September 16, 2007
Rockaway Sunken?
Getting some interesting calls and text messages, basically indicating that the Rockaway Armada may've suffered some extensive damage near the eastside's riverfront this afternoon, with at least one boat capsized according to a phoned-in, eyewitness report from one of our 52nd City subscribers. Another texted with notes of being at the "wreckage."
Went down late in the afternoon and saw a Coast Guard cruiser leaving the area, but couldn't find the Rockaway. I probably zigged instead of zagged, par for my weekend's drowsy course. Alas.
If anyone has word, we'll keep this the last and the official thread on the subject here. I've actually called into a source at the P-D to see if they'd find and post some multimedia coverage of this on STLtoday.com. If anyone has links from other outlets, post them below.
Ayie. Really wanted to see this self-created armada.
(Update: just home on Sunday night, 'round 11:20. The ships, according to Jim Utz, are between the close McKinley Bridge and north city's rail bridge, on the Venice, IL, side of things. Went by tonight, but it's not exactly a lit and welcoming spot, so hopefully tomorrow will yield results. Did run across Moore's Lounge, the most-intimidating bar in St. Louis. Another post for another evening.)
Check the website, no news, but here is what they have to say about this:
"We are floating down the Mississippi River on a raft we built from trash. The catch is that we don’t know much about boats or rivers, and we don’t have any money."
http://www.missrockaway.org/
Via an eyewitness account on Sunday: one of the side boats was lost yesterday, while the main vessel took on water, but was saved. The remnants of the armada are tied to a barge, located between the rail bridge and the McKinley Bridge, across the river from North City.
Meanwhile, those taking part in the voyage were drafted into the film production currently taking place at Cassilly's Cement Land.
Posted by thomas on Mon., Sep 17, 2007 at 8:39 PMI believe the proper nautical phase is: "pooped"
Stef and I were walking up the Gateway Trail when George hailed us on bicycle coming South. He was taumatized - he has seen something terrible - the coast guard ship was towing the "artbarge" when she nose-undered and water poured over her hull (she pooped). The guardship lulled and let the barge right, but in the meantime she lost about half a mile leeway and lurched sickly beneath the heavy heave. Had anybody been hurt? Was she lost?
"I don't want to make shit up," said George - He simply didn't know.
Stefene and I hiked and hiked, but saw nothing. A coastguard vessel rivered downstream without fanfare, so we assume the Rockaway was righted (or else the coastguard didn't give a fart in hell).
Afterward nobody was willing to believe that pooping was actually a serious, potentially tragic thing.
Poor pooped Rockaway. Why do New York artists so readily pine all Huck Finn and Jim and somehow neglect the fact that industrial lock & dams inforce DOT regulations?
Posted by monstromo on Tue., Sep 18, 2007 at 12:03 AMMaria Hickey of KWMU breaks the story:
http://publicbroadcasting.net/kwmu/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1151122
Posted by thomas on Wed., Sep 19, 2007 at 7:44 PMVisited the Miss Rockaway Armada this past Friday...the crew seems to be in good spirits...looks like they plan on shoving off soon, co-dependant on repair work.
Posted by aaron on Tue., Oct 2, 2007 at 10:54 AM