Category: Beautiful Industry

Why the sudden interest in the Jodrey State Pier

Posted on by Kimsmithdesigns

There is beautiful assortment of waterfowl inhabiting the harbor. While there filming the birds and trying to get closer (ever closer!), I’ve become fascinated with the graphic industrial compositions from atop and from below the pier. For example, the above snapshot of Gloucester’s iconic Paint Factory, through the piling’s grid.

Rainbow Shaft of Light

Posted on by Kimsmithdesigns

Snapshot from Jodrey State Pier

Amazing light surrounds–aren’t we blessed?

Click photo to view larger version.

View from the Jodrey State Pier

Posted on by Kimsmithdesigns

The Jodrey State Pier is named after Everett R. Jodrey, a barber by trade and activist sympathetic to the fishing industry. Jodrey envisioned a changing waterfront and eventually won support to construct a state fish pier in Gloucester. The money was appropriated in 1931; the pier opened for business in 1938.

Julia Garrison Carrying On At The Sarah Elizabeth Shop

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

JuliaSarahElizabeth

Dear Joey,
I love what you do. I’m writing you because you seem to be a more important source of news in Gloucester than any other blog or publication around. Many people have come in to the shop since Kathy posted Isabel Natti’s Sailor’s Valentine telling me that they came because they saw the shop mentioned on "Good Morning Gloucester". There are a lot of people who are inspired by what you do and by your enthusiasm and I want to thank you for sharing it online.
I wanted to let you know that Isabel’s son and her partner Italo asked me to carry on printing her work and my own on the Acorn Press at 5 Whistlestop Mall in Rockport. I am a decorative painter, printmaker and fabric designer and have been using her press to do my work off and on for 12 years. I grew up with her nephew Matt Natti in Lanesville and had been a friend of hers since about 2000. Right now, I’m working on restructuring the business in a way that honors the traditions of her work but also brings it to a contemporary audience. Because I have another career as a set painter for film and television, this is something I do when I’m not busy working. I plan on keeping weekend hours but directing the majority of the business to the web. Her cards and other work are being carried by The Cape Ann Historical Museum Gift Shop, Alexandra’s Bread, Toad Hall Books and Turtle Alley in addition to the Sarah Elizabeth Shop in Rockport and the website http://sarah-elizabeth-shop.com
Isabel’s work continues to be made and block printing in this area has not died with her. The press and shop are an important mainstay of the area that I am determined to keep open one way or another. So please visit the shop again and see what I am trying to do there. I’d appreciate it if people knew the continuation of her story and continued to support this very special, native craft.
This is a photo of me taken by Kathy Chapman 3 weeks ago, about a week after the family gave me the keys. I’m very happy and honored to be given the opportunity to print a very talented woman’s art as well as my own. Thank you to the Natti family for their dedication to the art and to her.
Thanks for all your good work for the community.
Regards,
Julia Garrison

Beautiful Industry- Birdseye At Dusk

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

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Richard Belair says:
February 11, 2012 at 12:39 pm (Edit)

I would say that the loss of a neighborhood through the money making plans of one person is a blow to the entire community, fishing industry and a slap to the face of the historical perspective of Gloucester. Frankly, Joey, I am very surprised to see you sitting on the fence with this issue, when your perspective with so many other things shows you have good eye for composition. One would think that growing up around the industry would make your choices far in favor of people who’s entire lives and the livelihoods of generations before them helped make this city become an attractive place. It didn’t happen the other way around. People didn’t come here to enjoy the flavor of the area and then build an entire fishing industry around the beauty of the harbor. The harbor was built and then the people came to work the already growing industry. The beauty was discovered after the hard dedicated work was already done.

Reply
  • Joey C says:
    February 11, 2012 at 3:17 pm (Edit)

    I disagree that only one person gains completely. I grew up 5 houses from a hotel. My sister built a house two doors down from where we grew up and my mom still lives there.
    The jobs created, the vendors that this property would support, the increased taxes paid to the city and much more on top of the fact that the people behind this already have a GREAT track record of supporting our community and its organizations.

    Destroying neighborhoods and not helping the community by donating Five Hundred Thousand Dollars to help rebuild Newell Stadium?
    Destroying neighborhoods by providing jobs in a building that has basically been vacant for years? Destroying neighborhoods by paying the city many multiples more in taxes to pay to keep fire stations open, roads paved and schools in better shape? Destroying neighborhoods by providing visitors a place to stay and support our vital Downtown businesses, area museums and attractions such as whale watches, schooner tours the Cape Ann Museum, The Heritage Center and The Sargent House? A place where they can park and walk to all of these destinations without having to clog up our streets with vehicles?

    Building a hotel on a beach where you would never offload a boat. Because you know, you don’t offload boats on beaches. You don’t have to displace fishermen to do this.

