John Delach

John McCain received in death honors and accolades on a scale that makes me wonder how Bob Dole, another war hero and a senator of even greater accomplishment will be honored when he meets his demise. Will he lie in state in the capital rotunda and be remembered by congressional leaders and past presidents? And what of George Herbert Walker Bush and Jimmy Carter? I am not suggesting that the respect and admiration that McCain received was undeserved. I am asking instead; will these heroes be treated likewise?

The McCain men can truly cast their family shield with the motto: “Honor and Devotion to Duty.” Both principles are difficult to abide by even in the best of times. The late senator remained true to duty, country and the navy a code he inherited from his father and his grandfather. They all steadfastly stayed the course despite troubled waters and great storms.

We all know the story of his ordeal in the Hanoi Hilton, the infamous North Vietnamese prison and how he refused to accept an early release.

McCain spoke of this in a recent documentary. About a year into his captivity, the NV powers realized that he was the son of the admiral in charge of the navy’s forces in the Pacific. McCain recalled being led into a room where an interrogator who spoke perfect French and English explained to him that he would be released shortly on humanitarian grounds. McCain replied that the service didn’t allow for that and the interrogator countered that it didn’t apply because of the extent of his injuries. McCain again refused and explained his injuries weren’t that severe. The interrogator grew angry and said: “Things will be very difficult for you from now on.”

And they were; torture and solitary confinement. But McCain endured and remained captive for five years until all his mates were also freed.

His grandfather suffered a different ordeal at the hands of the US Navy and his son, Senator McCain’s father, became caught up in it.

During World War II, operations of the Pacific Fleet were so complex and the fleet so large that it was treated as two fleets, the 3^rd Fleet and the 5^th Fleet. It operated as the 3^rd Fleet when under the command of William F. Halsey and as the 5^th Fleet when under the command of Raymond A. Spruance. While one admiral and his staff commanded the fleet for approximately a six-month tour, the other admiral and his staff planed future operations for their next tour of duty.

The same ships but two different command structures. Halsey’s second in command was John S. McCain who commanded Task Force 38 that included most of the fighting ships in the fleet; the aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers and escorts.

On May 17, 1945, Halsey relieved Spruance and the 5^th Fleet became the 3^rd Fleet. At that time the fleet was still supporting the invasion of Okinawa, preparing further strikes against Japan and the upcoming invasions of the home islands that fall. Early the next month, a typhoon was reported heading on a course to intercept the fleet. Based on inadequate forecasts, Halsey and McCain made several changes in course that led to a substantial part of the fleet sailing directly into the eye. Fortunately, no ships were lost but many suffered damage and lives were lost. Several aircraft carriers lost airplanes and the forward parts of their flight decks. Smaller ships suffered hull damage and the USS Pittsburgh, a heavy cruiser, lost its entire bow.

A court of inquiry found Halsey to be primarily at fault and McCain secondarily at fault. The court recommended that consideration be given to assigning both men to other duty.

Senator John McCain published a memoir in 1999 called “Faith of my Fathers.” In the book’s opening chapter, he relates that his father, then commander of a submarine met up with his grandfather in Tokyo Bay. The book contains a famous photo of the two men standing side by side in kaki uniforms on the deck of a submarine tender. The senator’s father stands erect with folded arms looking fit and ready. His grandfather is leaning against a rope barrier with his arm on the top rope. He slouches and looks weary and drawn.

Senator McCain recalled that his grandfather didn’t want to stay for the surrender and asked Halsey to allow him to skip it and fly home. McCain writes: (Halsey replied,) “Maybe you do, but you’re not going. You were commanding this task force when the war ended, and I’m making sure that history gets it right.”

The senator doesn’t explain with any detail why these two admirals had this debate. But his grandfather left for home following the surrender and the meeting with his son only to collapse and die the evening he arrived home during a house party held in his honor.

The admiral was furious, depressed and suffering, Upon the fleet’s arrival in Tokyo Bay, Halsey was ordered to tell McCain that James Forrestal, the Secretary of the Navy, had relieved McCain  of command of Task Force 38 because of his actions and errors during the typhoon.

Halsey only received a slap on the wrist, not because he wasn’t responsible, rather because Halsey, who was known to the American people as, “Bull Halsey,” was a national hero who stopped the Japanese at Guadalcanal in the war’s darkest days. McCain was just another admiral, relatively unknown, so Forrestal handed him Halsey’s gilded lily and it killed him.

I don’t know if the senator’s father knew this when he last saw his father and the photo was taken but he continued his brilliant naval career and both the late senator and his son, John, followed. The son is now a naval lieutenant.

The McCains’ have kept that faith. Honor and devotion to duty above all else and protect the Navy at all costs.

RIP John McCain

When my cousin Bob, offered me a new book on the loss of the cruiser, USS Indianapolis, I groaned at the thought of reading another account of this tragedy. This cruiser’s sinking resulted in the greatest loss of life by a US Navy ship while at sea in the history of our Republic. Only the battleship Arizona suffered a greater loss of life while moored in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. One thousand, one hundred and seventy-seven, (1,177) men died when a high-altitude bomber dropped an armor piercing naval shell fitted with fins above the ship that scored a one in a million hit. The bomb penetrated several decks before it exploded in the number two main gun turret magazine. An incredible explosion followed that literary blew the battleship apart instantaneously.

