NYC Fleet Week, which takes place every Memorial Day Weekend, brings thousands of young men and women serving the nation’s naval crews to our fine city to visit tourist attractions and take part in numerous special events. It has been a tradition since 1935.

This year’s Fleet Week Celebration is highlighted in Brooklyn by the previously reported 2012 Operation Sail Parade (opSail) and U.S. Navy Parade of Ships.

Feel like taking part? An event guide for the coming weekend is here.

(Photo: Chuck Taylor)

Tomorrow morning (Wednesday, May 23), weather permitting, you may be able to view from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade a parade of ships proceeding from the harbor entrance up into the Hudson River. Leading the parade, and starting to pass the Statue of Liberty at about 8:15 a.m., will be a line of nine tall sailing ships from countries around the world, including our own USCG Eagle and Mexico’s Cuauhtemoc. Following the tall ships will be thirteen modern naval vessels from the U.S. and other countries, which will begin passing the Statue around 11:30 a.m.

From 11:15 to 12:15 there will be a flyover above the Hudson of nineteen fixed wing aircraft, including the U.S. Navy’s famous Blue Angels aerobatic team, and six helicopters. This all marks the beginning of Fleet Week, which continues with various events through Memorial Day weekend. Over the weekend a number of ships, including four tall ships, will be docked at piers 7 and 8, near the foot of Atlantic Avenue and Columbia Street, and will be open for visits by the public. More details are on Cobble Hill Blog.

Addendum: Carolina Salguero of PortSide NY has provided a guide to the ships that will be docked here in Brooklyn.

Starting today, there will be food service on the East River ferries that connect Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, making a stop at Fulton Ferry Landing at the foot of Old Fulton Street.

DNAinfo.com: Beginning Monday morning, passengers will be treated to a new menu of locally-produced goodies, including cupcakes from Butter Lane Cupcakes, retro-style u-bet egg creams in chocolate and vanilla, and hot and iced coffees from the Brooklyn Roasting Company.

Chips and pastries will be $2; coffees, egg creams, and cupcakes $3. Food service will be available every day, starting at 7:00 a.m.

Disney’s new cruise ship, the 130,000 ton Disney Fantasy, could be seen from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade this morning, arriving after a trans-Atlantic voyage from the Meyer Werft shipyard in Germany, where she was built. She was heading toward the Hudson River and the cruise terminal on the West Side of Manhattan.

Barbara E. Bouchard passes under the Manhattan Bridge, as seen from Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park.

The U.S. Coast Guard training ship Eagle, docked at Pier 7, as seen from Pier 6, Brooklyn Bridge Park, near the foot of Atlantic Avenue. The Eagle’s crew will be welcoming visitors for tours of the ship until 7:00 p.m. today (Sunday, August 7).

Your correspondent took his morning walk today along Brooklyn Bridge Park from Pier 6 to DUMBO, and got some photos along the way. Here is the East River Ferry passing Pier 1 on its northbound run, making haste from downtown Manhattan to Fulton Ferry Landing. More photos and text follow the jump.

Plants along the pond at the southeastern edge of Pier 1 have grown considerably over the past month, and blossomed.

Seen from Brooklyn bridge Park in DUMBO, a catamaran yacht sails under the Brooklyn Bridge heading up the East River.

This Wednesday, July 27, the Municipal Art Society will present a walking tour of the Brooklyn waterfront from DUMBO through below the Heights, covering Brooklyn Bridge Park as well as the remnants of the commercial and industrial waterfront that preceded it.

For most of the 20th century, the site of Brooklyn Bridge Park was a 24/7 working waterfront, crowded with docks, railyards, and warehouses. Discover evidence of Brooklyn’s mercantile past, examine links to the adjoining historic districts and its influence on the park’s design, for which landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh received the 2010 Brendan Gill Prize from MAS.

The tour leader is architectural historian Matt Postal. It starts at 6:00 p.m. by the entrance to the York Street F train station, Jay and York streets, in DUMBO. The fee is $10 for MAS members, $15 for non-members. Pay at the beginning of the tour.

