Remnants of the Ten-Story Mountain of Garbage That Looms Over Pelham Bridge

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"A million years had gone into the making of that rich miracle

of soil and water, and a million years would not undo the

damage if we were to act unwisely now."

Words of New York City Parks Commissioner August Heckscher

in 1967 to then New York City Mayor John Lindsay in an Appeal

to End Plans to Expand Garbage Dump Destroying Pelham Bay Park.

Each day many Pelhamites drive along Shore Road into Pelham Bay Park and across Pelham Bridge.  Just southeast of the bridge is a high terraced hill that looks entirely out of place in the midst of all the low-lying countryside at the edge of Eastchester Bay and Long Island Sound.

It IS out of place.  Though it has settled and been somewhat reduced in size, it is the remnants of a ten-story high mountain of New York City garbage dumped there in the midst of Pelham Bay Park during the 1960s.  Now known, euphemistically, as the "Bronx-Pelham Landfill" site, the garbage was piled on what once was Tallapoosa Point -- one of the most scenic, historic, and popular recreational areas from which to view the gorgeous vista that stretched from Pelham Bridge across Eastchester Bay toward City Island and beyond.  The mountain of garbage there now is evidence of the greatest environmental crime ever committed against Pelham and the surrounding region.

Google Maps Satellite Image Showing Location of

Bronx-Pelham Landfill" Towering Above Pelham Bridge.

NOTE:  Click on Image to Enlarge.

Tallapoosa Point once was an island in the lower waters of what is known today as Eastchester Bay.  Landfill was used to connect the island to the mainland at some point during colonial times.  Thereafter, and throughout the 19th century, the point was a very popular recreational area and fishing spot.

In about 1879, a New York City poltical group known as the "Tallapoosa Club" leased the point and used the Lorillard Mansion there as a summer clubhouse and activity center.  As one would suspect, the point thereafter took its name from the club, being known as Tallapoosa Point.  The club, in turn, took its name from the City of Tallapoosa in Haralson County, Georgia where some of the club founders reportedly had fought a battle during the Civil War.  In more recent years, the area came to be known as "Tallapoosa East."  The adjacent region of Pelham Bay Park to the west of Tallapoosa East became known, in turn, as Tallapoosa West.  See, generally Pons, Lois, Pelham Bay Park:  Creating the Santuaries, p. 9 (NY, NY:  Administrator's Office, Van Cortlandt & Pelham Bay Parks, City of New York Parks & Recreation, Oct. 11, 1987) (Booklet published to commemorate 20th anniversary of the designation of the Thomas Pell Wildlife Sanctuary and the Hunter Island Marine Zoology and Geology Sanctuary).

The Tallapoosa Club used the Lorillard Mansion as its summer clubhouse until 1895.  At some point thereafter, the mansion became the "Tallapoosa Inn," a hotel and restaurant.  The Tallapoosa Inn became a recreational destination of its own.  For many years it hosted functions for countless organizations including many from Pelham.

Employees of the Tallapoosa Inn in an Undated Photograph

Taken from a Cracked Negative.  NOTE:  Click on Image to Enlarge.

A beach with permanent beach changing rooms was constructed on Eastchester Bay at Tallapoosa Point.  It was a heavily-used recreational beach until the 1930s.

Beachgoers at Tallapoosa Point on Eastchester Bay in an Undated

Photograph.  Source:  Pons, Lois, Pelham Bay Park:  Creating the

Santuaries, p. 10 (NY, NY:  Administrator's Office, Van Cortlandt &

Pelham Bay Parks, City of New York Parks & Recreation, Oct. 11,

1987) (Booklet published to commemorate 20th anniversary of the

designation of the Thomas Pell Wildlife Sanctuary and the Hunter Island

Marine Zoology and Geology Sanctuary).  NOTE:  Click on Image to Enlarge.

