The geography here is so familiar, that curve followed by so many vessels in the past century plus one decade. Today it’s mostly recreational vessels, going either to the wall below lock 2, to the heartland waterways, or to an infinite number of ports in between.

These are “at the mouth of the canal” and in that case before navigation opened. Who knows how long this flotilla had been there and how long they needed to wait before navigating inland.

Zooming in shows satisfying detail, impatient navigationists, ready when lock two opened so that they could move closer to fulfilling their indidual missions.

One thing I find extraordinary about this image is that no propulsion is to be seen; none of these barges will move on its own, yet no propelling vessel is to be seen. Had the photographer turned around and photographed whatever waited behind him, the scene would be more complete. As a way to “complete” this image, consider Waterford Bottleneck, a Dispatches post from two months ago exactly.

Many thanks to CSNY for sharing this image and to Bill Hecht for cleaning it up.