The owners of the historic fireboat that helped extinguish the fires in lower Manhattan after Sept. 11 have issued an SOS of their own.
Last week, the organization that owns the 1931 John J. Harvey, wrote to New York State Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation asking for a grant to repair the 130-foot steel vessel. John J. Harvey Ltd. says it needs $700,000 to repair the riveted hull, wheelhouse, and propulsion and pumping systems.
"Steel boats, unlike historic houses, need work every 20 years," says Huntley Gill, one of the boat's 17 co-owners. "If we don't do something now, she'll be sitting on a mud bank, rusting away, in 10 years."
The Harvey gives free tours up the Hudson River and free displays of its water pumps. (John J. Harvey Ltd.)
After serving the Fire Department of New York for 63 years, the boat was retired in 1994. A group of New Yorkers noticed it in a Brooklyn Navy Yard and, in 1999, chipped in to buy it at an auction for $28,000. With help from volunteers, the group has restored the hull, propeller blades, and made countless other repairs.
Now a floating museum, the boat carries tourists on free trips up the Hudson River to Albany. The National Trust gave the fireboat a National Trust Honor Award in 2001 for its role on Sept. 11.
That morning, five volunteers rushed to the boat and ferried 150 survivors from Ground Zero to safety. When the crew received word that no fire hydrants were working downtown, they docked in lower Manhattan, turned on the Harvey's pumps—which can spray 18,000 gallons a minute—and for days pumped river water on the fire.
John J. Harvey Ltd. asked the state for a $350,000 matching grant and will raise the rest from private donations. Gill says the state will likely decide by the end of the year.
