TODAY IS ‘HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA’ DAY’

January 26th is known throughout the Land Down Under as ‘History of Australia Day’.  Here in New York, the significance of Sydney’s Botany Bay is celebrated from the shores of New York Harbor and Brooklyn’s Lower Bay.  The back-story of Australia’s colonization is a central theme of the traditional folk song lyrics of ‘Botany Bay’.

As the recording session evolved on the eve of History of Australia Day, American football fans watched two bay city teams compete in the playoffs for the upcoming Super Bowl.  The Green Bay Packers challenged the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  Under the aura of modern day sport spectacles, these host cities should be recognized for their historical significance in the pantheon of coastal port centers.  In this light, New York Harbor’s Lower Bay offers a welcome to its distant equal across the planet.

New York and Sydney share a lot in common, especially in times of climate change and the pandemic.  We share the pain that has affected all countries as quarantines are mandatory for all professional sports, music, and social gatherings.  In advance of the Australian Open in nearby Melbourne, the players have all arrived in Australian two weeks before the start of the Grand Slam tennis tournament.  New York’s U.S. Open tournament will follow this August in our summer season.  The global health protocols in large venues will obviously remain the same.  Meanwhile, Climate Change has ravaged Australia recently.  Flora and fauna slowly returns from the devastating fires along the Australian East Coast in 2019.  Both port cities have architectural plans to battle the rising sea levels that threaten their infrastructures.

AUSTRALIA’S COLONIZATION HISTORY

Historically, both New York and Sydney have their modern origins thanks in large part to colonization of the eighteenth century.  Native American Indians and Australian Aborigines alike witnessed the sudden in-habitation of strange new cultures on their native lands.  Emigration from one region to another is a constant global movement.  There isn’t a single continent that hasn’t experienced mass relocation.  Cultural integration is planet Earth’s story.   The harmony sung by the Brooklyn Bards is nothing short of a historical celebration.  The song lyrics cry, ‘For to take a trip on an immigrant ship to the shores of Botany Bay’.

 

 

With the end of Britain’s colonization in North America at the hands of the American Revolution, Britain’s Colonization efforts shifted to lands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.  Captain James Cook’s landed on the peninsula in 1770 that eventually became known as Sydney.  The HMS Endeavor carried the naturalist, Joseph Banks, who studied and catalogued flora and fauna.  So respected was Bank’s scientific discoveries, the waters were called ‘Botanist Bay’.  Eventually, the name changed to Botany Bay in the newly claimed colony of New South Wales.

Despite Banks’ report of poor soil and no reliable water source, more than a thousand settlers arrived on January 26th, 1788.  Included were 736 ‘convicts’ who were banished from England.  As criminals could no longer be shipped off to the American colonies with the victory in 1783, Australia had the distinct honor of becoming the British Isles new ‘penal colony’.  It was a sixty year practice by the British government to transport convicts to Botany Bay.  The six month ocean journey was marked by no less than a ten percent death rate of the passenger list, most of them chained in the cargo holds for the duration of the trip.

EMIGRATION FROM THE BRITISH ISLES

The Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1855 was Britain’s most devastating natural event causing the exodus of two million people.  780 thousand emigrated to America.   Many of the Irish became Longshoremen of America’s East Coast Port cities.  The 1849 California Gold Rush attracted miners and farmers who brought their pick-axes and shovels.  Sydney Australia welcomed a good portion of the rest.   Stories abound of Irish families that worked the soil or worked the seas taking up new residence in far-away lands.

The Botany Bay folk song offers the following lines as the good ship Ragamuffin sets sail from the British Isles.  The Bards harmonize, ‘When I reach Australia I’ll go and search for gold, There’s plenty there for digging up or so I have been told.  Or maybe I’ll go back to me trade, 800 bricks I’ll lay for an 8 hour shift and an 8 bob pay on the shores of Botany Bay.’

THE TUNE’S THEATER ORIGIN IN LONDON

‘Botany Bay‘ became popular as a show tune first heard in a London musical burlesque in 1885.  The British composer waited thirty years to honor, with great derring-do, the men and women who took the daring yet desperate journey to foreign countries as immigrants.  ‘Botany Bay’ was considered the ultimate romantic notion in the theatre circuit district of Piccadilly and West End.  Before the turn of the nineteenth century, it was fashionable in entertainment circles to popularize folk music and integrate it into theater spectacles.  Until this time, traditional Irish Folk Music could only be found in the British Isles port-side pubs and countryside taverns.

JOIN IN AND CELEBRATE THE HARD-WORKING LYRICS OF THE SONG

In the years before Covid-19, patrons of Irish pubs and taverns would sing along to the Bards, hoisting a pint, reveling in ‘The best years of our lives we spent working on the docks building mighty wharves and quays of earth and ballast rocks.’

But recently, the Sea Shanty craze on Tik-Tok caught fire.  Stephen Colbert’s nightly show occupied two consecutive monologues where he encouraged his followers to join the chorus.  Brooklyn’s answer to the Wellerman’s Irish Fair performance is also found on Tik-Tok.  We invite you to add your contributions at  LINK.

There you’ll hear….

‘Farewell to your bricks and mortar, farewell to your dirty lime,

Farewell to your gangways and gang planks and to hell with your overtime’.

 

THE RECORDING SESSION

Port-side pubs and countryside taverns are exactly the atmosphere Brooklyn Bard music breathes.   Listen to some choice takes from Botany Bay, one of the album tracks that will be available on social media music platforms later this month.  The Brooklyn Bard band members take a few minutes to express their feelings about performing the song, origins of their instruments, as well as offering their own histories.

