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March 21, 2001Race to keep 9/11 fireboat afloat
by Justin Rocket Silverman
On the morning of September 11, 2001, almost every water line at Ground Zero was either disabled or destroyed. The FDNY, desperate for water, took the unprecedented step of summoning an antique fireboat, one that the year before had been added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Within minutes, the engines of the John J. Harvey fireboat were powered up and steered downtown, where its crew evacuated people trapped near the Battery. It wasn't long before an FDNY radio call came in -- rush to help Ground Zero firefighters.
The John J. Harvey was soon pumping upward of 18,000 gallons of Hudson River water a minute to fire trucks at the World Trade Center site. It joined the FDNY boats Fire Fighter and McKean to provide water.
But now that sturdy, heroic boat that battled some of the largest riverfront blazes in the city's history is itself in mortal danger.
"Saltwater and steel don't like each other," said Huntley Gill, a preservationist who purchased the Harvey with others from the city in 1999, and piloted it on 9/11.
"She's 75 year old, and perhaps more than any other boat in America, this boat is in the habit of dousing itself with saltwater."
Both the John J. Harvey and the George Washington Bridge were born in 1931.
On hand for the bridge's opening ceremony, the Harvey was able to blast seawater so high that it actually cleared the GW's upper roadway and came raining down the other side.
Before its fateful role in the rescue and recovery at Ground Zero, the boat was serving as a floating museum off a pier at West 23rd Street, after seeing other uses in the years since it was decommissioned in 1995.
For its service to the city and the nation after 9/11, the boat was awarded a mention in the Congressional Record.
Now a massive fund-raising campaign is under way to keep the Harvey, which is in winter dry dock in Connecticut, afloat.
Gill estimates it needs about a million dollars in major hull work. The boat will return to Pier 63 this summer, but needs the hull work to continue operating.
The state has offered a $320,000 historic preservation matching grant if the Harvey owners can raise $740,000. A benefit show on Monday night raised $115,000.
Donations to preserve it can be made at fireboat.org.
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Eric Weisler
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