The historic tugboat Pegasus and Lehigh Valley Barge No. 79 will arrive at Pier 6, Brooklyn Bridge Park (foot of Atlantic Avenue) this Thursday, July 14, and remain until Monday, July 25. A schedule of activities is here. This Saturday, July 16, is City of Water Day, and Brooklyn Bridge Park will participate with tug and barge tours, music, and other activities at Pier 6, a kayak demonstration at Pier 5, and free kayaking at Pier 1 (schedule here). On Sunday, July 24, at Pier 6, the Waterfront Museum will present “Showboat Shazzam,” billed as “New York’s acclaimed little big top at sea.” For details, and to purchase tickets, see here.

Mr. J. attends the launch party at Fulton Ferry Landing, then rides the new ferry service. Remember, it’s free through this coming Friday, June 24. Video after the jump.

We noted in February that new ferry service among points along the East River, including Fulton Ferry Landing, at the foot of Old Fulton Street, and. on Fridays in summer, Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, at the foot of Atlantic Avenue, would start this month. The service is making its debut today, and rides are free through Friday, June 24. Details and a video from NY1 are here. After June 24, fares will be $4 for a one-way ticket, $12 for an unlimited one day pass, and $140 for an unlimited monthly pass.

For many years, the masts and spars of the tall ships Peking and Wavertree, docked at piers 15 and 16 on the Manhattan waterfront, have been a familiar sight from the Promenade, as have the schooner Pioneer and the doughty little tug W.O. Decker sailing on the East River. Unfortunately, all of these ships are in danger of being sent elsewhere or, in the case of the magnificent Peking, the largest of the tall ships in the photo above, of being sold for scrap. Already, the Seaport Museum of New York (formerly the South Street Seaport Museum) has laid off all of the staff responsible for maintaining the ships, and cruises on Pioneer and Decker have been cancelled. In addition, the historic Bowne & Co. Print Shop has been closed, and is in danger of losing its valuable antique presses and other artifacts. Friends of the Museum, including its founder, Peter Stanford, are trying to rally support to save it, the ships and the print shop from being lost. In the photo above, the retired fireboat John J. Harvey, now privately owned, sprayed water yesterday afternoon in support of a rally to save the Seaport. To learn more, see the website Save Our Seaport. There is also a Friends of Bowne website.

Tickets are going fast for the Brooklyn Bugle’s Brooklyn Heights 101 Tour (Saturday 11am).  Tix sales end one hour before the event. Get yours now!  Click here to buy.

Stuck in town for the weekend? Or, perhaps, you simply enjoy being in town on holidays, when things are a little less crowded and fast-paced. If beach volleyball isn’t your thing, you could take a tour of the Brooklyn Historical Society’s historic building, starting tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. It’s free for BHS members, and the cost for others is museum admission: $6 for adults; $4 for seniors (62 and over), students over 12, and teachers; and free for kids under 12. Another option is the Brooklyn Navy Yard tour jointly presented by BHS and Urban Oyster on Sunday from 1:45 to 4:30 p.m. Advance ticket purchase is required; go to the Urban Oyster website to purchase tickets, which are $30 each. If you’re a BHS member, you get a 10% discount; call 718-222-4111 x250 for your discount code. And then there’s Fleet Week.

If you thought you were truly in helicopter hell this morning, you were only partly right. Most of the racket was being made by a pair of V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft (we’ve seen these before) that were circling the area and occasionally touching down at the Downtown Heliport. This was part of the Fleet Week events. Your correspondent got a video of one from the Promenade. Meanwhile, Karl took his cam to Battery Park yesterday morning and caught the parade of ships entering the Hudson, and some planes flying over. Two videos after the jump.

The annual Fleet Week, scheduled to cover Memorial Day weekend, begins tomorrow (Wednesday, May 25) with a parade of ships passing through the harbor, into the Hudson River, and up to the George Washington Bridge, where they will turn and go to their docks. This will be visible from the Promenade from 8:30 a.m. to about 10:00 a.m. A closer vantage point is the Battery Park City Esplanade, in lower Manhattan.

The ships, some of which will dock on Manhattan’s West Side and some on Staten Island (details here), alas, none in Brooklyn, will be open for public tours Thursday through Tuesday, in accordance with the schedules shown on the press release linked above.