When the Indianapolis was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine, I-58 in the early morning darkness of July 29, 1945, approximately, 900 crew members of the 1,195 on board managed to escape their dying ship that sank in twelve minutes. Some found rafts or other floating material to climb aboard, but most went into the fuel saturated water with only life vests. A series of stupid, sad and, yes, negligent events bordering on being criminal allowed the ship to become invisible to naval operations on its voyage from Guam to Leyte. Survivors of the sinking spent four to five days adrift before being rescued. Exposure, depleting body temperature, lack of food and fresh water, oil and salt water poisoning, the sun, dehydration and the greatest and most feared enemy, sharks, took their toll repeatedly.

The authors quoted Robert Shaw who played the shark hunter, Captain Quinn, in the movie, Jaws:

Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes…Very first light, Chief, the sharks come cruisin’. So we formed ourselves into tight groups …And the idea was, the shark goes to the nearest man, and then he’d start poundin’ and hollerin’ and screamin’ and sometimes the shark would go away…Sometimes he wouldn’t go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he’s got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes.  Seem to be livin’ When he comes at ya, he doesn’t seem to be livin’. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then…ah, then you hear that terrible high-screech screamin’, and the ocean turns red, and in spite of all the poundin’ and the hollerin’ they all come in and rip you to pieces.

Nine hundred went into the water and only 317 came out.

Despite my hesitation to take on Lynn Vincent’s and Sara Vladic’s new book simply called, Indianapolis, I came away with praise for their thorough re-telling of the saga and updating the final vindication of Charles B. McVay III, the persecuted captain of the Indianapolis.

In one of the most blatant acts of “Cover your own ass,” Admiral of the fleet, Ernest J. King, insisted on McVay being court marshalled for failing to zig-zag during a night passage and leaving hatches open at the time of being torpedoed. Curiously, Chester Nimitz, Commander of the Pacific Fleet and McVay’s boss, disagreed.

McVay lived an agonized life after his conviction. The survivors loved him culminating when he and his wife, Louise, attended the first reunion of the crew in the cruiser’s name-sake city in 1960 where he gave a moving and heart felled speech. Still, he suffered hate filled letters from those who lost family. In 1963, eighteen years after his command was lost, McVay walked out behind his Connecticut home and ended his torment with a bullet from his revolver.

The point MS Vincent and MS Vladic make in their book is King and co. chose to protect the Navy at McVay’s expense. King’s miscarriage of justice wasn’t exonerated until July 1999 when a compilation of evidence reached Senator Bob Smith of NH. (Read the book for the details.)

It proved that McVay was set up. Long story short, the evidence was a slam dunk in McVay’s favor, but John Warner, the committee chairman and former Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan was too loyal to the Navy, so he blocked publication of the findings by his committee. Finally,  late in 1999, Warner received a letter from Mochitsura Hasimoto, commander of Submarine I-58 who sank Indianapolis.

In 1947 when the expression “optics” that describes how something will be received by the public was unknown, the Navy flew Captain Hasimoto to Washington DC to testify against Captain McVay! Not only was McVay the only captain court marshalled, much less convicted for losing his ship in World War II, the Navy had the audacity to present the enemy submarine captain as their witness.)

In a turn around that struck Warner’s soul, Hasimoto wrote:

“I have met many of your brave men who survived the sinking of the Indianapolis. I would like to join them in urging that your national legislature clear their captain’s name. Our Peoples have forgiven each other for that terrible war and its consequences. Perhaps it is time your people forgave Captain McVay for the humiliation of his unjust conviction.”

Warner was blown away and released the committee’s findings to the Senate floor on October 12, 2000. Both houses passed the resolution and then Secretary of the Navy, Gordan England, formally and forcefully entered a two-paragraph addendum into McVay’s record totally exonerating him.  Finally, justice was served.

I watched my first close call while riding north on the Van Wyck Expressway years ago. A brightly painted Braniff 727 flew over me on its approach to LaGuardia Airport. Quickly, I knew something was wrong. The glide path was too shallow for a landing. Then the airplane began to climb and veer to the left. Up ahead, a second Braniff 727 rose into the air from the same runway banking hard right as it climbed.

Since that day I have witnessed or been involved in several near misses and close calls during the almost thirty years of my life as a frequent flyer. I have been on two flights where the pilot flew into dead air, once somewhere over the Carolinas on a flight from Jacksonville and the other over the Hudson River approaching LaGuardia. The first incident happened during meal service launching trays, meals, flight attendants, carts and unbelted passengers into the air. They retuned thanks to gravity with remarkably no worse for the experience except for spills, stains and a few bumps and bruises. The second was more dramatic being that much closer to the ground. Fortunately, we had prepared for landing and everything and everyone remained in place. The pilot quickly accelerated as he banked over the Meadowlands where he found good air. We passengers maintained complete silence until the wheels hit the ground.

Two aborted takeoffs, one in St. Louis and the other in Bermuda. In both instances, somebody had wandered onto the runway. I also witnessed a similar near miss at Houston (now Bush) Intercontinental Airport. An Eastern 727 about to land had to abort as a single engine prop plane crossed the runway in front of it.

