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    My River Chronicles: Rediscovering America on the Hudson
    My River Chronicles: Rediscovering America on the Hudson
    My River Chronicles: Rediscovering America on the Hudson
    Audiobook10 hours

    My River Chronicles: Rediscovering America on the Hudson

    Written by Jessica DuLong

    Narrated by Jessica DuLong

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In 2001, journalist Jessica DuLong ditched her dot-com desk job for the diesel engines of a rusty antique fireboat, the John J. Harvey, and the storied waters of the Hudson. My River Chronicles: Rediscovering America on the Hudson tells the story of this mechanic's daughter and Stanford graduate who had left her blue-collar upbringing behind until the fireboat drew her back, offering a chance to become an engineer and a taste of home she hadn't realized she was missing.

    The more time DuLong spent toiling in the engine room, running the boat's finely crafted machinery, the more she wondered what America is losing in our shift away from hands-on work. These questions crystallized in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks, when the FDNY called the retired fireboat back into service, and DuLong and the rest of the boat's civilian crew pumped water to fight blazes at Ground Zero. As blue-collar workers clambered on the pile, DuLong was struck by the dignity of physical labor and the honor of having joined the world of skilled labor whose talents were useful at the site.

    DuLong brings her two worlds vibrantly to life in this beautifully written memoir that evokes the vitality of New York City's bygone working waterfront and the Hudson River, a birthplace of American industry. Blending four centuries of Hudson River history with unforgettable present-day characters and events, DuLong offers a porthole-view narrative of the river and its social tapestry as a microcosm of postindustrial America. As she tracks changes along the shoreline, where industrial sites give way to recreational respites, a celebration of American labor and craftsmanship emerges. While searching along the river's edge for the meaning of work in America, DuLong pays homage to our industrial past and raises important questions about the future at this pivotal moment in our national story.

    My River Chronicles is a journey with an extraordinary guide, a woman who bridges blue-collar and white-collar worlds and turns a phrase as deftly as she does a wrench. Soulful and illuminating, My River Chronicles is a deeply personal story of a unique woman's discovery of her own roots-and America's-as she runs the fireboat's diesels on the ever-changing river that flows both ways.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateNov 2, 2009
    ISBN9781400184132
    My River Chronicles: Rediscovering America on the Hudson
    Author

    Jessica DuLong

    Jessica DuLong, a U.S. Coast Guard-licensed Merchant Marine Officer, is one of the world’s only female fireboat engineers. She’s also a journalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek International, Rolling Stone, Psychology Today, CosmoGIRL!, Parenting, Today’s Machining World,  and Maritime Reporter & Engineering News, and other publications. Her passion for the Hudson River took shape at her post in the diesel exhaust-filled engine room of retired New York City Fireboat John J. Harvey, where temperatures climb to 130 degrees. The 1931 vessel, dubbed “Ambassador of the Hudson,” now operates as a living museum, offering free public trips around New York Harbor and an annual whistle-stop tour up the Hudson River, with DuLong at the engine-room controls.      On September 11, 2001, Fireboat John J. Harvey was called out of retirement to pump water at the World Trade Center site. The John J. Harvey’s civilian crew, including DuLong, pumped water alongside FDNY crews for four days. Later recognized in the Congressional Record for “ensuring constant smooth running of the engines” during her service in the days following the attacks, she was also immortalized as a character in Maira Kalman’s award-winning children’s book, FIREBOAT: The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Harvey, and featured in Ben Gibberd’s New York Waters. DuLong’s boating and writing worlds first collided with the publication of her essay “Below Decks” in the anthology Steady As She Goes: Women’s Adventures At Sea (Seal Press, 2003)–a piece that was singled out in Publishers Weekly as “stylish” and a “high point” of the collection.

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    Reviews for My River Chronicles

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    • 5/5
      My River Chronicle - Rediscovering the America on the Hudson, is a fascinating voyage in the life of a young woman, who finds herself oddly quite at home in a most unlikely new job. It is also a journey through the history of America itself as it moves from an industrial past into an uncertain future. While working for a dot-com startup, Jessica DuLong started volunteering on a retired fire boat, the John J. Harvey. She was the first woman ever to run the engines. When her day job disappeared, she was offered a position on the fireboat where she spent so many hours as a volunteer. Over time, she became a licensed engineer on the historic fire boat, as well as the pilot on another tug. My River Chronicle is a deft mix of DuLong's personal memoir, mixed with the history of the mighty Hudson and the towns that line the shore, with a judicious dose of commentary thrown in for spice. The writing is graceful and engaging and she balances the various elements of her account with remarkable skill. Jessica DuLong is refreshingly straight forward as she describes the challenges of being the first woman engineer on the John J. Harvey. You feel for her as she struggles with the levers at the engine controls. Built for a taller engineer, she needs to stand on her tip toes and use both hands to push the engine order telegraph all the way up to Full Ahead. You also share her amused victory as she carries in the wooden box on which she will stand to solve the problem. We follow the fireboat with DuLong at the engines on trips up river and down. The John J. Harvey is also the first fire boat on scene on 9/11, pumping river water around the clock to the firefighters at Ground Zero. The collapse of the towers cut all the water mains and the old "obsolete" fireboat proves herself invaluable once again. As we travel the river, DuLong does something very interesting. While many mourn the passing of the pastoral, she mourns the passing of the industrial. As the river rolls by, she reminds us of what a dynamic place this great river valley once was, of all the jobs and of all that was created along the river banks. Rather than looking back fondly at a simpler, greener time, DuLong gives us a glimpse of when the foundries, mills, quarries and brick yards quite literally built New York City and indeed, the nation. With her as our guide, it is hard not to feel a certain nostalgia for those smoky, dirtier days. There is much we have lost and much we have gained. If there is a balance yet to be struck, I will leave it to others to strike it. In the mean time, I will enjoy the river and if I am lucky enough, I will see the John J. Harvey pass by and will understand, at least in part, why Jessica DuLong and so many others love the old fireboat, and why it is important to remember and honor our past, as we find our way into the uncertain and yet inevitable future. Jessica Dulong's My River Chronicle - Rediscovering the America on the Hudson is a remarkable book. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      The author was a dot com worker in Manhattan when she got downsized. She ended up attaching herself to a historical fireboat docked in Chelsea, Manhattan. She ended up working off the boat just after the 9/11/01 terrorist attack, pumping water to the site when the only water available was from the Hudson River. Later she also gets involved with a historic tugboat.I mostly enjoyed this book, although I skimmed over a lot of the technical boating information. The author touches on a lot of topics that peaked my interest to learn more detail, such as the history of industry in the Hudson Valley and the historic boats in the river. Too bad I read the book just a few days after this year's annual Tugboat Roundup. I checked out the waterfront along the Roundout yesterday and saw her tug docked there. It made me feel good to see it.