How Dare You Barge Right In Here!

Discarding large objects (cars, appliances — what have you) in city parks is nothing new, but who dumps a barge (two whole barges!) in Jamaica Bay? This guy:

Firefighters, the U.S. Coast Guard, and state environmental agents have been hard at work trying to unravel a bizarre mystery in Jamaica Bay.

Broad Channel residents have been reporting to the Fire Department since Sept. 23 that an unidentified tugboat abandoned two old barges in the Barbados basin in the bay. After weeks of phone calls, firefighters responded to the site last week and found that one boat had sunk while another was half under water, according to a Coast Guard command duty officer.

“We’re not sure if it was sunk on its own,” Coast Guard Lt. Craig Toomey said Saturday as officers launched an investigation in the boats’ origins.

Toomey said the Coast Guard did not know who owned either of the boats, but had determined that the half-sunk ship was an old city Sanitation Department barge.

A license number had been painted on the half sunken boat, which had an official license number of DS74, according to Toomey.

Residents said they saw a suspicious tugboat bring in the rusting barges. Several community members said they had not seen or heard from the pilot since he dropped off the barges.

“They knew right away that something was wrong when they saw that guy,” Jamaica Bay Eco Watchers member Dan Mundy said of his neighbors who spotted the tug boat.