I also lived through two near miss collisions while in the air. The first happened over the Alps on a clear morning. Alan Gardiner and I were heading to Paris from Kula Lumpur on a MAS 747 when I saw a dot on the horizon. The dot grew into a Swiss Air DC-10 that was desperately climbing as it crossed over us. I joked that it was so close that I could read the pilot’s name tag. His name was Hans. The second happened over New Jersey on an outbound flight from JFK. We were still climbing as I gazed out a window. Suddenly, the entire window was filled by a turbo-prop commuter airliner that crossed over my jet. Seconds later, it was gone.

I have lived through two touch and go aborted landings. The first happened in the late fall of 1990 on a flight from Copenhagen to Oslo on a SAS MD-80. Oslo was socked in as the pilot began his approach on instruments. I watched as we descended but saw only clouds. Down and down we went for what seemed to be forever. Finally, we broke through the cloud cover and to my shock, all I saw were houses. Almost immediately, the crew accelerated and quickly climbed out of there. Nothing was said until we reached cruising altitude when the pilot advised that we would shortly attempt a second instrument landing. His explanation for aborting the first was, “They brought us in too close the first time.” This begs the question, “To close to what?”

The second was my closest call of all. I was on a trip to visit Waterman Steamship in Mobile, Alabama and I traveled on American Airlines with my colleague, Louise Varnas. American was a new player on the route to Mobile having established a new hub in Nashville. We changed gates and MD-80s there. Before the airplane pulled back from the gate, the pilot announced: “Right now we are being held here because rain and fog conditions in Mobile are below the acceptable minimum. The airport does expect to re-open in less than an hour and I believe we will go tonight. But, if you feel uncomfortable, you may disembark and try again tomorrow.”

The airplane was less than half full and about a third of those on board decided to deplane. Louise and I discussed our alternatives knowing that we had a meeting scheduled for 9 a.m. the next day. I decided to put my trust in the pilot and Louise reluctantly agreed to join me.

As promised we left a bit over an hour later for the relatively short flight to Mobile. Conditions while now acceptable were almost down to the minimum and the pilot made sure the airplane was buttoned up for this instrument landing. Like in Oslo, it seemed to take forever and I’m not sure I saw the ground just before the wheels hit the runway or vice versa. Either way, we were too far down the runway to commit and the pilot hit the throttles to climb out of there.

Once at altitude he explained what had happened then advised: “I am going to give it one more try and if it’s too dicey, I’m calling it off and we’ll return to Nashville.”

Take two, this time he touched down where he wanted to, (more or less,) and slammed on the brakes and reverse thrusters pulling us away from our seats so only the belt stopped us from catapulting forward. I still have the imprint of Louise’s nails on my shoulder. Needless to say,

we both enjoyed a stiff drink once we reached the hotel.

When we related our experience at the meeting the next morning, Bob Parker, Waterman’s Risk Manager, looked at us quizzically. He shook his head and explained: “You don’t know how lucky you are. They just completed a long-planned runway extension last week.”

It occurs to me as I write this, the number two is prevalent throughout this piece. Whatever that means.  

Happy flying.

On board Holland America’s MV Massdam, July 23, 2010:

Today, our ship is scheduled to cross southern Greenland from west to east through Prince Christian Sound as part of our trans-Atlantic cruise deemed: “Voyage of the Vikings.” We had been warned this passage could be cancelled at any time, so I was totally attentive when shortly after nine, James Russell-Dunford, the ship’s information director announced in his booming voice:

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. It’s been quite a night and a rather long one for me. I have only just returned to the bridge having been relieved, so I could get a bit of rest. One of our passengers, an eighty-four-year-old man took ill late last night, and our doctor determined that he had to be evacuated. We returned to Qaqortoq arriving at 3 am where we lowered him by tender and he was taken to the local hospital with his wife and their baggage. The crew did a superb job and we were on our way back to sea by 3:30. Hopefully, he will be fine, and I’ll be able to report his status.

We have made good time and will be approaching an entrance to the sound in a half-hour. Helicopter observations report that the sound is ice-free, but we’ll have to see if the fog persists when we reach the entrance before I can commit to a passage.

I return to my book continue to read while glancing out over the bow. When the electronic gong sounds signaling another announcement. I look up and there in the distance breaking through the mist directly in front of the ship I spy a mountain at least 2,000 or 3,000 feet high. “Where did that come from?” I remark to the woman in the next seat. As I rise to leave, the captain announces we were going to start a passage. “I may have to turn around if conditions deteriorate, but right now I am satisfied with visibility and ice conditions.”

I hurry to our cabin to don protective clothing, rain pants over my jeans, sweatshirt, wind breaker, wool vest and a new waterproof rain jacket. A Tilley’s rain hat tops off my outfit and to the bow I rush. I stay only long enough to photograph the entrance to the straits then move to the stern out of the wind and rain; away from the crowds. Here I stay for the entire passage except for lunch in the Lido and a camera battery change. A cold rain persists but, not only do I survive, more importantly, so does my camera.

My reward; some of the most spectacular scenery I’ve ever witnessed. It may have been more pleasant had the sun been out, certainly far more colorful, but the low clouds and mist add drama that, in my opinion, trumps color. Mountains exceeding 4,000 feet line the sound towering over the ship, as close as 500 feet on either side of the channel. At times, layers of clouds wrap around their faces, clinging to the sides obscuring them, but allowing crags and peaks to poke through. Other times, the drab gray, brown and green formations break free of the mist. Countless waterfalls drain pockets of ice and snow while seven different glaciers descend from the mountains, one directly into the sound. Icebergs of all sizes, shapes and colors drift by. The captain’s enthusiasm grows as we continue and, at some point he silently decides we will complete the journey including a side-trip to a lone Inuit village that clings to a flat, rock plateau.

