Allan Appel Photo
Lisa Fitch has for a year refused to put her Fair Haven marina up for sale until she fulfilled a quest: find someone to preserve the historic oyster barge that has been at the south end of her Front Street property for nearly a century.
At first she wanted to find someone in town to preserve it or adaptively reuse it in New Haven. That didn’t happen. Plans for it to find a home the nearby Mystic Seaport also fell through.
Fitch with Alex and Miles Pincus.
There were family and business pressures to sell. But that would almost definitely mean a tear-down by the property’s next buyer, Fitch said.
That was something Fitch, an accidental but avid preservationist, would not allow to happen.
Finally, on Monday. Fitch celebrated the quest’s long but happy ending: In a press conference at the barge, she announced that Miles and Alex Pincus of the Maritime Foundation of New York will receive the barge from her as a gift.
It is the only known original New York City oyster barge still in tact in the country, said Rob Greenberg, a local preservationist who has been advising Fitch.
The Pincus brothers are the restorers/creators of Grand Banks, a 19th century fishing schooner that now doubles as a restaurant and floats happily on the water in New York’s Tribeca.
That may be the future for Fair Haven old barge as well, said Miles Pincus.
Interior first floor of the barge “hatch,” where Greenberg unearthed Prohibition-era bottles.
Beginning Wednesday, the Pincuses plan to dismantle the barge, number its 1880s boards sequentially, ship it the Atlantic Basin Marina in Red Hook Brooklyn, and there restore it as a museum, restaurant, or both.
Click here for a previous story about the barge’s storied history and Fitch’s previous attempts to find a home.
“I knew they were right for it,” said Fitch when the Miles Pincus contacted her after reading the article in the original Independent article.
The backing-and-forthing took a year. It included Fitch and Greenberg visiting the Sherman Zwicker, the schooner which the Pincus brothers restored and turned into Grand Banks restaurant.
The barge is a gift to the Maritime Foundation, the not-forprofit entity whose restoraton work is aided by revenue produced by The Grand Banks.
Alex Pincus estimated the cost of dis-assembling and shipping at about $25,000.
The cost for the restoration is about $500,000, he also estimated. That money is not yet in hand.
Pincus said that the conversion into a restaurant, as with the Sherman Zwicker, might not be the fate for the old barge: “I don’t know the model yet.”
What he does know, and what Lisa Fitch knows, is that the barge will now have been preserved. Greenberg said that the educational displays at Grand Banks also convinced him the Pincus brothers were right for the project.
With Fitch’s permission, Greenberg has been excavating around the site of the barge. He discovered buckets-full of bottles, ceramics, and even parts of a Model T Ford.
New York’s Gain, New Haven’s Loss?
“I’m preserving the material, and I’d like to do an educational exhibition in New York” when the old barge gets its new life, Greenberg said.
If there’s a downside to this outcome, it’s that the barge is not going to stay in New Haven, which has its own colorful oystering history.
“It is a huge loss for New Haven,” said Greenberg. “It should be at Long Wharf. It should be part of the new boathouse. It’s in our DNA. It should have stayed here, but I was not confident some entity or New Haven could put that together. So I got involved. If it weren’t New Haven,” it was important that the barge survive because it “is an American artifact.”
Fitch with barge enthusiast Joseph Kochiss.
“I don’t want it to leave, but these guys [the Pincus brothers] are perfect. Anybody who owns this marina would tear it down, and they will treat it with respect,” Fitch said.
The disassembling and sequential numbering of parts are to begin on Wednesday. The scheduled completion date is by mid-April.
Fitch said that the marina is on the market, with Juan Montalvo of Chelsea International Properties LLC. She would like a marina operator to buy the property, she said. The asking price is $2.9 million, said Montalvo.
In the meantime, Fitch said, she in talks with Canal Dock Boathouse, Inc. That’s the new not-for-profit that will be doing programming at the city’s Canal Dock Boathouse, now under construction at Long Wharf. Since that won’t be ready until 2017, Fitch said, she hopes the group might lease space for their kayak and canoe rental at the marina.