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Money donations from the fundraiser will be made through a go-fund-me campaign Sailors & Seniors Helping Jersey City Homeless started by Michele Wiemer and Barry Richards, who are boat owners in Liberty Landing Marina. In addition to money fundraising, they are also looking to collect coats and food items for this same grassroots effort.

The event, presented by Liberty Yacht Club, will take place on Halloween Day, Saturday 10/31/2020 and the schedule is as follows:

• 10:00am -10:45am – a Halloween Boat Parade along the Morris Canal
• 10:45am-12:45pm – Sailboat race in the NY Harbor
• 1-3pm – Trick or Treat on marina’s docks – fundraising for the above cause.

In order to prevent the spread of covid-19 we instruct participants to team up with groups of up to 6 people max on each dock, maintain a social distance and wear masks (not just Halloween masks.

Attached please find a digital copy for the Boatbusters flyer, as well as a banner you can use for a Newsletter in case you’d be willing to participate.

The website link to find more information and to register to the event is: Go to the Quarter Deck section of www.libertyyachtclub.org for more info. (the QR code in the flyer takes you there). Must register no later than October 28th.

So come Join the Liberty Yacht Club for one more Race for the year, along with a food, clothing and Trick or treat fundraising event! It will surely be SPOOK-tacular!

The post Liberty Yacht Club Presents: BOATBUSTERS a Halloween Fundraiser Race for Sailors appeared first on New York Harbor Channel.

NYHC wants to take the opportunity to remember the 50 veterans that reportedly died in the Long Island nursing home. To date, there are more than 1000 veterans in VA health system sites that have been lost due to Covid-19 infections. Along with the veterans who are not getting the proper ceremonial honors at their burials due to Covid-19. However, hundreds of other veterans were lost in the state-run homes.  We ask, how many of these veterans would still be alive today if they were fast-tracked to USNS Comfort.  And for those who would have succumbed to the infection, how many would have been happier spending their final hours on the military hospital ship?  Of course, these are tough questions.

On this Memorial Day Observance, NYHC is honored to have Congressman and veteran Max Rose offer words of thanks to the crew of USNS Comfort.  A purple heart recipient, Max Rose served as a platoon leader in Afghanistan and was wounded there in 2013.  In addition to his representation of the 11th Congressional District from Brooklyn and Staten Island, he currently is attached to the New York Army National Guard for active duty.

NYHC is proud to have found men and women of distinction to help tell our Covid-19 New York story.  The time span of the documentary is from March 7th (the first covid deaths in NYC) to April 30th (when Comfort leaves NYC).   The key focal characters are Rachel Hartley, who answered the call for ICU nurses, sailing her temporary residence into New York Harbor and USNS Comfort’s Chaplain, Lt. Johnny Bravo.  There is a strong spirituality between the two, told from their respective ships.  The working New York Harbor personnel is represented by the Sandy Hook Pilot, Captain Tim Ferrie, who navigated Comfort into its NYC pier.  USNS Comfort’s Commander Amersbach offers his precise detail of the Hospital ship operations.

New York Harbor is in lock down for all passenger ship traffic.  The cruise ship industry ties NY waters to the oceans of the world.  We also touch on Erika Butters’ plight stuck on a Cruise Ship stranded in the Atlantic Ocean.   As Covid-19 tears apart careers and industries, Erika’s 56 day saga offers a musical therapy as she records a consistent daily post on Facebook from her ship.  Erika’s music offers uplifting melodies under our visual footage.  NYHC has taken the best of our interviews over the past two months to piece together this unique story.

Governor Cuomo and President Trump provide the Covid-19 reality as well as the backstory as to why Comfort was in NYC for only 30 days.  The hospital ship only treated 182 Covid patients over a mere 14 day period.  Despite the political tension that permeates the atmosphere, Comfort does exhibit its  marvelous medical deployment and staff acumen.  Not a single Covid-19 patient treated on-board was lost.

We conclude with shout outs from New Yorkers including one from  Congressman Max Rose.  With Comfort’s return to the Norfolk Naval Station, one missing element remains… a Mission Name.  We invite everybody who was touched both physically and spiritually to offer a name for the Navy Command to consider.  NYHC has chosen ‘Operation Gentle Shadow’ as its reach in dark times has brought calm and compassion to the waters of New York Harbor.

After USNS Comfort sailed out of New York Harbor, the torch had been passed to a visiting nurse from Lynchburg, Virginia and the hundreds of other healthcare workers like Rachel Hartley.  Of course, we cannot forget about the thousands of healthcare workers who started this battle when Covid-19 first entered the NYC hospital system back in February.  Departure day for the Comfort marked a significant Turning Point for New York.  The number of Covid-19 cases was slowly, but steadily on the decline.

NYHC wishes to take this opportunity to personally thank the men and women of the USNS Comfort for their service to the nation   The ship exemplified professionalism.  What’s more, the hospital ship also served as a ambassador.  It was indeed a Gentle Shadow that spread compassion from the waterfront to all the New York and New Jersey front line workers.   As you sailed out of the harbor, you took your excellence with you to serve on another mission.  For New York, Operation Gentile Shadow will live on as a shining light that helped bring us out of the unknown darkness.  We wish you fair winds and following seas!

For more in depth articles and interviews found in New York Harbor Channel, please click below

Commander Amersbach

Captain Tim Ferrie

Erika Monet Butters

Nurse Rachel Hartley

Chaplain Johnny Bravo

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