Approximately 150 men, women and children inhabit Aappilattoq, (Ap-pil-at-tog) an isolated hamlet of small pre-fabricated houses perched at a junction of canyons. Once again, my senses are jolted by the exterior colors of the Inuit’s homes; bright and vivid reds, greens, blues and yellows.

The natives fish for sustenance and hunt seal to make a living. The captain sails Maasdam past the village into a wide basin where the ship makes a 180-degree looping turn to continue east along a different passage. The ship’s horn bellows as we complete the turn calling out skiffs from the village. Four appear, a single man in the first, two villagers in the second, six in the third including at least three children and three in the last. The boats are similar, white open skiffs with huge outboards. Two of the drivers stand steering by means of long handles attached to the motors. They wave and take photographs of us as we wave and take photos of them.

Before lunch, Mary Ann brings me a welcome cup of the thick Dutch pea soup being served on several decks. It is so good that I enjoy more with lunch.

We exit the sound just after 4 pm. I took more than 250 photos over the seven hours that I spent on deck which I edit down to 100.

What a fabulous day!

The evening of September 18, 1980 found the Arkansas Democrats gathered together in Little Rock for their annual party’s convention. William S. Clinton, then governor, chaired the convention.  Hillary joined her husband and Vice President Walter Mondale was their guest of honor. Little did they know that fifty-miles to the northwest near the little town of Damascus all hell was breaking loose at the Titan II Missile Complex 374-7.

Eighteen Titan II complexes were spread over 150 miles of rural Arkansas north of Little Rock AFB their operational HQ. Each complex controlled one Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) mounting a single W-53, 9.5 megaton warhead with enough firepower to take out a medium city like Little Rock. These complexes were designated 373-1 to 9 and 374-1 to 9.

An experienced crew had assumed control of 374-4 that day. Led by Capt. Michael T. Mazzaro, it included his launch officer, 1^st Lt Allan Childers and the two enlisted technicians, SSgt Rodney L. Miller and SSgt Ronald O. Full. This tour included a supernumerary, 1^st Lt Miguel A. Serrano, in training to be a silo commander. The team had already experienced an unusual day that delayed arrival for their 24-hour shift. First their assignment changed as their original complex, 374-5, was undergoing maintenance. They were further delayed because the alternator on the crew vehicle had to be replaced.

Adding to the stress, Capt. Mazzaro decided to alert HQ that the pressure in the missile’s oxidizer tank was below acceptable levels. HQ dispatched a repair team on call already performing repairs at other silos. The repair team (PTS0) didn’t reach 374-7 until 6:30 PM. By then, they had been on the job that day for eleven-hours. Sergeant David F. Powell and Airman Jeffrey Plumb made their way into the silo.

Was it fatigue or carelessness that led to their fatal mistake? The two-man team had been issued new procedures requiring them to use a torque wrench and socket to remove a pressure cap. But they had left the torque wrench in their truck and, rather than climb back out of the silo to retrieve it, Powell decided to make the repairs using a ratchet wrench, the previously approved procedure.

“Powell picked up the ratchet with the socket seemingly attached. As he swung it up into operating position, the 8.75-pound socket separated from the ratchet at waist high level, fell onto the Level 2 platform, bounced once onto the rubber boot between the platform edge and the missile airframe, and before either technician could grab it, pushed through the boot and fell approximately 80 feet. The socket hit on the thrust mount ring, then bounced upward and toward the missile puncturing the Stage I fuel tank skin.”

White liquid began to pour out of the missile and into the silo creating a noticeable cloud of Aerozine 50 vapor. “Aerozine 50 is hypergolic with the Titan II’s oxidizer, nitrogen tetroxide; i.e., they spontaneously ignite upon contact with each other. The nitrogen tetroxide is kept in a second tank in the rocket’s first stage, directly above the (pierced) fuel tank and below the second stage and its 9.5-megaton nuclear weapon.”

Powell notified Mazzaro of the fuel leak then he and Plumb evacuated the silo. News of the leak made its way up the chain of command and on to Strategic Air Command (SAC) HQ in Omaha. One issue was tackled immediately, nobody in the chain of command would confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons on the Titan II leaking fuel in Silo 374-4.

The danger was two-fold, the vapors could create a hazardous situation of an explosive atmosphere needing only a source of ignition, or as the fuel tank emptied, the almost empty shell would no longer support the rocket above it. This would likely rupture the nitrogen tank and explode.  Definitive data didn’t exist to predict with certainty if an explosion would be powerful enough to detonate the missile’s warhead.

When detonated, a 9.5 megaton device would release three times the destructive power of all the bombs used by all the armies in the Second World War including the two atom bombs dropped on Japan. 

Around 9 PM, the crew was ordered to evacuate. Mazzaro originally objected to this order on the theory that they could assist emergency crews in entering the complex, but he was overridden. Evacuation too, became a drama as the crew found the regular passageways were saturated with fuel vapor. This forced them to evacuate by way of a separate emergency “chimney” tube where they climbed to safety.

At some point during the night, the instruments in the complex sensed a fire condition and inundated the silo with more than 100,000 gallons of water from a massive sprinkler system.