NotifyNYC gives us this cautionary note:

During Fleet Week (5/24 to 6/01) expect low flying military aircraft, 21-gun salutes, a parade of ships and other events in the NY Harbor, including the Hudson River, Lower Manhattan and the Downtown Manhattan Heliport areas.

Other Fleet Week events, some of which are in Brooklyn, are listed here.

Update: Sailing time has evidently been delayed. We’ll let you know when we have a new estimated departure time. Update-update: Sailing time is now late tonight.

The giant (703 feet long, 56,650 gross tons) combination container and RORO ship Grande Benin, belonging to Italy’s Grimaldi Group (no relation to the pizza folks, so far as we know) will depart from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where she has been undergoing repairs for the past several weeks, at 1:00 p.m. She should be passing under the Brooklyn Bridge and heading past Pier 1 of Brooklyn Bridge Park and the Promenade shortly after that.

Grande Benin is so tall that, to fit under the Brooklyn Bridge, she had to be ballasted down and have her mast removed. Thanks to PortSide New York for the tip.

Photos by C. Scales for BHB.

Starting this June, there will be year-round, every day ferry service connecting Fulton Landing, at the foot of Old Fulton Street, and other points in Brooklyn and Queens, with downtown and midtown Manhattan. During the summer this service will be extended to Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 6, near the foot of Atlantic Avenue.

New York Times: For all their dominance on Staten Island, ferries have long struggled to muscle their way into the city’s mass transit mainstream. Experiments in Queens and Brooklyn have been held back by infrequent service, outsize operating costs and low ridership.
…
Under the plan, to be announced on Wednesday, ferries will travel along a seven-stop route that stretches from Long Island City, Queens, to the Fulton Ferry landing by the Brooklyn Bridge, and includes Manhattan terminals at Pier 11 in the financial district and East 34th Street. During peak hours, boats will arrive at each stop every 20 minutes and travel in both directions.

According to the Times article, the city has committed to subsidize the service for a minimum of three years. The fare between Fulton Ferry or Pier 6 and downtown Manhattan will be $3.00; to or from midtown it will be $5.50. See the linked Times article for a map of the service.

Cunard’s “Three Queens” rendezvoused last night in New York Harbor. The Queen Mary 2, the Queen Victoria and the recently launched Queen Elizabeth met under a spectacular fireworks display. Karl Junkersfeld caught the display on tape. His report after the jump.

Cunard’s three “Queen” cruise ships–Queen Mary 2, which makes her home port at the Brooklyn Cruise Ship Terminal, Queen Victoria, and the newest in the fleet, Queen Elizabeth, will all arrive in New York tomorrow, Thursday, January 13, at about 6:00 a.m. Mary will berth at Red Hook, as usual, and will be visible from the Promenade all day, while Elizabeth and Victoria will dock at the Manhattan Cruise Ship Terminal near the foot of West 55th Street.

At about 6:00 p.m. the three Queens will depart from their docks and converge at about 6:45 in the harbor near the Statue of Liberty, where they will remain during a Grucci Brothers fireworks display, then proceed to sea. This should be visible from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, and from the pier near the foot of Van Brunt Street in Red Hook, although the best viewing will be from Battery Park or the Battery Park City Esplanade. More details are on Cunard’s website.

This Saturday, November 27, there will be a parade of decorated boats, including, it is reported, a tugboat towing a 70′ tall lighted Christmas tree on a barge, that will leave the Chelsea piers on the west side of Manhattan at about 6:30 p.m., proceed down the Hudson to near the Statue of Liberty, then through the Governors Island Channel into the East River. The parade is scheduled to be passing Brooklyn Bridge Park from 7:15 to 7:30 (presumably this means Pier 1, which will be the ideal location from which to watch the parade, although it will also be visible from the Promenade). The boats will reverse direction just north of the Manhattan Bridge and sail back down the East River, passing South Street Seaport at about 7:30 to 7:45. There’s more about the parade, including a map of the parade route, here.

We’ve had several inquiries about the status of Bargemusic, which is not docked at its usual spot at the pier at Fulton Landing. According to the website, it’s temporarily in drydock for repairs, and will be back in time for a concert on October 22.