During the early 1960s, New York City was struggling with how to dispose of many, many thousands of tons of garbage.  According to a publication released by the Van Cortlandt & Pelham Bay Parks Administrator's Office in 1987, "Precisely when the City's departments of Sanitation and Parks chose Pelham Bay Park as a site for a sanitary landfill is not clear.  A preparation plan for filling an 80-acre area with garbage was submitted to the City Board of Estimate in December 1961, during the administration of Mayor Robert F. Wagner.  Work on this fill started in 1964, during the administration of Mayor Robert F. Wagner.  Work on this fill started in 1964 in the eastern part of the park known as Tallapoosa Point."  

As garbage first was dumped on Tallapoosa Point, City Island residents who lived directly across the water from the Point were horrified and outraged.  According to one account:

"Virginia Gallagher, a civic-minded and active resident of City Island recalled during a recent interview the time this landfill operation got under way.

She said that although area residents fought this operation, the battle was hampered by the suddenness of the plan's implementation and by the fact that community input on such projects was limited.

'The Sanitation Department simply started a landfill there,' she said.  'City Island was in the direct line of the odor.  We'd have to close our doors and light cigarettes to get rid of the smell.'

'It was heartbreaking,' she added.  'There was no community planning boards yet.  Once the City decided to do it, it was an accomplished fact.'

Incineration was starting to come under attack as a means of refuse disposal during this time.  By 1966, air pollution was a topic of deep concern within the City.  Weather balloons and new types of meters were put into use to measure the cleanliness of the of the air people were breathing, a Public Health Service survey found the City's air the most polluted in the nation and photographs of Manhattan's skyline during a Thanksgiving smog emergency served to shock many.

It was in April of 1966 that a far-reaching clean-air bill was introduced in the City Council.  Among the provisions in the bill, which was signed into law on May 20, was one saying that owners of apartment buildings with at least seven stories must modify their incinerators within one year.  

This bill led to Sanitation Department predictions for a refuse-disposal crisis and calls for additional landfill areas.  Soon, it was clear that Pelham Bay Park's wetlands were among the areas the Sanitation agency's leaders had in mind for new landfill sites."

Source:  Id., pp. 9-10.

In short, although New York City already was building a mountain of garbage overlooking Eastchester Bay and Pelham Bridge on an eighty-acre site within magnificent Pelham Bay Park, the City was looking to expand the garbage heap by appropriating more than three times the garbage dump acreage of additional park property in the Tallapoosa West area to dump even more refuse!  This time, City Islanders mobilized for an incredible fight.  According to the same publication quoted above:

"This time around, Virginia Gallagher was in a better position for a fight.  She was now chairperson of the since-instituted Community Planning Board 10, and had knowledge of the plan long before it was to be implemented.

It was in November of 1966 that Gallagher received a call from Vincent Starace, a former Bronx Deputy Borough President who wsa settling into a job as an Assistant Commissioner of Sanitation.

'That was when I found out about the plan,' she said, 'when Starace called me and said, 'Are you aware there's a plan at the Sanitation Department to create 300 acres of landfill in Pelham Bay Park?'

Thus began one of the most impressive fights by a community in the City's history.  'I was outraged,' said Gallagher.  'I wrote to everyone.  There was no avenue I didn't appeal to.'

Gallagher's initial actions launched a campaign that accomplished what Mario Merola during a recent interview cited as a textbook example of how a community can fight City Hall.

Source:  Id., p. 10.

That campaign centered around the involvement of the Bronx Historian, Dr. Theodore Kazimiroff who "spearheaded" the fight against the landfill.  The fight began in 1967 as Sanitation Department plans to expand the garbage dump moved along quickly.  The Sanitation Department planned a two-phase expansion expected to begin in the autumn of that year:  "The Split Rock II operation, which was to be sited east of the Hutchinson River near the Pelham Bridge, would take place from then until the end of 1973 . . . and the Split Rock III project, in the remote northwest corner of the park [would] complete the cycle by mid-1977."  

