A Rainy Day on the Lettie G. Howard

Two 9th grade students, Isaias and Christy, produced a video about the Lettie G. Howard. The clip documents Section 2's day on the Lettie.


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The Flow of the Hudson River

The Hudson River is the river that flows out of the Adirondack Mountains. It flows about 315 miles southward to Upper New York Bay at the Battery in New York City. Giovanni da Verrazano was the first European to find the river in 1524, but it was not explored by Europeans until Henry Hudson in 1609.

Peter Lora

Photo of the Lettie

The Lettie's History

Hello my name is Matthew Rodriguez and I am going to tell you about my time on the Lettie. The Lettie G. Howard is a 1893 fishing boat from Glouster, Massachusetts. For her first eight years she was similar to the schooners that carried their Long Island and New Jersey catches to New York City's Fulton Fish Market. After an active life in the fisheries of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, the Lettie was sold to the South Street Seaport Museum in 1968 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1988. Between 1991 and 1993 the museum completely restored her to her original 1893 appearance, and fitted her out to accommodate trainees (like us) on educational trips (like the day sails we do with Harbor Class - which is what I'm writing this blog for). In 1994, the Lettie was certified as a Sailing School Vessel by the U.S. Coast Guard. The museum now offers sail training programs aboard the Lettie.

Traveling on the Lettie G. Howard

As a part of Harbor Class we traveled on the Lettie G. Howard. The experience was very different because I never sailed on a sailboat before. Also, the Lettie is an old schooner. A hundred years ago the crew used what is now a space for bunks to store fish inside. They went fishing for Cod and Halibut out on the Georges Bank. The Lettie G. Howard was built in 1893 in Essex, Massachusetts. The hull of the Lettie is wood and the engine/propeller machinery is twin diesel/twin screw . The rig is a gaff topsail schooner, Fredonia model. The Lettie is now owned by the South Street Seaport Museum.



I sailed on the Lettie three times throughout the whole year. The first time I sailed I was taught how to raise the sails. It was a new experience for me because I had never done it before. I also learned what a chart is. A chart is like a map, but it maps the water depth and elevations around the river.

Comparing the Hudson River and Newtown Creek

Hudson River and the Newtown Creek are both a part of the New York Harbor, but my experiences at each of these places were very different. When I went to the Hudson River I rode on a schooner called the Lettie G. Howard. I was taking all types of tests to find out how clean the Hudson River was. I found out the levels of dissolved oxygen, salinity, nitrates, phosphates, and ammonia. I also used a chart to fin out where the water was deepest.

When I went to Newtown Creek, I took the same tests but the experience was totally different. Newtown Creek was extremely dirty. I saw a lot of combined sewage overflows (C.S.O.s) and also a lot of oil. When I went I also got in a boat with an engine. This boat was significantly smaller than the Lettie G. Howard. I saw a lot of industrial buildings and factories along the Hudson River and the Newtown Creek. On the Newtown Creek there were candle, gas, cement, and oil factories. On the Hudson River there were a lot of apartment buildings, but not a lot of industrial buildings. Here are some results of the tests that I took from the Hudson River and the Newtown Creek.
JS

PCB's in the Hudson River

BETWEEN 1947 AND 1977, GENERAL ELECTRIC DUMPED AN ESTIIMATED 1.3 MILLION POUNDS OF POLYCHLORINAD BIPHENYLS (PCBs) INTO THE HUDSON RIVER. PCB's are now found in sediment, water and wildlife in the Hudson River ecosystem as far south as New York Harbor. The Hudson River has alot of PCB's. The public was first informed of the PCB contamination of the Hudson River in the 1970's. Humans consume PCB's through contaminated fish. PCB's were banned from being dumped in the the Hudson River in 1977. The amount of PCB's has stabilized at levels that are significantly higher than those considered safe for human cosumption of fish.



by: Estefany Reyes.