The first attempt to re-enter the complex were thwarted by the inner blast door that could only be opened from the inside. Two other technicians, Sgt Jeff K. Kennedy and Am David Livingston took readings inside the complex that found airborne fuel concentration was at its maximum density.

About 3 AM, Livingston was ordered to turn on an exhaust fan and shortly thereafter, the silo blew up.

The blast obliterated the silo and sent the 740-ton steel and concrete launch door more than 200 feet into the air and 600 feet from the complex. The warhead landed 150 feet from the silo. Twenty-two people were injured, and Livingston died of his injuries the following day.

To this day, nobody knows how close the warhead came to detonating. If it did, one source estimated 3,000 citizens would have died and the history of our presidential elections could have been completely altered.

…and now, let us pray.

On the Outside Looking in won’t publish next week and will return on August 15,         

Live Free or Die: New Hampshire’s motto

Alcohol: Lyrics by Brad Paisley

I can make anybody pretty

I can make you believe any lie

I can make you pick a fight

With somebody twice your size

The New Hampshire Liquor Commission operates more than 75 Liquor & Wine Outlets spread throughout the state with the majority located below Route 9 that crosses west to east from Keene to Portsmouth and passes through Concord. This puts these outlets within easy range for those thirsty folks from Massachusetts seeking relief from the Commonwealth’s relatively high tax on booze. NH is so accommodating that they built two northbound and two southbound outlets at rest stops on Interstates 93 and 95, both, a Sunday’s afternoon drive for Bay Staters.

Well I’ve been known to cause a few breakups

And I’ve been known to cause a few births

I can make you new friends

Or get you fired from work

NH publishes a monthly magazine called Celebrate NH that notes, “Great Selection. Great Prices. No Taxes.” Not enough incentive? The front cover implores the curious: “Price List Inside – Check Out Our TAX – Free Lowest Prices in New England.”

And since the day I left Milwaukee

Lynchburg, Bordeaux, France

Been making the bars

Lots of big money

And helping white people dance

Celebrate NH provides a complete list of their inventory. They sell cocktails and cordials, mixed drinks and specialties, rum, tequila, vodka, America whiskey, bourbon, corn, rye, Tennessee, Canadian, Irish, Scotch and single malt. Take Scotch; the NH Outlets offer over 150 different kinds. There are 14 different types of Johnny Walker Scotch available. Prefer Irish, but Bushmills, Jameson or Tallmore Dew bore you? How about Flaming Leprechaun, Clontarf, Connemara, Knappogue Castle, The Dubliner or, my favorite, Writer’s Tears.

I got you in trouble in high school

And college now that was a ball

You had some of the best times

You’ll never remember with me

Alcohol, alcohol

And party drinks…You can buy Jagermeister brand Mini Meisters that promise: “Ten shots-to-go for your krew.” Your choice Ole Smoky Moonshine or Fishers Island Lemonade in cans. How about Widow Jane said to be “New York’s signature spirit?” Perhaps Rum Haven made with real coconut water or Mexican Moonshine Tequila. Black Box brand wine in a box has expanded their line to include boxed Tequila, Whiskey or Vodka. But if you really want to get loose; try Tooters Party Packs, twenty shot creations in tubes in four flavors: “On the Beach, Apple Tini, Ala-bama Slama” and “Kami-kazi.”

I got blamed at your wedding reception

For your best man’s embarrassing speech

And also for those naked pictures at the beach

I’ve influenced kings and world leaders

I helped Hemmingway write like he did

And I’ll bet you a drink or two that I can make you

Put that lampshade on your head

And the day I left Milwaukee

Lynchburg Bordeaux, France

Been makin the bars

 With lots of big money

And helping white people dance

I got you in trouble in high school

And college now that was a blast

You had some of the best times

You’ll never remember

Alcohol, alcohol

Always drink in moderation and never drink and drive.

Part Three: “The Times They Are a-Changin”

Robert Moses’ (RM) last hurrah was a masterpiece of engineering and design; the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.*

First proposed in 1927, RM’s powerful Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA) became actively involved in the mid-1950s with construction being approved in 1959. The bridge would connect Bay Ridge, Brooklyn with Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island. Two exits were designed for the Brooklyn side; one, a loop that would allow Queens and Long Island bound automobile traffic to use the eastbound Belt Parkway. These ramps would fly over the Fort Hamilton army base and were accepted without controversy.

This certainly was not the reaction to the main entrance and exit that would carry all commercial vehicles and cars toward Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn. Governor Nelson Rockefeller and the state legislature approved RM’s request for a route right through Bay Ridge along Seventh Avenue. This direct path displaced 7,500 residents living in 1,500 residences along a two-mile stretch. However, this was 1959 and RM’s will was still done as he willed it. Neither politicians nor the public stood in his way.

Almost twice as many Staten Island residents were displaced but they lived along the eight-mile route of the new Staten Island Exp. that connected the Verrazano Bridge to New Jersey. The tradeoff was worth it; a reasonable number of citizens were forced from their homes vs a bridge and highways to Brooklyn and New Jersey.**

RM proposed two new expressways and two parkways (cars only) to connect the Verrazano to the other two NJ bridges, the Bayonne Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing,***  Only one would be built, the West Shore Expressways and short stretches of two others.

