amazing and informative video. Keep up the great work! Also im laughing at the end with the explaining the ship equipment the company has the image for the heavy lift ship barge with the destroyer on it was my ship i was stationed on at that time when i was still active duty navy wasnt expecting to see it floating around on youtube.

I like the thumbnail that ship looks like the ss venture a little bit from the Peter Jackson King Kong movie

Very great video. I cam into possession of an 19th century larger size ink well from that zone of water but I suspect it to be actually from the 18th century and it is awesomely handsome to hold and view. The finder worked the area apparently and often took possession of relic or other during low tide as was told to me. I've been to the grave sight as well with my daughter and it is amazing.

14:48 It’s pretty obvious it’s due to liability that if anybody gets hurt a company that owns the property doesn’t want to be sued but they can fix that with a document that the person that wants to view the area to sign so that if they get hurt or killed. They can’t sue the company that owns the land.

Colombian sugar, is that code for something?

After seeing an article or picture on this- I think in National Geographic- my father & I went (from eastern PA) to explore this. Awesome, very cool. Unfortunately, the weather was awful, and everything was ice coated. I did climb around on some, but most surfaces were not level, ships partially sunk, etc. Everything was icy, tilted, half sunk in slushy Arthur Kill, lots of rusty sharp metal to fall on, etc. Getting caught trespassing was probably a low risk that day...who would be dumb enough to go there then? Yes, us. It was fun. That was in '97 or '98.

I use to climb out on those boats when I lived in Staten Island. I have an old video of me and my brother climbing around lmao

I'm from SINY and I Always wondered why they were Abandoned!

do a video of dead horse bay near by it has a beach made of horse bones and glass

Wow my mom has a house literally across the street from this

Need to open this for tourist

This is a good video which tells alot about the yard that I did not know, despite my past research. In particular, I did not know the family history. The yard was founded in 1933. It picked some vessels not needed after the war, but it's biggest growth came during the 1950s and 1960s. Witte Marine Equipment Yard - 1960s until the fire in 1977 It was during this time that the yard reached it’s greatest extent, as entire fleets of ferries, tugboats, carfloats and barges were retired with the completion of bridges to State Island in the 1960s. Witte was ordered by the Coast Guard to get rid of some of the vessels, as they were encroaching on the main channel. Some were scrapped; while others were towed and beached at a spot further south on the other side of the tank farm; where they remain today, though without permission, as mentioned by others. Witte Marine Equipment Yard - post-fire 1977 to the mid 1980s The hulks remaining in the yard began their slow decline after a fire in 1977, which gutted the ferry AMERICAN LEGION and scorched several of the surrounding vessels. The fire was supposedly started on July 4th, when people in pleasure boats, celebrating the 4th of July shot fireworks into some of the wooden boats. The fire burned pretty well across the yard and took three days to put out. There were wooden barges filled with steam gauges, steam pumps ("hundreds of them"), fire extinguishers, and other machinery. When they were burned in the fire, their contents fell into the brackish water of the Hudson River and sank into the mud, most of it never to be recovered. The paths between the hulks were gone as well; making their salvage all the more difficult. Witte Equipment Marine Yard - mid 1980s to the mid 1990s The hulks in the yard continued their slow decline during this time. Mr. Witte passes away as mentioned in the video; his son scrapped the vessels that were still afloat, including the ferries JAMESTOWN and LACKAWANNA, while others such as the carfloat 618 sank during this time. Much of the equipment in yard has been here for 20 years, as long as it’s operational life! Much of the Shaun O’Boyle and Barry Masterson photo collections (no longer available on the web) were taken during this time frame. They show that steam machinery can still be found aboard several of the vessels, and Scotch-type boilers and other machinery was strewn about the yard. Witte Marine Equipment Yard - mid 1990s The slow decline of the hulks in yard continues. More vessels disappear, while others continue to collapse and sink into the muck. The huge steam derrick next to the LEIF VIKING, which dominated the west end of yard, would be razed to it’s wooden raft, while the large derrick between the stern of the NEW BEDFORD and an unknown tug in the east end of the yard was razed as well. (It had the large glass cab in the O’Boyle and Marterson photo tours.) After 20+ years of being here, the ruins became a wildlife refuge, and the yard kept the wrecks as they were, and will continue to for some time, in part as a wildlife sanctuary. The New England steamship mentioned was the 1928 built New Bedford. Some parts were salvaged from it to restore the sister ship Nobska. But the drydock the Nobska was in was needed by the NPS to work on the U.S.S. Constitution. Unable to move the Nobska, it was scrapped in place in 2006; only a few bits of steam machinery was saved. In addition to what is there now, , several other tugboats (including several New York Central RR tugs and the tug Jumbo from up the Hudson), lighters, car floats, barges, and wrecking derricks made up the remainder of the yard. Another destroyer escort (USS NEUNZER DE 150) was also in Witte’s yard at one time, along with several smaller coast guard jet drive fireboats and three Navy rescue tugs. A sister submarine chaser, the PC-1264, and three landing craft, are also still in the yard. The NY FD fireboat ABRAM S. HEWITT appears to no longer be visible, the red boat is the LT Class steam tug Bloxom. This fireboat served from 1903 until 1958; it was also one of the fireboats that attempted to put out the fire aboard the NORMANDIE, and resulted in the ocean liner's capsizing at her moorings and later being scrapped. It was the last coal fired steam fireboat still in service. The large white boat is the steam rescue tug HILA (ATR 89), which also served in World War II. Witte also had the nameplate from the third U.S. Navy submarine (SS-3 Adder) just sitting out in the open on a workbench, though he wouldn't part with it.

i grew up in this area. a few miles south by the Outerbridge had a few more barges and ships rumored to be used and abandoned after the construction of the bridge was left there. we used to build forts on the barge and ride ATVs through the woods. it was the place we escaped our parents and would light fires break windows in abandoned cars and smoke. i remember going down to the water front when the barge exploded over at port mobile. they eventually cleared out the wreckages in that area including all the blown up cars and beached speed boats. lost many shoes attempting to get so the ships and barges further out from the shore great times down there i miss being a kid 😂

Basically the article has lots of very interesting photos but the facts are at best a long way from reality in a lot of cases. A teacher would assess it as 6/10-- A good effort but could do better.

yeah its there!! I live here and it an eye sore!!

