In The Big Oyster Mark Kurlansky tells the history of oysters - focused on New York where oyster stands were once on dozens of corners. Until we over-harvested the ancient oyster beds, etc. Oysters have been undergoing a renewed popularity. Now a couple of entrepreneurs propose to bring back theold days. - gwc
An 1850s-Era Oyster Barge Is Saved for Yet Another Life on the East River - NYTimes.com
"By COREY KILGANNON
APRIL 3, 2015
NEW HAVEN —
For years, a shoddy shed of dilapidated wood has cluttered up the boatyard of the Fair Haven Marina, a hub for recreational boaters on this stretch of the Quinnipiac River, just east of Yale University.
Brought up from New York City nearly a century ago, it is an 1850s-era oyster barge that has had various incarnations — as a speakeasy, a restaurant called the Old Barge and, finally, as a dive bar before closing for good in 1987. It was then left to languish in the boatyard, too leaky even to use as a storage shed.
“Most people wanted me to tear it down, but I said, ‘That can’t happen,’ ” the marina’s owner, Lisa Fitch, said. “Everyone who grew up around here had a beer here.”
She drank there too, as a young adult, she said, and had eaten there as a child, when the barge was still a restaurant."
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