TOWING OUT-END OF SAIL IN THE EAST RIVER By John A. Noble "The year is about 1939," writes John Noble, "an ancient leaking fourmasted schooner, its back bent (hogged), its crew of aging Finns and Norwegians culled by Black Charlie (New York's last shipping master for sail) but the night before from the sad warrens the Bowery and South Street then maintained for solitary men, tows past the towers of Manhattan towards s~a and uncertainty." The old hand starting foreward is Mandel Charlie, John explained when we called on him to discuss the reproduction of this painting on our cover. Mandel Charlie was real-like everything in Noble's work . The town of Mandel in Norway, where Charlie was born, and from which he got his nickname, is holding a special exhibition of John Noble's work this summer in tribute to the vision and truth he has developed in his first fifty years of exploring New York harbor life and shipping.
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