Out here in Kaliunicornia they used to burn wooden ships in SF & collect scrap metal at low tide.

It’s right across from the Old Bermuda Inn where I got married 10 years ago.

12:10 "others see it as a graveyard of toxic substances"... as the fish swim by enjoying their new homes among the wreckage

The image of the second cemetery you discuss, Rossville Zion, is on Bloomingdale Rd, not Arthur Kill. Are you referring to the St Luke's cemetery?

At 2:14: "was founded in the 1930's during the wake of WWII" No. WWII was mostly in the 1940's. At 9:19, why do you describe D-Day as disastrous? It was a hard won success.

I was hoping you'd mention the subchaser on the premises. The photo you included of it shows the vessel in the Bronx river with the Bronx Community College in the background.

Staten island the forgotten borough.

The entire yard is visible from the burial ground. One vessel you showed looks to be the ferry Lake Ponchartrain, which surely wasn't a NY vessel. They came from afar as well. There was once half a destroyer there, but long gone. You mispronounced several family names, but I'll leave that for others. DonJon is sounds just like the names they came from, not dungeon. Good video overall 👌

very good video! I almost thought you were going to touch on the sailors snug harbor which is right down the road from here! maybe itll be the subject of another video :)

At 2:14 a correction: The 1930s were BEFORE World War II. The video states the "landfill was founded in the 1930s during the wake of World War II." Something that happens during the wake of an event happens after the event, which in the case of World War II would be after September 2, 1945.

I scrap #1 bright copper there all the time. The office receptionist answers Don Jon when calling for copper prices.

This boat graveyard is in my comic book.

Back in the '80's a WWII PT boat could be seen from the industrial property next door. Also a couple of rusting WWII LVTs (landing vehicle tracked) --also called 'amtracs' (amphibious tracked) fighting vehicles were sitting just off Arthur Kill Rd. When I saw them in the 1980's, forty years had passed since WWII, and now 40 more years have passed, so I suspect they're long gone.

The picture shown of the cemetery has a historical marker of the great state of Texas next to the tree?

it looks so cool irl tho

This place is SUPER creepy to me, especially the tugs.

Its absurd in the Eco Friendly World That Tree Huggers would not be up in arms over the Pollution, and eye sore of such a place no matter how historic the Contents, I Love Marine History and this seems like such an affront to allow all these vessels to lay and rot, and not let people document this before it is gone.......what a waste......

3:09 was the word "eminent" used on purpose or was it meant to be "adamant" ?

dont forget the don jon ship repair facility in erie pa

What kind of boat is on the thumbnail picture ? Is it a tug boat or fishing boat ?

Looks like a Superfund Site.

Wow, some of these need saved

what did you use the same four pics over and over and over way to go i especially enjoy the shot of he boat with mountain range in the back , such a great story and yet so dissapointing

I'm surprised NY hasn't made that place clean it up.

I love all you do . Some of these government boats could be homeless shelters . Put people to work on the boat.no one lives for nothing even if it's just phone stuff. But could make nice place help people in alot of ways.

I went here to explore and found I had to improvise to make why in. I had to improvise as well to cross the ships and barges using dangerous methods. Almost had to get rescued by the coast guard. Believe it or not you can tell the ships you see are just part of it, there's more ships and older ones underneath the current ones buried in the mud. If you go on Google earth these ships will provide excellent foundation to extend the coastline which is what they've been doing for years. The evidence of this is all on Google earth. I'm currently amazed by finding old frames of ships half buried in the mud along shore. Google Earth will reveal them all

It's Don Jon there is also a smaller scrap yard in dover nj

My guess is that international banking was done with whatever phase of shit they had us working for and moved to something less magnanimous.

I have been working on a virtual replica of the boat graveyard for quite some time now. I have always loved the boat graveyard but now it's sort of blank. There are very few wrecks there that even resemble boats anymore and the last remaining few are slowly fading into the mud. If you want to see some other boat graveyards that won’t shoot you for trespassing here is my list. 1.Hoo boat graveyard in london. 2. luanda angola beach africa 3.Curtis Creek Ship Graveyard (maryland)

Is this where the last level of Condemned 2 takes place?

never knew this...........

I remember seeing as a kid the once British owned prison ships on the shores of Bayonne, NJ

i live up the block and its a wreck can't event access it from land cool to see a video tho

7:37 The passengers of the PS General Slocum drowned in the turbulent waters of the Hell Gate area of the so-called East River, NOT "at sea."

I was born and raised on Staten island and I didn't even know this "ship graveyard" existed lmao

at 11:53 in the Rossvile graveyard, why is there a Texas historical marker,? looks like Texas not New York. just wondering

There were a few sunken wrecks of historic significance in and around the bayonne area as well, near constable hook.

How did this graveyard escape being called The Kill Zone?

It must be fantastically polluted

你是个帅小伙子！

Meet any guidos or guidettes? Visit the landfills?

1932 the wake of WWII ?

11:49 Why is there a Texas Landmark marker in Staten Island?

I lived right down the street at 388 zebra place the house still stands