Kazimiroff mobilized additional support from the academic and scientific community including the New York Botanical Garden Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Zoological Society, the New York Aquarium, Fordham University, Columbia University, New York University, Manhattan College, Mount St. Vincent College, Hunter College, Queens College, Brooklyn College, and the City College of New York.  
By late May, even the United States Secretary of the Interior, Stewart L. Udall, was involved.  The Interior Secretary sent a telegram to New York City John Lindsay stating "I am deeply disturbed over the decision to use the Pelham Bay Park site for the disposal of solid wastes . . . I urge your careful consideration of the destruction of this area and ask you to fully weigh its immeasurable values.  It should be preserved."

Only days later, Mayor Lindsay informed appropriate officials that "the plan for filling in more than 400 acres in the park would not be implemented."  On June 2, 1967, the forces opposing expansion of the dump put out a press release declaring victory.  In a move intended to strengthen protections against future expansions of the dump, on September 24, 1967 the Parks and Thoroughfares Committee of the City Council approved local laws 101 and 102 creating the Thomas Pell Wildlife Sanctuary and the Hunter Island Marine Zoology and Geology Sanctuary.  Mayor Lindsay signed it all into law on October 11, 1967.

Yet, the Sanitation Department continued to dump on the original site, growing the mountain of garbage overlooking Pelham Bridge daily.  Additionally, during the summer of 1967 the Lindsay administration moved away from the Split Rock II and Split Rock III proposals.  Instead, it tried to create a small new garbage dump across the road from the Tallapoosa East dump in a small section of Tallapoosa West.  Once again, activists fought and won.  The plans were abandoned.

In May 1968, the landfill permit was revoked.  The giant garbage heap continued to exist for many years until finally being covered and landscaped to create the giant hill on what once was Tallapoosa Point.  There was, however, an odd proposal to convert the garbage mountain into a ski slope during the 1970s.  That proposal went nowhere.

Today Tallapoosa Point has been replanted and serves as a bird habitat.  Yet, the eyesore of an out-of-place hill at water's edge can still be seen for miles around.

Remnants of Garbage Mountain Seen From Pelham Bridge on Shore

Road (Center in Distance).  Source:  Google Maps.  NOTE:

Click on Image to Enlarge.

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Pelham Native Son and Civil Rights Worker Michael Henry "Mickey" Schwerner Was Murdered in Mississippi 52 Years Ago Today

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Fifty-two years ago today, on June 21, 1964, a Pelham native son and civil rights worker named Michael Henry "Mickey" Schwerner, was one of three civil rights workers murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Neshoba County, Mississippi.  Mickey Schwerner grew up in Pelham and graduated from Pelham Memorial High School in 1957.  

The brutal killings continue to make headlines more than fifty years later.  Only yesterday, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood announced a decision to close the five-decade-old investigation into the murders of the three young men during the Freedom Summer of 1964. As noted in an associated announcement by the U.S. Justice Department:

"The Justice Department has investigated this case three times over 50 years and has helped convict nine individuals for their roles in this heinous crime. In 2005, Edgar Ray Killen was convicted by a state jury of three counts of manslaughter based on new information that state and federal prosecutors discovered and pursued in 2000. With the passage of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act in 2008, the department reopened our investigation into the incident again in 2010. The department’s focus during this third investigation honed in on determining whether sufficient admissible evidence existed to support further state prosecution against any surviving person for involvement in the murders."

Source:  United States Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs, Statement from Head of the Civil Rights Division Vanita Gupta on Mississippi's Decision to Close Investigation into Murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner (Jun. 20, 2016) (visited Jun. 20, 2016).  See also Office of the Mississippi Attorney General, Attorney General Jim Hood Announces The Conclusion of the State and Federal "Mississippi Burning" Case (Jun. 20, 2016) (visited Jun. 20, 2016).

The murders and the murder investigations that followed are infamous in the civil rights history of our nation and continue to attract widespread attention in the media, including an article in today's New York Times.  See Robertson, Campbell, Mississippi Ends Inquiry Into 1964 Killing of 3 Civil Rights Workers, N.Y. Times, Jun. 20, 2016, National Edition, p. A11, col. 1 (visited Jun. 21, 2016).  For those of us who lived in Mississippi at the time, including this author, the events of that day remain a vivid and horrifying part of our memories.