Construction took five years and the bridge opened on November 21, 1964. That same night my cousin Bill drove three of us over the bridge. As we approached the toll booth I asked Bill to see if the toll taker would give us a TBTA map. He did, and Bill handed it to me. I realized to my delight that the man had time-stamped the map as proof that we crossed on opening day.

*Although the bridge was named after the Italian explorer, Giovanni da Verrazzano, the official name only had one “Z.” It would take 69 years for the state legislature to add the missing Z.

**RM’s original name for this expressway was the Clove Lakes Exp. but he relented to allow the S.I. Borough President a victory that would shut him up.

***The Outerbridge Crossing was named after Eugenius H. Outerbridge and naming it Outerbridge Bridge would have been redundant.

Next on RM’s agenda was the construction of two cross-Manhattan expressways, the Mid-Manhattan Exp. from the Queens-Midtown Tunnel to the Lincoln Tunnel along 30^th or 31^st Streets and the Lower Manhattan Exp. with branches coming from the Williamsburg Bridge and Manhattan Bridge, joining together to reach the Holland Tunnel.

The design for midtown route was not actually along either of the two streets. Instead, buildings along the route would be razed to be replaced by new buildings that provided space for a two-level elevated highway making this undertaking highly improbable. Even then, land was too valuable in the middle of Manhattan to accept a major disruption. RM knew this, so he pressed ahead with the Lower Manhattan Exp. (LME) postponing the midtown road for another day. In theory it’s proposed route took it through less valuable and sought-after neighborhoods, the Lower East Side, Chinatown, Little Italy and Soho.

What RM didn’t for see was that a storm of protest of biblical proportions would erupt. These Manhattanites were not the docile residents of Bay Ridge, the Bronx or Maspeth. These were activists and radicals. It was no longer the 1950s, Manurable Bob Wagner was no longer mayor and the new boy on the block, John Lindsey, was going to do things his way with a stable of young Turks to back him up.

The 1960s had arrived and the protests and strikes carried the day. Lindsey and Co, were no fans of RM and the LME was shelved, then cancelled and de-mapped as time went by.

Without the Manhattan crosstown routes, other Brooklyn projects fell by the wayside. The Cross-Brooklyn Exp. and the Bushwick Exp. both designed to direct traffic to this new Manhattan crossings couldn’t be justified. This outcome spared citizens in Flatbush, East New York and Bushwick the disruptions that befell Williamsburg, Cobble Hill and Red Hook.

RM rule began to slip / slide away. Mayor Lindsey created the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to coordinate the subways, commuter railroads, buses, the tunnels and bridges in New York City into this single mega-agency. The MTA gobbled up the TBTA. RM remained chairman until 1981, but he did so without real power.

His final defeat came at the hands of his old partner, Governor Rockefeller, who cancelled RM’s last ambitious project, a bridge across Long Island Sound from Rye, NY to Oyster Bay, Long Island. Free of Lindsley’s reach, this was his alone to build, but Rocky caved in to howl of pain from the wealth of those who resided in both landings.

Long Island remains a dead end to this day.

As for Robert Moses, like Douglas MacArthur, old builders never die, they just fade away.

Part Two: The Moses Empire

While America slept, World War II raged in Europe, Robert Moses, (RM) opened the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair while completing about 75% of the Belt system plus the Grand Central Parkway and the Interborough Parkway. He also extended these roads into Nassau County by way of the Northern and Southern State Parkways and a separate network of parkways that serviced Jones Beach.

From the Northwest corner of Queens, the Triborough Bridge access highway connected with the Grand Central Parkway and the northern end of the Brooklyn-Queens Connecting Highway (soon to be re-christened the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, (BQE).)

The Connecting Highway only ran about a couple of miles before reaching a dead end at Northern Blvd. in Jackson Heights. A one-mile long gap to Queens Boulevard followed. At Queens Blvd, he constructed an elevated highway above the road that divided New Calgary Cemetery that headed south to a junction with the Midtown Tunnel Expressway and the entrance to the Kosciusko Bridge that crossed Newtown Creek into Brooklyn. The highway ended at Meeker Avenue in Greenpoint in a maze of streets. South of the bridge stood RM’s greatest challenge to completing the Belt; a series of high density neighborhoods. All work ceased until the war ended. Planning did not.

RM had to force his Connecting Highway through Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Clintonville, Fort Green, Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Red Hook, Gowanus and Sunset Park before it could reach the Belt Parkway in Bay Ridge. This route also had to connect to the Williamsburg Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.

Simultaneously, RM was busy with two other equally arduous projects, the Long Island Expressway (LIE) and the Cross-Bronx Expressway (CBX). Robert Caro in his biography of RM, “The Power Broker,” concentrated his reporting on RM’s arbitrary forced displacement of thousands of Bronx residents to push the CBX through densely populated areas on a straight line. For whatever reason, Caro chose to ignore the misery of the residents of Maspeth, Queens in the path of the LIE and all those in the way of the BQE.

Maspeth was a suburb of mostly one-family connected houses built just before and just after World War II. Unfortunately for some of these residents, their homes were in the path of where RM wanted the LIE to go. Worse yet, the expressway cut across Maspeth’s grid on a diagonal ripping out whole blocks at a time to include its service roads. Further east, the LIE was constructed along what had been Horace Harding Boulevard. Again, the old Blvd. couldn’t accommodate the new six-lane highway and two service roads so all the houses lining one side of the new highway had to go.

