This is a real shame what has transpired ....the group attempting to maintain the boat & turn it into a Historical FDNY Museum has now wound up between a rock & a hard place.....if the boat is not capable of operating under it's own power then the Village people (no pun intended) want it moved from Greenport completely but if it cannot move under it's own power then what happens to it ?......only a short time ago the Greenporter's allowed it sail there from NYC offering a permanent berth (HOME) in G'port now they have moved it from one pier to a second one ...now other's want it moved again (basically out of G'port).......Greenport is nice....it was however much nicer back in the early '90s & earlier before the hipsters started buying up business's in mass & causing skyrocketing prices but that's another story....i am sure most of the hipsters like the boat as an interesting attraction but where i think the opposition mainly comes from is the original G'port business community who do not like any outside interest that they can't make money off....if they get your dollars they are happy if not you are just considered a "Westerner" meaning some one who came from places West of G'port.......i hope the group get's help w/the boat........NY Times story..... Bid to Turn Fire Department Ship into a Museum Flounders
NY Times - July 10, 2013
by COREY KILGANNON
During its 72 years of service as a New York Fire Department powerhouse boat, the 134-foot-long Fire Fighter was a comforting sight at many harbor blazes and emergencies, including the Sept. 11 attacks, when it helped supply water to firefighters at ground zero.
So when a group of historic-minded boat enthusiasts obtained the decommissioned boat last October from the city for a $250 processing fee, they assumed it would be easy to find a home along the New York City waterfront to set up the Fire Fighter as a museum ship.
That has not been the case.
Their attempts to secure a berth in the city ? including the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn Bridge Park and waterfront locations on Staten Island and along the West Side of Manhattan ? have been rejected.
Even a city-owned dock on City Island in the Bronx proved unavailable, said one of the buyers, Charlie Ritchie, a youth counselor in Yonkers.
?The politicians should be ashamed of themselves,? Mr. Ritchie said. ?They had an important historical treasure here and they let it go.?
?There?s no more important boat in New York City, and it should be there right now,? he added.
Having come up empty in the city, a retired firefighter friend mentioned the village of Greenport, near the eastern end of the north fork of Long Island.
Village officials there saw the boat?s potential as a tourist attraction, and offered inexpensive dock space.
But with the arrival of the busy summer boating season, controversy has arisen, complicating the prospect of the Fire Fighter remaining in the village.
?Everyone likes the idea that the boat has this history behind it, but nobody wants to be the landlord,? said Mr. Ritchie, who along with other members of the Fireboat Fire Fighter Museum group, as well as a crew of retired Fire Department personnel once assigned to the vessel, sailed the Fire Fighter in February from the Brooklyn Navy Yard and tied it up at a village dock.
But village officials, needing to make room for higher-paying yachts, want to move the Fire Fighter to another spot, the Railroad Pier, which sees tourist traffic.
But this idea has upset commercial fishermen who rent space along the pier and who fear that the fireboat will force some of them to move.
Other local residents and waterfront merchants have called the Railroad Pier a dangerous and inappropriate place to dock an aging fireboat that could pose a hazard ? it could sink, leak fuel or oil, or become ripped free during a severe storm.
?The potential environmental hazard here is quite large ? nobody knows the condition of the boat,? said Stephen Clarke, who owns Greenport Yacht and Shipbuilding Company.
John Costello, a local dockbuilder who has worked extensively on the Railroad Pier, said it ?was not designed for that size boat; it?s the wrong spot.?
?The pier has been neglected and hasn?t been maintained,? Mr. Costello added.
Michael Osinski, who grows oysters commercially off his property close to the Railroad Pier, said he feared that a leak from the Fire Fighter could contaminate local waters and devastate his business.
He worried that the vessel was ?an accident waiting to happen? and a potential liability for the village.
Perhaps the most prudent move, Mr. Osinski said, was made by New York City officials when they got rid of the boat and gave the new owners ?just enough gas to get it to Greenport.?
Despite the opposition, the Village Board voted recently to let the Fire Fighter dock at the Railroad Pier, as long as the boat?s owners have the Fire Fighter pulled out of the water and inspected, which would most likely cost more than $100,000, and obtain an insurance policy covering environmental cleanup, in case of a spill.
But the group seeking to turn the Fire Fighter into a museum said it did not have deep pockets.
?I don?t think we?ll get a millionaire donor to save us, but we?ve been staying alive on people donating fives and tens, and I?ll take that,? Mr. Ritchie said, adding that despite the setbacks, large crowds have turned out for free weekend tours of the Fire Fighter.
?With all the people showing up, we can hardly work on the boat,? he said.
Many of the visitors are former firefighters who were once assigned to the boat, or their relatives, Mr. Ritchie said.
The Fire Fighter is in good running shape, with most of its original parts and features, including its two huge diesel engines and its ability to pump roughly 20,000 gallons per minute of water, Mr. Ritchie said.
On July 4, several retired firefighters helped prepare and then operate the pumps to conduct a spectacular water display for crowds along the town?s piers.
?It?s from the days of blood-and-guts firefighting,? Mr. Ritchie said, listing exploits like having survived pier explosions and being nearly crushed while fighting a fire that engulfed a military ship in 1942.
The Fire Fighter was used as both a display and for protection at the 1939 World?s Fair, in Flushing Bay, and was part of the parade of ships during the 1976 Bicentennial celebration. It responded to the Staten Island Ferry crash in 2003 and to the ?Miracle on the Hudson? landing of the US Airways Flight 1549 in 2009.
And now it sits in a limbo of politics and bureaucracy while Suffolk County officials, who have the final say for complicated administrative reasons, decide if the Fire Fighter can be moved to the Railroad Pier.
Mr. Ritchie sees Greenport as a worthy place to dock and restore the Fire Fighter and to use it for educational and recreational sails for the public, as well as programs for military veterans, students and others.
?The boat?s got a life right now,? he said, ?and to have it pushed to another place would hurt us
