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This past Independence Day, spectacles begat spectacles as pedestrians filled-up the east side drive, closed for the occasion, to gawk by the thousands at the boats on the river, while the boats gawked back at the panoramic masses. The event as a whole covered miles end-to-end, with rockets set- off from barges at two sites on the East River, a third just off

Liberty Island.

No aspect of the Macy's fireworks event was unimpres- sive. The Coast Guard locked the harbor down, and even the

Staten Island Ferry suspended operations. A dozen-or-so ships were said to have backed-up at Ambrose, so Macy's probably had more co-sponsors than were generally men- tioned. But the Coast Guard had announced the design of the event way back on June 13, which should have been plenty of time to plan.

The McAllister Brothers was one of five from that fleet, peopled mostly by company folks and their families. The other four- Bruce A., Girls, Iona, and Marjorie B- were tied abreast for a crossable feast of friends from Maersk. Not far to the south, five Reinauer tugs - the Kristy Ann, Stephen-

Scott, Zachery, Jill, and another whose name eluded us - were bundled together for the show. K-Sea's Viking, joined

August, 2005 • MarineNews 27

Redoing the Sky in the Month of July

Traditionally explosions and the maritime industry do not set well together, but this was not the case last month as Don Sutherland found in visiting with the Grucci's — the first family of fireworks — to discuss the maritime muscle needed to pull off a massive show on the waterways of New York.

From the deck of the McAllister

Brothers, happy Independence

Day. Boats with flashing blue lights will remain part of the dis- play, we presume, for a time to come. (Photo: Don Sutherland.)

AROUND THE HARBOR

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