Welcome to ScubaBoard, an online scuba diving forum community where you can join over 205,000 divers diving from around the world. If the topic is related to scuba diving, this is the place to find divers talking about it. To gain full access to ScubaBoard (and make this large box go away) you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:
Participate in over 500 dive topic forums and browse from over 5,500,000 posts.
Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
Post your own photos or view from well over 100,000 user submitted images.
Gain access to our free classifieds marketplace to buy, sell and trade gear, travel and services.
Use the calendar to organize your events and enroll in other members' events.
Find a dive buddy or communicate directly with scuba equipment manufacturers.
All this and much more is available to you absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact the ScubaBoard Support Team.
Hello forum members. I am not a diver, but an active amateur researcher in ship wrecks and marine archaeology. I've been reading about the life and times of New York City Mayor LaGuardia. In 1935, he order the destruction and dumping of 1500 confiscated slot machines into L.I. Sound, in 108 feet of water, off Eaton's Neck. Seventy five years of submersion would do the machines no good, but I was wondering if sport divers have ever located or recovered relics from the site. Many of the machines were smashed before dumping, but apparently not all. Being made of steel, plated in nickel and painted, I'm wondering if the faces of the machines might still be intact, while the innards lost. I note the area has numerous wrecks and was used as a dumpsite for confiscated weapons and gambling equipment during LaGuardia's term.
Thank you for any responses or information.
This is the first I have ever heard of slot machines being dumped in the sound. If you have a more detailed location let me know and I will go down and have a look around.
All information I have gleaned thus far says, the barge was anchored in Long Island Sound, in 108 feet of water, off Eaton's Neck, near Huntington Bay. Now this was 1935. The dumping is documented on Youtube and in several contemporary newspaper accounts. I'll see what I can find to narrow the search, but that's what I have. I note on a marine chart, there is a depth of 108 feet distinctly marked off Eaton's Neck, and just to the west are a number of dump sites and wrecks.It could well be that this area was a common "grave yard" for gangland property. Another reference says the machines were dropped into New York Harbor, but that is not corroborated in other texts.
I'll get back to you. Just speculation, this would amass quite a pile of steel in a single location, so a magnetometer might register a solid signal. OTOH, if this was a sustained dump site, who knows what is down there?
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/1998/oct/10/slot-o-gold/ Another reference.
I hope this helps narrow the search. Probably the exact location could be found in archival notes. I see I have more digging to do. Errrrr....swimming, that is.
---------- Post added ----------
Research seems to show that a line from Eaton's Neck to Bridgeport, Connecticut, has been a disposal location for everything from dredge spoils to human waste! This goes back for decades. You have the best information I know of, but other active divers might be able to help narrow the search.
The problem with a dump site like this is that all sorts of things have been dumped there. This is a mud bottom to start with so anything heavy would have sunk in, add to that 75 years of silt build up and maybe dredging spoils dumped on top. The slot machines could be 20 or 30 feet below the current bottom. That could be a good thing as far as preserving the machines but will make them much harder to recover. A magnetometer will give you the general area but with so many other items dumped there it will not be of much use to find the slot machines. This can be done with divers jetting or airlifting the site but now you are talking about mounting a surface supplied diving operation and that will cost. So the next question would be "Is it worth it?". If the site can be narrowed down to a small enough area the next step would be to see where the current bottom is. If it is at 100' then the items may only be 10 or 15' in the mud. If the current bottom is at 80' I think it would cost more to recover the items then they are worth.
You make good points. I would have to say, nothing of the intricate parts on a mechanical slot machines would be left. The nickel plated fronts might be, but again these would be very heavy machines. Without locating the specific site, I'm thinking there is nothing to do but try to learn what draggers may have brought up. If these are in spoils areas, dragger may not have gone near the sites. If you should get a nod from somebody in the know, I'd like to hear about it.
If the machines were buried quickly enough the intricate parts may be in better shape then you might think but not in usable condition. Finding the machines is the problem, once you do that bring them to the surface is easy regardless of how much they weight. The other possibility is the machines landed on top of something dumped there earlier and may not have sunk too deep into the bottom. The only dumping area I see on the current charts is north of Lloyd Neck and seems the more likely location based on the video I saw. I could not recognize the shoreline in the video but it seems to me that they were closer to land then your estimated location along a line from Eatons Neck to Bridgeport.
Last edited by richkeller; June 16th, 2012 at 08:08 AM.
I can only hope that more information "comes to the surface" and a specific site can be safely explored. Even if they are heavily deteriorated, it would be a neat place from which to pull historically entwined artifacts. In the voice-over of the film, something is mentioned about "if they are recovered, the brine with have made them unusable". LaGuardia similarly took vengence on pinball machines and other coin operated amusements, but his real target was gambling machines. If you read the information in the links I posted, you can get an idea of the impact his drive had on organized crime at the time.
---------- Post added ----------
Two charts of geological data showing dumping grounds in the specified region of the Sound. This is "in the Sound", but that far from NYC. The Connecticut shoreline would be visible inline with the dumping barge. Make of it what you will.
The shaded area marked "C" on the first map seems like the most likely spot, just south and east of the Cable and Anchor Reef. Close enough to see the Connecticut shore line and deep enough to match the record of the event.
Looking at the chart this area is between the shoal coming north west from Eatons Neck and Cable and Anchor Reef. The shoal is 16' and the reef is 26' but the area between is down as far as 125' so the current is ripping through there. Based on this new location I would expect the bottom in that area to be hard and any dredge spoils dumped on top would have been carried away over time. These things may not be buried at all.
---------- Post added ----------
I could not see any shoreline in either of those to give a better hint of the location. From your second map site C is on a direct line from Eatons Neck to Norwalk not Bridgeport.
---------- Post added ----------
The only mention of the dump sites in this area follows. This came from the Army Corp of Engineers. Might be a good idea to contact them to see if you can get more details on the site location and what else may have been dumped there. I would give special attention to finding out what types of chemical hazards may be there.
On September 1, 1981, the Applicants again requested that their permits be modified, this time to allow dumping further west in the Sound. The purpose of the modification was to gain access to a site which would entail lower transportation costs than the CLIS site. The Applicants, still acting collectively, stated that the new modification might be "the difference between the entire project going forward, being severely cut back, or indefinitely postponed." However, of the 19 historically used sites scattered throughout the Long Island Sound, 16 had been closed for environmental reasons, leaving the western Sound without a dumpsite. In order to fulfill the modification request, the Corps was required to designate a new dumpsite. The Applicants suggested that there were several potential sites which could be used, including "the triangle site bordered by the old [closed] Stamford, Norwalk and Eatons Neck Dump Sites." The Corps adopted this suggestion, proposing to designate this site located off the shores of Huntington, New York as Western Long Island Sound III ("WLIS III"). The Corps also proposed to utilize the newly designated site as the repository for spoils from additional federal dredging projects. In its public notice announcing the proposal to designate WLIS III, the Corps listed two "[p]lanned Federal projects which could be served" by the new site. The Corps intended to dredge 530,000 cys of waste from Flushing Bay, New York and 30,000 cys from Mianus River, Connecticut. With the addition of the 86,000 cys from Mamaroneck Harbor, the new site from its inception was intended to be the repository of at least 646,000 cys of dredged waste material--well in excess of the 560,000 cys projected for WLIS III by the Corps in its public notice.
---------- Post added ----------
I keep looking at the first video and it looks like they are a lot closer to land then I would expect to see from site C. If they were worried about people recovering them what they told the press about the location may have been disinformation. They may have dumped them at sites A or D.
1Likes
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
