On a
mid-summer morning in 1967 an inflatable canvas raft paddled by two boys
rounded the bend of the East River at the northwest corner of Queens. As the
watercraft passed the huge towering smokestacks of the Con Edison power plant
on 20th Avenue in Astoria, Marine Terrace came into view. Built
about twenty years earlier, what was once a functional if spartan garden
apartment community for young working class families had deteriorated in the
age of Fun City into two sections, a mis-managed , littered, semi-grassless,
non-public housing project west of 21st Street, and a still clean
quiet orderly section east of 21st Street.
A modest makeshift one-acre cove at
the junction of Shore Boulevard and 20th Avenue just outside the
westernmost Con Ed entrance provided a safe harbor to make land. With the East
River, technically an estuary, not a river, in a slack water state, a two-hour
time span between tides, the current was at a momentary standstill flowing
neither north nor south. The usually treacherous waterway, now as calm as a
pond allowed for an easy beaching of the boys’ air-filled raft.
The younger of the two small craft
adventurers, ten-year old Tom Sawyer of Port Jefferson Station, Long Island was
eager to come ashore after three hours of early morning paddling since the
World’s Fair Marina. The apparent strangeness of this spot baffled him, but the
sight of three boys around his age skipping stones from the rocky river bank
just beyond the cove was reassuring.
“Huck, let’s make land here. Those
boys over yonder can tell us where we are and what this place is exactly.”
“This is the East River, Tom,”
answered his somewhat older mate. “My Pap used to spin some mighty tales about
these waters. You know, he once worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.”
“I thought you said he was a
painter?”
“He was. He used to paint ships’
hulls. Did you know there’s sunken ships down at the bottom somewhere? One’s an
English war ship from the Revolutionary War with a treasure chest full of gold.
Pap said look out for the whirlpools between here and that old railroad bridge.
Let your boat spin in a whirlpool three times while singing “Won’t You Let Me
Take You on a Sea Cruise.” If you don’t get stuck in the whirlpool it means the
captain’s ghost is sending you off with a warning- just forget about the gold!
They don’t call it Hell Gate for nothing.”
“I ain’t afeard, if that’s what you
think. It’s just that I can feel blisters forming on my hands and I ain’t got
any of Aunt Polly’s balm.” So, the boys steered their raft towards the shore,
taking advantage of the brief period where the waterway was without a current.
The three boys noticing the
spectacle by this time, stood dumbfoundedly staring as Tom and Huck beached
their raft, although this gravely mixture of pebbles, stones, shells, and bits
of broken glass, remnants of smashed soda and beer bottles topped by mossy
seaweed draped boulders slightly sloping for about thirty feet up to an eight
foot high concrete seawall with a sewer pipe protruding at the bottom, was not
a beach in any true sense of the word. Earlier that year a slightly intoxicated
fugitive from South Carolina speeding down 20th Avenue had driven a
stolen car right over the seawall and into the river. Miraculously, he was not
badly hurt, but was promptly extradited back to South Carolina to complete his
sentence with additional time added on. This spot was no Jones Beach, that’s
for sure.
The curious stone skipping
spectators approached our two river rafters who with a bit of teamwork carried
their still inflated craft to the top of the riverbank bypassing the seawall
which would have been impossible to climb. The first one, Joe, a ten-year old
rather tall for his age sporting what was once a crew cut, but had since grown
out humorously asked, “Hey, what are you, pirates or something?”
“No, we ain’t pirates. We’re just
two adventurous voyagers,” boasted Tom even though he actually did envision
himself and Huck as Long Island buccaneers of a sort.
“Whataya gonna do with your raft?”
inquired Sam, the second ten-year old, not quite as tall as the first. “You
can’t just leave it here if you’re exploring the neighborhood. Someone will
snatch it.” What Sam really wanted was to have a try at paddling the raft
himself, but certainly not in the notorious East River.
“If you leave it here on the rocks,
the rats will walk off with it like shoplifters in a department store,” added
Mark, the shortest of the shore standing trio, expecting laughs that never
came.
Tom and Huck and their friendly
landlubber lookouts discussed a number of safe hiding places- a vacant first
floor apartment here on Shore Boulevard that they could climb into from the
clotheslines, the roof over 20-24 19th Street, a courtyard basement
between 18th and 19th Street, or the garages on 20th
Avenue. Hiding the raft in the apartment was too conspicuous. They could easily
be spotted. It was also dangerous. And, they’d have to deflate it first. The
basement was also risky, and Injun Joe the maintenance man might find the raft
and sell it. The roof was daring, but climbing three flights of stairs with a
raft was not a good idea. So, the boys settled on the empty garage figuring no
one would see them going in or out. And they wouldn’t have to deflate it.
Marine Terrace included three rows of garages at the end of each block. Two
rows faced each other with a driveway between them. The third row sat on 20th
Avenue facing Con Edison. This row of garages was hidden from view even from
nosy neighbors in third floor apartments. It was deserted with no courtyards or
houses. Mothers often warned their kids not to play down there, but boys do not
always listen to their mothers. The garages had a certain appeal to Tom and
Huck- especially Huck.
The five boys, Tom, Huck, Joe, Sam,
and Mark were on their way. Little did they know that their summer adventure
was just beginning.
Steve T.
August 2020
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