Edmund Fitzgerald anniversary

[downtown_racine]

of the big lake they called "Gitche Gumee.

[canuck]

Or Intercourse, as we called it. What street? What years? Ecorse High or St. Francis? Or maybe Rouge School district? Rouge and Ecorse are practically one and the same, though we had a big rivalry in sports. A lot of my friends were Ecorsians who attended Rouge schools. I always loved Ecorse Greek Town - coffee houses, G&G Coney Island, Auburn Cafe, Armos' Market and Armos' Variety Store, the Mediterranean Grocery and Akropol Bar. Lot's of good times.

With all due respect to the memory of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Ecorse means bark in french; as in "tree bark". So I will accept Intercourse as another name for the place because "if a tree barks", it may have to do with some kind of intercourse happening around it.

[Detroitnerd]

Don't forget, at 11 a.m. on Nov. 13 is the Great Lakes Memorial Service at the Mariners' Church in Detroit... See marinerschurchofdetroit.org

[Oliverio]

1KielsonDrive, Is there another boat under the water in that slip? I see a dark outline from Google Earth, and also in the pic you posted above? any idea what it was?

Hello,

The ship that was sunk in the south slip at Nicholson Terminal was the Detroit train ferry, which was refloated and moved to the upper north slip where it sunk again and remains there.

Because of some pictures I saw about the shadow under the water, and because those pictures [[maybe four or five) don´t have the exact date, I can not determine if at Nicholson Terminal there was ONLY the Detroit ferry which sunk one time, then was refloated and moved and sunk again at the north slip OR if, maybe, there were the two train ferries, the Detroit ferry and the Huron ferry and the Huron is sunk at the south slip while the Detroit is sunk at the upper north slip where it was moved later to be refloated and moved from the first location.

Some pictures where photographers say to be about the Detroit ferry, shows two metal cilynders at the middle of the plain hull, denoting they could be part of the exausts of the ferry, and it is a detail that the Detroit ferry never has because it was cleared the motor early in the past century and was early converted in a barge to serve the last years of service.

As it is clearly to view at the upper north slip, the Detroit ferry is sunk there but WITHOUT any cilynders or dark round zones at the middle of the deck.

In addition, to make more complex this point, in the last aerial pictures taken over the south slip, it seems to be no ship sunk there and there are another ship near to the apparent location of the Huron sunk at this place, so, it is not much probable that as of today, could be some ship or barge sunk at the south slip.

It is probable that the Huron ferry was parked near to the Detroit ferry, maybe in paralell locations, and as the Detroit ferry was sunk at the north slip, maybe the Huron ferry also was sunk in other slip and it was moved or scraped.

I must add, that in front of the Nicholson Terminal, crossing the river, there is another of the ferries waiting for any new destination. It is rect and straight, not with the smooth curves typical of the regular train ferries. It is the Perre Marquette No. 10, which was preserved in good condition and it is used as a floating pier for materials or any other service.

I will try to upload some pictures to give a more visual idea about all of this.

Regards,

OLIVERIO
Buenos Aires,
Argentina
oliverio1@gmail.com

[Oliverio]

Ferry Detroit at Nicholson Terminal Ecorse.

[Oliverio]

Detroit ferry at Nicholson Terminal in the north slip where finally sunk [[2013).

[Oliverio]

Detroit ferry.

[Honky Tonk]

Detroit ferry.

Great photos and a great story, Thanx.

[mikeg19]

Is there still a rail river crossing on barge from Detroit to Windsor? You can see on google maps where they would be [[or had been), but they look abandoned.

[BillyBBrew]

MikeG, no there is not. The only rail crossing between Detroit and Windsor is the rail tunnel.

There are 4 slips along the Detroit River by Ecorse/River Rouge. From South to North they are as follows: Nicholson South Slip [[NSS), Nicholson North Slip [[NNS), Great Lakes Engineering South Slip [[GLEWSS), Great Lakes Engineering North Slip [[GLEWNS). Currently the NSS is empty, the NNS has the drydock, Ste. Claire and some other stuff, the GLEWSS empty aside from the former railroad car ferry/car float Huron which has been sunken there for many years and the GLEWNS [[where Edmund Fitzgerald was launched) is home of the Great Lakes Steel Boat Club marina. There is a very small work barge sunken at the head of the NNS, but doesn't show up yet on any satellite views. The car float Detroit was in the NSS at one time and did sink there. It was raised in August 2003 and was eventually towed over to the Canadian side and scrapped. The Huron is still in the GLEWSS on the bottom.

[jcole]

Are the GLEW slips the same place that Wyandotte/Detroit Shipbuilding would have launched their ships?

[John]

The annual Blessing of the Fleet is this Sunday, March 8, at 11:00 AM. Its quite an impressive service and all are welcome. Free parking in the Ford Auditorium Underground Garage. The invitational announcement can be found at: http://www.detroitlodge7.org/BOF2015Invitation.pdf

[BillyBBrew]

Are the GLEW slips the same place that Wyandotte/Detroit Shipbuilding would have launched their ships?

The Wyandotte/Detroit Shipbuilding yard was down in Wyandotte just below where Eureka Road ends at the river. I belive Portofino Restaurant is located on part of the shipyard property.

[jcole]

Thank you very much

The Wyandotte/Detroit Shipbuilding yard was down in Wyandotte just below where Eureka Road ends at the river. I belive Portofino Restaurant is located on part of the shipyard property.

[mikeg19]

What I'm looking at are these structures just east of the Ambassador Bridge, and on the corresponding Windsor side. On the Windsor side, they are labeled as "Canadian National Railway" access ramps, so I'm assuming these two rail loading ramps correspond to each other.

[BillyBBrew]

What I'm looking at are these structures just east of the Ambassador Bridge, and on the corresponding Windsor side. On the Windsor side, they are labeled as "Canadian National Railway" access ramps, so I'm assuming these two rail loading ramps correspond to each other.

MikeG,

The US side are the slips and aprons for the NS carfloats. They used to go over to Windsor and land at the aprons just below where the Holiday Inn used to sit. The ones that you showed are where the Landsdowne and Huron used to go back when there was a car ferry dock downtown where the Ren Cen is now. If you go further down the river toward the Ambassador Bridge, just below the Caron Ave. Pumping Station you can see the shapes on shore where the aprons used to be that the NS landed at.