The historic tug Pegasus and Lehigh Valley Barge No. 79, the latter property of the Waterfront Museum at Red Hook, will be visiting Pier 6, Brooklyn Bridge Park (foot of Atlantic Avenue; to get there, go to the foot of Joralemon Street, cross Furman, turn left and walk one block to the pier entrance), arriving tomorrow and continuing through Tuesday, August 31. A schedule of activities, which includes tours of the barge and free tug rides, is on the Park’s website.

Karl, Heights history buff extraordinaire, gives us a visual tour of Pier 4, lying below and just to the north of the foot of Montague Street, showing its bustling past as an essential element in a commercial and industrial waterfront, its disuse, decay, and present decrepitude.

The barkentine Gazela will arrive at Pier 11 (enter at Pioneer and Conover Streets), Red Hook, this Wednesday, August 18, and remain through Monday, August 23. Tours of the ship will be available Thursday from 2-5 pm, Friday from 2-6 pm, Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm, and Monday from 2-5 pm. A $5 donation is requested for tours, but is not mandatory.

Cabaret Red Light will present two performances of Seven Deadly Seas, one at 8:00 pm and one at 10:00 pm, on Gazela’s deck each evening Thursday through Sunday (Monday is the rain date). The show is described as “an adult thing” because it includes “a modest burlesque” at the close. Tickets are $25, and may be purchased here.

Gazela was built in Portugal in 1901, and served in that country’s cod fishing fleet until 1969, crossing the Atlantic to fish on the famous Grand Banks. In 1971, philanthropist William Wikoff Smith bought her and brought her to Philadelphia, where she is now maintained by the Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild (your correspondent photographed her at her berth at Penn’s Landing four years ago). This is her first visit to New York.

Gazela’s visit is sponsored by PortSide New York, which maintains the historic harbor tanker Mary Whalen at Pier 11. Tomorrow evening, Mary’s deck will be the venue for Jalopy Theater’s Roots & Ruckus Show, featuring Two-Man Gentleman Band, Stephanie Nilles, Mamie Minch and Dayna Kurtz, and Feral Foster. Tickets are $10, and can be purchased here, where you can also get more details about the event (e.g. free lasagna!).

BHB Photo by C. Scales

Clipper City is a 1984 replica of an 1854 vintage schooner built to haul cargo on the Great Lakes. This is her second summer taking passengers on cruises in New York Harbor, departing from Pier 17 at South Street Seaport. She can often be seen from the Promenade (from which the above photo was taken today) while leaving or approaching her dock.

Cruises on Clipper City can be booked through Manhattan by Sail’s website, which also shows the daily sailing schedule, or by calling 212-619-0907. Fares start at $39 for adults, $35 for seniors, and $17 for children under 12.

Will Van Dorp, of Tugster: a Waterblog, has an interesting post about the Heights, focusing on Abiel Abbot Low, who came here from Salem, Massachusetts, owned clipper ships in the China trade, and lived in a large townhouse on Pierrepont Place, next to the Montague Street entrance to the Promenade. The adjoining townhouse to the north, next to what is now the Pierrepont Playground, was the residence of Alexander White, whose fortune came from fur trading.

Tugster: a Waterblog: A. A. Low moved to Brooklyn Heights after spending six years in Canton’s markets dealing with Wu Bingjian aka Howqua. From Brooklyn Heights, Low could observe the goings and comings of his fleet of China clippers over at South Street when it was a seaport in the years between the First and Second Opium Wars.

Low’s son, Seth, named for his grandfather, served as Mayor of Brooklyn, then as President of Columbia College (which moved from midtown Manhattan to Morningside Heights and became Columbia University during his tenure), and then as mayor of New York City following its merger with Brooklyn.

BHB photo by C. Scales

AOL News (Jason Straziuso, AP): NAIROBI, Kenya (March 18) — These Somali pirates picked the wrong ship to hijack.

Troops aboard the Dutch warship HNLMS Tromp fired warning shots Wednesday off the coast of East Africa as suspected Somali pirates in two small skiffs raced toward their warship, the EU Naval Force said.

After the pirates realized they had made what spokesman Cmdr. John Harbour called a “rather silly mistake,” they turned around and fled. EU Naval Force personnel tracked down the two skiffs and a third suspected mothership, finding ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades on board, said Harbour, a spokesman for the EU Naval Force.

Update: Tromp managed to trump the pirates despite the likely presence of gays and lesbians among the crew.