The tell-tale signs of Sherman’s march to the sea were the railroad rails bent into bow ties and the free-standing brick chimneys where factories and plantations once stood. The tell-tale signs of a RM built highway are the absence of buildings facing one or both sides of the highway.

Unlike Sherman, RM understood who he could screw and who’s asses should be kissed. The BQE is a classic case. South of the Kosciusko Bridge, Meeker Avenue only went about halfway to the Williamsburg Bridge. Another grid had to be crossed on a diagonal and Moses pushed an elevated highway through with a vengeance. Same M.O. south of this bridge. To bypass the Brooklyn Navy Yard, RM widened Park Avenue and built an elevated viaduct above this misnamed avenue at the same time the City of New York was tearing down elevated subway lines as being unsightly nuisances; go figure.

Upon reaching the Manhattan Bridge, the BQE ran through an old industrial area before reaching Brooklyn Heights. Now, boys and girls, the name Brooklyn Heights conjures wealth. Remember, Moonstruck, the Cher / Nicolas Cage film? Cher’s family town house was in Brooklyn Heights.

RM put the engineers to work and they produced a brilliant solution. They would build the highway at the very edge of the bluff and cantilever it over the road above the docks in three layers stacked one above the other. The bottom two layers would each support three lanes of traffic and the top layer, a pedestrian promenade overlooking the harbor and Downtown Manhattan. This created a spectacular view for strollers to enjoy. But, more importantly, for the millionaires whose homes lined the lots facing this view. Do I hear a nay? The yays have it.

The folks living south of Brooklyn Heights in Cobble Hill didn’t have this clout so all they got was a depressed highway, but they lost all the homes that once occupied that trench. To make the run south from the Gowanus Canal to Bay Ridge, RM selected Third Avenue to be the route. Like Park Avenue, this section became an elevated highway and Third Avenue was widened accordingly.

The Belt stood completed except for that annoying gap in Jackson Heights. Over the years, RM ate away at it, but it wasn’t until the early 1970s that the last section opened.

By then. God got even, and RM met his Waterloo. Still, by then he was an old man when this came to pass and, only the good die young.

(To be continued.)

Part One: The Moses Revolution

And Jehovah did command of Moses: “Speak to my people,” and Moses replied, “Shut up God! There’s a new builder in town and my will be done.”

And Robert Moses’ will was done throughout the state of New York from Buffalo to Montauk Point and from Lake Champlain to Totenville, Staten Island. My goal for these pieces is to provide some background to explain the utter frustration and insanity of having to drive from the town of Port Washington to various locations in Brooklyn and return. Over the last fifteen years, we have navigated RM’s creations to visit our daughter’s family in Park Slope, Sunset Park and currently, Clintonville.

Any story about traveling by automobile on Long Island or anywhere in New York State begins with the influence of Robert Moses (RM) on their design and routing. When it comes to highways, what exists and what could have existed all bear RM’s imprimatur. For over forty-five years, beginning in 1924 and ending in 1967, “almost anything RM wanted, RM got and whatever RM rejected was rejected.”

All of this is available in Robert Caro’s 1974 biography of RM, The Power Broke., But, if you are not up to reading 1162 pages of text, stay the course. RM knew how to get things done and politicians flocked to him because he let them shine as the prime movers of successful projects big and small. In return, these politicians allowed RM to accumulate vast power over all aspects of life in the Empire State especially NYC and Long Island. Parks, public housing projects and “so called” middle class houses like Peter Cooper Village, Stuyvesant Town, Riverton, Parkchester and Fresh Meadows.  RM built public beaches like Orchard Beach in the Bronx, Jacob Reis in Queens, Jones Beach and its twin on Fire Island that bears his name together with hydroelectric power plants at Niagara, gigantic swimming pools in every borough and parks from Riverside to Sunken Meadow State Park on Long Island.

Armed with the title of chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, (TBTA), RM controlled the construction of six major bridges and two underwater tunnels. Separately, he built the Tappan Zee Bridge and the New York State Thruway.

RM touched every aspect of our lives. Along the way our grateful politicians named a beach, bridge, hydro-electric power plant and state park in his name.

RM’s hero was his mentor, Al Smith. RM never forgave FDR for not adequately supporting Smith’s run for president in 1928 and treated FDR like a rented mule when he succeeded Smith as New York’s governor. The historical reasoning is that RM’s slights prevented RM from becoming a bigger player in the development of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System. To that I say: “Balderdash!” Everything the Federal engineers used to build this system, both good and bad was learned at the feet of RM.

RM’s first priorities were parks and he quickly realized that a sure way to create new parks was to create new roads to serve them. In the mid-1920s, Brooklyn and Queens had only five semi-highways, all with traffic lights. Brooklyn had Ocean Parkway running south from Prospect Park to Coney Island and Eastern Parkway heading east from Prospect Park before it faded out in Brownsville.

Queens had Northern Boulevard, little more than a four-lane street, Sunrise Highway no better, in the south, underdeveloped, Queens Blvd and Horace Harding Blvd. that began at Queens Blvd and headed east toward Nassau.

If you read “The Great Gatsby,” F. Scott Fitzgerald takes license when describing Northern Blvd. crossing the Carona coal cinder and slag dump where his hero met his fate. (Thanks to RM, that dump would become the sites of the Grand Central Parkway, 1939-40 and 1964-5 World Fairs.)