Michael Henry "Mickey" Schwerner (1939-1964)

Michael Henry Schwerner lived with his family in New York City until he was eight years old.  His family then moved to Westchester County.  Known affectionately by family and friends as “Mickey”, Schwerner was a musician and played sports including football, baseball and basketball. 

He graduated from Pelham Memorial High School in 1957 and matriculated at Michigan State University.  After his first year at Michigan State, he transferred closer to home to Cornell University where he majored in sociology with a specialty in  rural sociology.  After graduating from Cornell, Schwerner enrolled in a graduate program in sociology at Columbia University, but left the program for employment as a social worker in a housing project in New York City. 

Michael Scherner married a Queen’s College student who majored in education.  Her name was Rita Levant. 

Michael and Rita reportedly were deeply affected by reports of the Birmingham Riots in 1963.  Michael applied to the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) asking to be posted in the South.  CORE hired him as a field worker in January 1964.  According to one report “On January 15, 1964, Michael and Rita left New York in their VW Beetle for Mississippi.  After talking with civil rights leader Bob Moses in Jackson, Schwerner was sent to Meridian [Mississippi] to organize the community center and other programs in the largest city in eastern Mississippi.  Schwerner became the first white civil rights worker to be permanently based outside of the capitol of Jackson.”

Schwerner quickly enraged local racists and members of the Ku Klux Klan by organizing a boycott of a small store that sold goods to the African American community but refused to hire African Americans.  He also worked hard to register African Americans to vote.  As a result, Schwerner was the target of hate mail, police harassment and threatening phone calls.

In late May, 1964, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney visited the Mount Zion Church in Neshoba County, Mississippi seeking permission to use the congregation’s church building for a “Freedom School” to help organize the local African American community.  On June 16, while Schwerner was attending a civil rights worker training session for Freedom Summer volunteers in Ohio, local Klansmen in Neshoba County, Mississippi burned the Mount Zion Church to the ground. 

On June 21, Michael Schwerner returned to Neshoba County along with James Chaney and Andy Goodman hoping to meet with those who had been terrorized and who had lost their church building as a result of Schwerner’s efforts on their behalf.

On their way back to Meridian from Neshoba County, the three young men were stopped in their blue station wagon by Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price.  He arrested the three and took them to the Philadelphia County Jail.  Price conspired with local Klansmen and alerted them that he had arrested the three and that he would release them later that night.  The three were released from jail at 10:00 p.m. that night.  The civil rights workers drove away in their blue station wagon.  The car was overtaken on a rural road by Klansmen who beat and shot the three and buried their bodies in a local earthen dam. 

These tragic events prompted a federal crackdown on Mississippi and led to the infamous “Mississippi Burning” trial of many of the conspirators involved in the murders. 

Michael Schwerner’s entry in the Senior section of the 1957 edition of Pelham Memorial High School’s Pelican yearbook tells us a lot about the young man.  In addition to his photo (see above), the entry includes the following text:

“MICHAEL HENRY SCHWERNER  238 – Pelican Board 4; Band 2,3; Orchestra 2,3; Sock and Buskin 3; “Best Foot Forward” 3; Football 2, 3, 4; Varsity Manager 2; Basketball 2, 3, 4; Baseball 2, 3, 4; J.V. 2; Varsity 3, 4. 

 “Michigan State

“Mickey”; Never a dull moment; one of the few ‘dry’ seniors; singing Rock ‘n Roll with the boys; ‘Hey, Man!’”

Much has been written of these events.  To learn more, see Huie, William Bradford, Three Lives for Mississippi (University Press of Mississippi 2000) (paperback; 184 pages). 

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The 1964 Olympic Rowing Trials Off the Shores of Pelham in The Orchard Beach Lagoon

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The year 1964 was tumultuous.  After serving what would have been the final year of President John F. Kennedy's first term following his assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson was battling Republican Barry Goldwater during the presidential campaign.  Three civil rights workers including Michael Schwerner of Pelham, New York were murdered in Mississippi while employed by the Congress of Racial Equality as field workers.  Riots raged in cities throughout the U.S.  United States military forces launched attacks on North Vietnam following the "Gulf of Tonkin Incident."  Congress passed its Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving the President greater flexibility to pursue combat actions in Vietnam.  Turkey attacked Cypress.  Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev was ousted from power by Leonid Brezhnev and his co-conspirators.  The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted, prohibiting any conditioning of the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or any other type of tax.  

