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From the American Scene: The Politicians
- Abstract
The Seamen’s Barber Shop & Hotel, in the last decade of the 19th century, was located on Pike Slip in New York’s Lower East Side, one block from the East River water front. Pike Slip is a continuation of Pike Street, which runs south from Division to Cherry Street, where it broadens out and becomes Pike Slip.
In 1894 a double floating dry dock was moored at the foot of Pike Slip. This dry dock and kindred industries catering to it-chandler shops, forge shops, loft rigging, and the like—gave employment to hundreds of workers, mostly Irish immigrants. It was the last of the many shipbuilding and ship-repairing enterprises which had operated along the East River water front since Colonial days, when the “slips” were natural inlets where ships found haven. The shipyards, which built wooden vessels, went out of existence when iron steamships began to displace schooners, clippers, and frigates on the seven seas.
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