GORDON C. GREENE stateroom

Use of room

Looks about like the size of my first DQ room, 130 back in 1973. You did have to coordinate the getting dressed routine... In the GCG days, people rode the boat to watch the river, to socialize, sit on deck, etc. They didn't need the whoop-de-do stuff of today: private balconies, tvs, phones, dvds, plush bathrobes and bedding, etc... I would imagine that the only time spent in their room was to sleep. I always told prospective passengers touring the DQ that there was no difference in service or treatment, just the size of the room. I guess our interests and requirements for a successful trip are long gone.
Here's a point to ponder: if you were to have asked a boatload of passengers on the MQ or AQ (maybe the DQ), to name the Captain and the two pilots on their trip, how many do you think could have done that? And to make it even more difficult, name the Chief Engineer!

To quote Jack Lemmon in the 1997 movie "Out To Sea"..."Cozy?? A good fart will give you a concusion!"

I'm with Judy, I LIKED our little room with the bunk beds. But then I grew up in a house not much different from the cabin in those pics. In fact, my brother still runs the resort and the cabins look much like that pic, even the bed frames do! And yes, some of the lights are bare bulbs. I do imagine you pulled that chain to turn the lights on and off--wall switches were a luxury item for the rich!
We forget how quickly we have changed our standards of "acceptable" accommodations. Houses today must be insulated, with nice windows, solid doors, fancy floor coverings. Heck, the walls I had were 1x12s on end with battens between them, and on the inside press-board or plywood for the interior wall. The windows were in sashes that hung into the room, and if you weren't careful, you bonked your head on them when getting up out of bed! The floor was linoleum over wood planks--although I think our living room had "wall to wall" carpet. We gave it no thought, it was home! Oh, the counter top was painted pine board too--had to repaint it about once a year! I know I painted the cabin ones every spring, also painted the tin shower walls too, although our house had a claw-foot bath tub that was modernized by having wainscoting from the rim to the floor to enclose it. The sink was just like that one in the picture (it was an old Pullman car sink).
Some folks in town thought we were rich too, since we had our own business.
(guess they didn't notice that about everything I owned was hand-me-downs from my older brothers--but I ain't complaining, I had a mostly great childhood).
S'
David D.

Let's see: my stateroom on the Str. Kongo in 1942 had the overhead cord-suspended light with a key switch and two built-in springless wooden berths. There was a 12" wide hanging space at the foot of the berths. There was no wash basin or electric fan. The mattress was a cotton pad. We slept on one army-surplus blanket and under two. There was enough room below the bottom berth for a thin suitcase. There was no heating - it oozed upward through the deck, which was the engineroom overhead. The bulkheads were white-enameled to hospital standards of cleanliness. Wash basins and showers were aft of the cabin. The toilets were privy-holes over the paddlewheel. Deckhands' pay was $150.00 per month with $31.00 deducted for bed and board. Food was ample and well-prepared and heavy. Privacy was assured by gelatine "stained glass" in the exterior doors.

No deckhand of today would put up with it, of course. All of this was ordinary, customary and usual, and there were no complaints.

No deckhand of today would accept a job in such conditions.

Crew quarters

Whenever the idea of tramping comes up today, Doc always points out that there is no way it could be done regarding crew quarters. Something like Tall Stacks or the Katrina relief trip was an exceptional circumstance - most of the crew didn't have a home on land at the time, but there were no rooms other than the Captain and Engineers' quarters. It was sleeping bags in the dining room. No way could or would that be tolerated for a tramping season. Also, doesn't the CG have a say in living conditions to an extent?

Yes, the U.S. Coast Guard has a lot to say about crew accommodation. Not more than 4 persons per room, 24 square feet, 168 cubic feet per person. Steward's crew allows ten persons per room. Ceiling height must be 6'-3" minimum. Each person must have one berth and not more than one berth above another. Berths shall be 30" wide and 76" long, min. Washrooms shall have one wash basin, one shower and one commode per 8 persons. Personal lockers shall have 300 sq. in. in area and not less than 60" high. Toilets must be fitted with flushing apparatus. Lights and ventilation are required. And so on and on and on.

All of this is wide open to individual inspectors' interpretations.

These are the rules as of Oct. 1, 1984.

I hasten to point out that these rules are unacceptable to all of the land-based building codes I have encountered.

Them Wuz the Days ...

How about the crew quarters on the AVALON / BoL? How many steamboat buffs would live like we did on there? Four men, or boys, to a room up alongside the boilers, where you could bake a duck in the bunk. A chest with four drawers- one apiece, and barely room for two cardboard suitcase under the lowers beds. And you could stand between the bunks- in the middle of the "room" - with an elbow on the top bunks on either side and talk to the guy in the lower. An ancient electric revolving fan on top of the chest-o'-drawers blew a whisp of cooler air on each pass, but you would break out in a sweat as soon as the fan made its pass and it seemed an eternity until the breeze came around again. Those were some of the happiest days of my life, and I realized it even then.

You had a fan?????? When we took the BELLE up Green River, the fans were gone. I actually burned the bottom of my foot while in the bunk when I accidentially touched the bulkhead which wasn't 6" from the boilers. Those weren't room, they were steel ovens.

Those old fifteen-pound cast-iron GE fans had to be disposed of when the Belle of Louisville's lighting system was changed from DC to AC.

About the room size.

I was told when commenting on the room size on the DQ (Sun Deck) by Barb Hameister That you went on a steamboat cruise your room was for sleeping orchanging clothes only, you stayed on deck or outside and made freinds. I'm sure that was the way it was then too. Anyhow I liked the statement and it only made want to ride the boats even more. The lightbulb in the picture has a pull chain.

Barb is 100% correct!!! And the sun deck is so great, you walk out your door, and there's the world! Of course, if it's raining cats & dogs, that's not so great, but hey, to be close to the calliope makes up for that! 🙂 (Right Barb??)
S'
David D.
PS If you consider the deck part of your cabin, lookit how large it really is! What a parlor!

Gordon C Greene Pictures

Hi all, Im in Cincy this week visiting Mom, are the photos available for view at the downtown branch? I'd love to see them.

Thanks

Kim

Meanwhile, down in the Mid Hold ..."

GORDON C. GREENE Pix

KIM:
Many pix are on-line.. Here is a link to the Cincinnati Library.. 🙂

Gordon C. Greene - PLCHC Wiki

Size of space

When I went to Marietta College, my dad's old two person dorm room had been converted to a trash room because it was too small for a single. It was twice as large as any stateroom he had on Tin Cans. When we were on the AQ, the bathroom was bigger than my dad's Stateroom. Why pay money for a Riverboat Cruise and spend your time in your room?

Thanks for the link , enjoyed it immensely. My Mom graduated from Withrow back in the 40's and she attended school with Mary Greene.

Roddy Hammett always called the rooms on the main deck; the crematoriums......if only those bulkheads could talk. I will always remember cleaning those rooms after the Belle sank. Of course they were stocked with all the important items an excursion boat needs in mid season including toilet paper, 96 rolls per case, bar napkins and stir sticks. After soaking in the river for a week all that cardboard and paper had to be hauled to the dumpster on the drydock with care. The cases of plastic stir sticks exploded and a million sticks stuck to the muddy and oily decks.