In New York, riots raged in Harlem.  The Verrazano Narrows Bridge, then the world's longest suspension bridge, opened.  The 1964 World's Fair was underway.  The New York Yankees were on their way to yet another World Series, though they lost game seven and the World Series Championship to the St. Louis Cardinals.  On February 7, 1964, the Beatles made their first visit to the United States, arriving in New York and, two days later, made their first and most famous appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.  

In the midst of all the turmoil of that year, world class athletes were preparing for the 1964 Summer Olympics (the Games of the XVIII Olympiad) to be held in Tokyo from October 10 to 24, 1964.  Pelham and the nearby Orchard Beach Lagoon played a role in preparations for the United States to compete in those Tokyo games.  The Lagoon, off the shores of Pelham Bay Park and Manor Shore Park in the Village of Pelham Manor, hosted the 1964 U.S. Olympic rowing trials.  The 2,000 meter raceway course built in The Lagoon ended at Shore Park in the Village of Pelham Manor.

The Lagoon, Also Known as the "Rowing Basin"

Long before then Parks Commissioner Robert Moses led efforts to create Orchard Beach during the 1930s, there was a beautiful bay off the shores of Pelham Bay Park extending from Shore Park and Travers Island in Pelham Manor to Pelham Bay.  (Pelham Bay was filled during the 1930s to create the Orchard Beach parking lot and to connect Hunter's Island to the mainland.)  Before Orchard Beach was built, however, a portion of Pelham Bay flowed between Hunter's Island and the mainland.  Some considered the lovely little area that stretched from Shore Park to Pelham Bay between Hunter's Island and the mainland not to be a part of Pelham Bay.  Instead, they believed it to be a separate bay.  The stretch once was known as LeRoy's Bay.  

LeRoy's Bay long had been a popular area for rowing crews from the New York Athletic Club, among other clubs.  The stretch, however, was blocked for many years near its center by the stone causeway that once connected Hunter's Island to the mainland for much of the 19th century.  Thus, there was not a sufficient distance to create a regulation rowing raceway in the waters of LeRoy Bay.  Moreover, the stone causeway blocked some of the waters as they ebbed and flowed with the tide of the bay, causing silt and mud to build up on the bottom and render the bay quite shallow -- only three feet deep at low tide.

As early as 1902, an initiative began to force the Parks Commissioner to remove the Hunter's Island causeway to clear the waters of the bay for a full-fledged raceway course for public use including use by crews operating out of the New York Athletic Club boathouse on Travers Island.  Those involved in the initiative urged removal of the causeway and completion of a raceway course to attract the National Regatta to New York City.  See Wed., Jan. 28, 2015:  Pelham Manor Resident Pushed for Removal of the Causeway from Shore Road to Hunter's Island in 1902.  They argued that removal of the causeway would allow the bay waters to flow freely and wash out sediments that had settled and made the bay so shallow.

The New York City Department of Parks took somewhat of a middle ground.  It decided that rather than simply do away with the stone causeway, it would replace the stone causeway with a "temporary wooden bridge" that would permit the tides to clear some of the mud sediment that had collected in the bay.  Indeed, in its Report for the Year 1904, the Department of Parks said "Plans have been prepared for a temporary wooden bridge between Hunter Island and the main land, to take the place of the old causeway which at present so obstructs the flow of the channel that at low water only a three-foot stream is left.  It is proposed to remove this old causeway to a depth of five feet below water, so as to give the action of the tides an opportunity to clean out the mud settlement.  It is hoped to build a permanent bridge at this place at some future time."

Source:  Report of the City Parks Department in Message of Hon. George B. McClellan Mayor of the City of New York to the Board of Aldermen Pursuant to Section 115 of the Greater New York Charter January 2, 1905, p. 193 (NY, NY: Martin B. Brown Co., 1905).