His first major divided highway project was a vast network of six different roads that connected into one endless loop that ran along the shorelines that cover most of Brooklyn and Queens and along the border between Queens and Nassau County. The original name described its routing: “The Circumferential Parkway.”  Fortunately, this tongue twister was shortened to the name that stuck, “The Belt Parkway.”

RM learned early on to seek financing in incremental amounts but don’t use the money to complete a single structure or section. For example, when it came to constructing the substantial and beautiful bath houses in Jones Beach, RM proposed building two but used the money to build the foundations for all six. If you start it, they will fund the amount needed to complete all six.

Likewise, the first sections of the Belt Parkway were constructed where they ran right along the shore in uncontested, undeveloped areas. The first sections to open in Brooklyn were along Bay Ridge and Gravesend Bay that included a park that ran the length with a spectacular view of the Narrows and the Outer Bay.

Another section ran along Jamaica Bay including Canarsie Park and Pier with a third section that began at the site of the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows then headed northeast to the newly finished Whitestone Bridge, where it turned easterly and headed through underdeveloped Whitestone to Fort Totten. Here it turned south along the side of Little Neck Bay, Alley Pond Park and Belmont Racetrack where it turned west and passed Idlewild, Aqueduct Raceway and Howard Beach where it joined the Brooklyn section at Jamaica Bay.

(To be continued.)

When I last reported on the popular sentiment in Golden State on March 8, 2017, #Calexit was all the rage. To hell with the remaining 49 states, the beautiful were cutting loose and moving out. Oh dear, it appears that something bad happened somewhere along the line. It seems that Louise Marinelli, the president of the prime movers, Yes California, shut the effort down on April 17, 2017. A report read that…” Marinelli’s connection to Russia was hurting their funding.” And so, it goes.

Do not despair, boys and girls, the good folks in the Land of F & N never leave good things alone. Denied the opportunity for a messy divorce from Uncle, what a better notion than to blow up your own neighborhood? Truth be told, these good folks have too much good weather and too much time on their hands. I recall the proverb, “Idleness is the devil’s workshop.”

Their latest devil is Timothy Draper, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. The New York Times reported on June 13^th, that Mr. Draper is leading a coalition…”to break up California, citing its unwieldy size. In November, California residents will get their chance to vote on his latest proposal: to divide the world’s fifth-largest economy into three separate states.”

Draper’s proposals would establish three entities, Northern CA, Southern CA and plain old California. (I wonder what their Zip Codes would be? NC and SC are already taken. I predict CN and CS.)

Northern California would run south from the Oregon border through Silicon Valley. Plain old California would be a super-sized Gaza strip occupying a coastal preserve about fifty-miles wide to just south of LA. Southern California would be land-locked until it reached the Pacific south of LA. From there it would enjoy a coast to the Mexican border including San Diego.

Insanity, you betcha! Still, Draper’s initiative will be on the ballot this November. Draper garnered enough signatures to put it on the ballot. Such is the current state of the State of California in this day and age.

Wait: STOP THE PRESSES!

As God is my witness, only a day after The Times published this piece, the following headline ran in the paper of record: At Risk in a Big Quake:39 of San Francisco’s Top High Rises.

Where can you go

when there aint no

San Francisco?

Better get ready to

tie up de boat in Idaho!

This is serious. Thomas Fuller reported about a U.S. Geological Survey that lists 39 downtown skyscrapers, hotels and office buildings potentially vulnerable to a large quake. Mr. Fuller noted:

“Engineers have known about defects in certain steel-framed buildings since 1984, when shaking from the Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles fractured critical joints in more than 60 buildings, bringing one very close to collapse.”

Oh dear, oh dear, but the F&N crowd could care less. They live the good life and make up their own rules as they live the life they love and love the life they lead.

Sorry to ruin your day, those of you who live and / or work in San Francisco but here’s a partial list of vulnerable buildings:

The Hartford at 650 California Street and no name buildings at 425-555-201-101&345. On my, oh my, oh my; the list includes the heart of San Francisco’s elite business addresses, One, Two and Three Embarcadero Center. Major corporations are not exempt including, Pacific Gas & Electric, Chevron Tower, Citicorp Center and the iconic Transamerica Tower. The list also included hotels like the Hilton San Francisco, the San Francisco Marriott and the Hyatt at Union Square.

Mr. Fuller subsequently reported his own “come to Jesus moment” on the Monday before his piece ran in Tuesday’s Science Times. “It was around 7:30 p.m. I was sitting in my 12^th-floor office. Then the building jolted and rattled like a train lurching out of a station.

“It was a mini earthquake, a 3.7 magnitude centered across the San Francisco Bay.”

What bothered Mr. Fuller was his workplace was on the list! How do you say, “Too close to home?”

Fuller decided that he owed his colleagues a note of warning about his forthcoming piece. “I sent a note to 20 or so reporters and editors in the bureau to alert them both to the issue and the story about it.

“What came back from them was an escalating series of bad puns.

‘I’m shaken. I hope it doesn’t fracture our community.’

‘What a jolt. I’m sure this story will create quite a stir.’

‘I’ll be working from home for the next, oh, seven years.”

Do you know the swim?

you better learn quick, Jim.

If you don’t know that swim,

better sing thee hymn.