fireboat.org - Historic Fireboat John J. Harvey - Life Saver, National Treasure

11 May 2006

Ships That Pass in the Morn: One Is Huge, the Other Just Scrappy

by Alan Feuer

If, for whatever reason, you had risen early yesterday and loitered at the bottom of Manhattan, you might have seen, among the garbage scows and the Staten Island ferries, a nautical publicity stunt coming in from sea.

Robert Stolarik
for The New York Times

An old fireboat gets to guide the
world's biggest cruise ship into
New York Harbor and around the
Statue of Liberty.

The stunt involved two ships - or, actually, a ship and a boat: the Freedom of the Seas, a billion-dollar, 160,000-ton behemoth, which is owned by Royal Caribbean and holds the title of the Biggest Cruise Ship in the World; and the John J. Harvey, a snub-nosed, 268-ton fireboat, which is owned by a cast of local mariners and has been chugging through the waterways around New York for more than 70 years.

The idea here was to lend a sheen of history and working-class appeal to the arrival of Leviathan, which was on its maiden voyage. The scrappy Harvey led the gleaming Freedom through the narrows, into the harbor and around the Statue of Liberty, not unlike a hound dog bounding out before a hunting expedition for the king.

"It's a great nod to New York to bring in the biggest ship in the world with all the coolest stuff on board and to fire up - literally - the Harvey, which very few people know about," said Rene Mack, the publicist who planned the event. "I see it as a salute to New York's maritime history, which is hard to find these days."

It is axiomatic that New York's maritime history is not only hard to find these days, but also has pretty much sunk - which is one reason the Harvey's owners took the escort gig. Their boat is old, prone to floods, drinks diesel like an 18-wheeler and survives on a diet of matching grants and deductible donations. Publicity, as much as its hull, keeps the boat afloat.

Robert Stolarik
for The New York Times

Bob Lenney, the pilot of the
John J. Harvey fireboat, spied
the Freedom of the Seas ocean
liner Wednesday as it entered
New York Harbor.

"Exposure is important," said Huntley Gill, an architectural preservationist and one of its owners. "You want to be sitting at a dinner party and say, 'I work with the John J. Harvey,' and people say, 'Yeah, I just read about that thing.' "

Enter Mr. Mack, president of "Travel and Lifestyle Practice" for the public relations firm Weber Shandwick, which has been planning this event for the past two years. As the Harvey motored through the channel, Mr. Gill said, "Do you have any preference about which side we approach?"

"Whatever's best for the photographer," Mr. Mack said.

The Harvey, it turned out, was only one dancer in the maritime ballet that Mr. Mack has planned. Tomorrow morning, the "Today" show - with a crew of at least 200 - will broadcast live from the ship, where an Oregon woman who is a foster mother to more than 400 children is scheduled to christen it. (Mr. Mack said that carpenters for the show had spent the shakedown cruise from England building the set and that the foster mother, Katherine Louise Calder, had been selected for the job after a nationwide search for "an ordinary woman.")

Then there is the Barry Manilow concert from one of the Freedom's pools. This was an occasion for jocularity among the Harvey's crew, which has the task of ferrying Mr. Manilow to the ship (Mr. Gill, at one point, confused him with Engelbert Humperdinck).

All jokes ended, though, when the Harvey pulled beside the Freedom in the channel and its brick-red tower seemed no more than a scab against the hull. It was agreed that the ship - which has an ice rink, a rock-climbing wall, a boxing ring, three "pool regions" and a wave machine atop which passengers can surf - was big, exceptionally big.

Mr. Mack said, "The shot we're working for is people surfing as we go around the statue."

Minutes later, taking pictures of his own, he said, "Where's the Staten Island Ferry when you need it?"

"Post-mortem," he told himself. "Ask ferries to coordinate runs."

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