The temporary wooden bridge was completed by 1905, but no permanent replacement bridge ever was built.  Eventually the wooden bridge was closed and then removed, although research has not yet revealed the precise date of its removal.  In any event, with the construction of Orchard Beach and the Orchard Beach parking lot in the 1930s, Hunter's Island was connected to the mainland doing away with any need for a causeway or permanent bridge blocking the bay.

With completion of the Orchard Beach complex in 1936, lovely little LeRoy Bay became nearly landlocked.  Consequently, the area became known as "The Lagoon" and "The Orchard Beach Lagoon."  (Because the bay is not entirely landlocked, it is not a true lagoon.  Nevertheless, it is still known as The Lagoon.)  

Chosen as the Site of the 1964 Olympic Rowing Trials

New York City was the site of the 1964 World's Fair.  The fair opened on April 22, 1964.  In conjunction with the World's Fair, New York City made a successful bid to host a number of Olympic trials between April and August for the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo including rowing and canoeing in The Orchard Beach Lagoon, swimming and diving in the Astoria Pool, track and field at Downing Stadium on Randall's Island, volleyball at Queen's College, basketball at St. John's University, boxing at the Flushing Meadow Municipal Stadium, speed cycling in the Kissena Corridor Park east of the fairgrounds, water polo at the Fair's Ampitheatre, as well as fencing, gymnastics, judo, weight lifting, and wrestling at a variety of other New York City locations.  More than 2,000 athletes participated in the events.

The Orchard Beach Lagoon was chosen as the site of the 1964 Olympic Rowing Trials.  In preparation, The Lagoon was dredged, widened, and a small projection of land extending into the waters as well as many tiny islands (actually, small rock outcroppings) were removed to create the raceway.  According to a World's Fair brochure that touted preparations for the Olympic trials:

"[A] four-lane, straight 2,000 meter rowing course will be laid out at the Orchard Beach Lagoon in the Bronx, by removal of a spit of land now jutting out midways in the planned area.  Here, canoeing and rowing contests will be held during the Summer of 1964.  The straightened rowing course will also allow the Lagoon to become the host course for the Middle States Regatta, the 1965 World Rowing Championships, the Dad Vail Regatta, with 23 competing colleges, and the Eastern Intercollegiate Sprints for 13 college teams."

Source:  The United States Olympic Trials of 1964 . . . In The City of New York, p. 2 (Copyright 1961, 1962 New York World's Fair 1964-1965 Corporation).  

1966 Map Showing the "ROWING BASIN" Between Orchard

Beach and the Mainland Extending from an Area Near Orchard

Beach Road in Pelham Bay Park to Shore Park in the Village

of Pelham Manor.  Map from the Author's Collection.

NOTE:  Click on Image to Enlarge.

A rather stark, three-story concrete judging stand was built overlooking The Lagoon near the Orchard Beach parking lot.  (The judging stand still exists, surrounded by a chain link fence blocking access.)  Viewing stands for spectators were built adjacent to the judging stand.  However, spectators lined both sides of The Lagoon during the events, even though some areas along the shore on the mainland side of The Lagoon were difficult to access.

Image of the Judging Stand as it Looks Today, Looking

Over The Orchard Beach Lagoon.  Shore Park Is Out of

View in the Distance to the Right.  This Image is Not Copied

to the Historic Pelham Blog.  Rather, It is Embedded.  Thus,

If the Image is Removed or Moved by Its Owner, It No

Longer Will Display Above.

Remnants of Dock Built Adjacent to Shore Park in the

Village of Pelham Manor in Connection with the 1964

Summer Olympic Rowing Trials.  Photograph by the

Author Taken on April 18, 2015.  NOTE:

Click on Image to Enlarge.

Remnants of Dock Built Adjacent to Shore Park in the

Village of Pelham Manor in Connection with the 1964

Summer Olympic Rowing Trials.  Photograph by the

Author Taken on April 18, 2015.

NOTE:  Click on Image to Enlarge.