    I’d say that what is destroying neighborhoods is not encouraging development and change when the industry you relied on for years has been radically consolidated to make fish stocks more sustainable which means no way that you could ever land the amount of fish that was once landed or else you would simply be negligent to returning to overfishing.

    Destroying neighborhoods? Really???

    I’d say what destroys communities more than anything is not having enough tax revenue and jobs to support strong school systems and this is the kind of project that will help with both!

    Reply

 

Andrew Innes says:
February 11, 2012 at 10:56 pm (Edit)

So it’s all about the money is it ? What about the businesses all ready there? Shall they be bought or forced out ? And what about, of course, the people that are already there? Are they to be bought or forced out ? This is an invasion of the super rich upon the history, the industry, the people, the place that is Gloucester. “Polis is this.”

Reply
  • Joey C says:
    February 11, 2012 at 11:28 pm (Edit)

    All about the money????

    The building has been empty. Who says anyone has to sell their house????
    Show me the person that had their ARM twisted to sell out???

    An invasion by someone that wants to invest in our community and provide jobs on a site that was close to being foreclosed on???

    Invasion by someone who has donated their other space to countless community organizations to hold their fundraisers?? Invasion by a group of people who demonstrated that they didn’t force a single fishing boat off of the Cruiseport site and where there is probably more port activity with a restaurant and function facility operating on the same space with fishing boats, cruise line landings and LNG pipeline support.

    Invasion by a group that employs probably hundreds in Gloucester and that’s not to mention the hundreds of vendors that supply services such as photographers, food purveyors, caterers, electricians, webmasters, florists, linens and again supporting them without displacing a single fishing boat.

    You act as if people making money is a bad thing.

    How do you expect to improve our schools, pay for our growing infrastructure needs, and public safety?? With empty buildings? The fishing industry is not going to be allowed to overfish again. It isn’t going back to a free for all. The number of permits and fishermen have been drastically reduced.

    Why are you scared to death that people will make money and pay more taxes and support our downtown? Can you simply not stand it?

    Do you not recognize that the fishing industry has been greatly consolidated?
    Do you not recognize that with the auctions, that the amount of fish that goes through way fewer waterfront buildings is a fraction of what it once was?

    As long as the boats aren’t being displaced the fishermen I speak to are in favor of changes to the upland parts of the waterfront.

    Don’t you want better for our children than empty buildings and no way to fund stronger educations for them?

Gloucester Maritime Dory Topsides All Painted Up!

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

As a member of the Gloucester Maritime Heritage Center (Maritime Gloucester) you can take this dory out for a row.  There’s no better way to see Gloucester Harbor than on a dory.  Just one of the many perks of membership.

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Beautiful Industry Buoys- Black and White

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

as always click for the full sized version

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The Degelyse is taking the gear out of the water.  Three more loads and it is finito for the season.

The Launching of The Beaver From East Gloucester Marine Railways First Pics

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

The new Boston Tea Party Museum replica ship was launched this morning from East Gloucester Marine Railways.  Video of the launch in a timelapse is being uploaded as we speak.

GMG on the spot.

The ship will be part of a Tea Party museum including the replica ships from the Tea Party and is scheduled to open in June in the Fort Point Channel in Boston.  The spot of the museum  is close to the original site of the December 1773 tea party, where colonists dumped tea in the harbor to protest British taxes.

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Dog Bar Breakwater

Posted on by Sharon
Dog Bar Breakwater, circa 1906 (note lack of rip rap on the ocean side on right) Alice M. Curtis/©Fredrik D. Bodin
Dog Bar Breakwater extends nearly half a mile from the tip of Eastern Point across the entrance to Gloucester Harbor. It not only shelters the harbor, but also covers the treacherous Dog Bar Reef, for which it is named. Construction by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began in 1894 and continued until December 1905. The foundation of the structure is granite rubble taken from Cape Ann quarries, and is capped by 12 ton granite blocks supplied by the Cheves Granite Company of Rockport. A total of 231,760 tons of granite were used to build the breakwater. A small tower lighthouse marks it’s outermost extremity.
Ledge Hill Trail, Ravenswood, 1919 Alice M. Curtis/©Fredrik D. Bodin
Eastern Point Light and Dog Bar Breakwater are located at the end of Eastern Point Boulevard, The adjoining  parking lot and breakwater are part of Massachusetts Audubon’s 51 acre Eastern Point Wildlife Sanctuary –http://www.massaudubon.org/Nature_Connection/Sanctuaries/Eastern_Point/index.php
Fred
Fredrik D. Bodin
Bodin Historic Photo
82 Main Street
Gloucester, MA 01930

Leon Poindexter Installs helm on Eleanor Photos From Kathy Chapman

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Gloucester Marine Railways

Master Shipwright Leon Poindexter installs the helm on the Tea Party Ship Eleanor, with help from carpenter and boat builder Matt Billey.

http://www.kathychapman.com

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