The Olympic Trials Rowing Events and Olympic Trials Rowing Repechages in The Orchard Beach Lagoon

The process of identifying U.S. rowing Olympians in 1964 was very different than today.  There was no United States Rowing Training Center as there is today where prospective Olympians are trained and the best are selected to represent the nation.  Instead, in 1964 members of college teams and rowing clubs competed at "trials" to earn the privilege of representing the United States.  

Perhaps the biggest story of the Olympic Trials in The Lagoon involved the eight men from the Vesper Boat Club in Philadelphia who raced an eight-man shell during the trials and then proceeded to the Olympics.  Included among the eight men were several aged 47 (coxswain), 34, 29, 27, and 24.  They were called "The Old Men."  When they finished, however, they had beaten college-aged crews from around the country and earned the right to represent the United States.  The July 20, 1964 issue of Sports Illustrated included an article about the eight-man crew claiming "ANYTHING THAT BOYS CAN DO . . . men can do better."  The eight man crew went on to surprise the world and won the gold medal in the event at the Tokyo Summer Games.  

The Olympic Trials rowing events were held on The Lagoon July 8-11 that summer.  Olympic Trials rowing repechages were held on The Lagoon on August 28, 1964.  (Repechages in rowing and cycling are so-called "last chance" qualifying events in which runners-up in earlier competitions race against each other with only the winner qualifying.)

The Olympic Trials rowing repechages were marred by an unusual event that caught organizers by surprise.  The New York Athletic Club had constructed a launching dock for the Trials to help oarsmen get their shells into the water near The Lagoon.  The day of the rowing repechages, the skipper of a 55-foot power yacht who was a member of the New York Athletic Club had positioned his yacht blocking the launching dock and refused to move his launch.  According to one account "Jack Sulger, regata chairman and a New York City police sergeant, pleaded with the skipper, a club member, to cooperate.  The plea went unheeded and the oarsmen were compelled to carry their shells to the short side of the dock in order to lower them."

Some of the results of the repechages are available in the following article:  Strauss, Michael, 4 Olympic Gold-Medal Winners Are Eliminated in Rowing Trials, N.Y. Times, Aug. 29, 1964.  Some of the results of the initial Olympic Trials rowing events are available in the following article:  Rowers Follow Form in Olympic Trials, Chicago Tribune, Jul. 9, 1964, Section 3, p. 2, cols. 1-4.  

The U.S. Rowing Team in the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games

The United States men's rowing team performed magnificently during the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games.  The team took medals in four of the seven men's events and finished ranked first in rowing with the Soviet Union finishing second with two Gold Medals in the seven events.  The U.S. team took the Gold Medals in the men's coxed pairs event, and the men's eights event (with Vesper Boat Club crew).  It also took the Silver Medal in the men's double sculls event and the Bronze Medal in the men's coxless fours event.

Video and Photographs of the Olympic Rowing Trials in The Orchard Beach Lagoon

The Olympic Rowing Trials in The Orchard Beach Lagoon were covered extensively by television, radio, and the print media.  A number of video clips showing portions of the various competitions that formed the Olympic Rowing Trials during the summer of 1964 may be found online.  Brief portions show the judging stand, some of the crowds, some of the television camera equipment, and more interesting elements.  Below are a couple such clips.

This Video, From YouTube.com, Is Not Copied to This Blog.  Rather,

It is Embedded.  Thus, If the Owner of the YouTube.com Video Removes

or Changes the Location of the Video, It No Longer Will Display Here.

Click on Video Frame Above to Begin the Video.

This Second Video, Also From YouTube.com, Is Not Copied to This Blog.

Rather, It is Embedded.  Thus, If the Owner of the YouTube.com Video

Removes or Changes the Location of the Video, It No Longer Will Display

Here.  Click on Video Frame Above to Begin the Video.

Photograph From the Archives of the New York City Parks

Department Showing One of the Events During the 1964

Summer Olympic Rowing Trials During the Summer of 1964.

The Viewing Stands and the Judging Stand Are Clearly Visible.

NOTE:  Click on Image to Enlarge.

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