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Ferries

By Peter Fleischer

Though fans of Mark Twain might disagree, and the 60,000 daily commuters on the Staten Island Ferry might laugh in your face, a case can be made for New York as the ferry capital of the world. That, at least, is the way it used to be - and the way some want it to be again.

Certainly, New York made many fortunes on the ferry. The first ferry line began operating between Manhattan and Brooklyn in 1642. In 1807, it was a New Yorker, Robert Fulton, who invented the steamboat, and the first steam ferry began service in 1811 between Hoboken, New Jersey and Vesey Street in downtown Manhattan. Cornelius Vanderbilt, who built up a $100 million fortune by creating the largest transportation network on the continent, began in business by setting up a ferry service between Staten Island and Manhattan.

A late-nineteenth century account suggests that the tonnage moved in Newtown Creek alone, an East River tributary dividing Brooklyn and Queens, exceeded that of the entire Mississippi River. By 1870, East River ferries were carrying 50 million passengers a year. (The fare was two cents). By 1910, there were more than 112 different ferry lines, for freight and for passengers, operating along the shared waterways of New York and New Jersey.

GETTING ABOARD

Fox Navigation - 1-800-724-5369

Liberty Park Water Taxi - 1-201-985-8000

New York Fast Ferry - 1-800-693-6933

New York Waterway - 1-800-535-3779

SeaStreak - 1-800-262-8743

But the bridges and tunnels put an end to all that.

Some say that the advent of automobiles meant that ferries weren't needed any longer, but it is more complicated than that. Even two decades after the Brooklyn Bridge opened the Fulton Ferry and other East River lines continued operating at capacity. But then the city bought up these systems, increasing the fares aboard ferryboats, and lifting all tolls on East River bridges. Ferryboats could not compete with heavily subsidized roadways. It was government policy, in other words, that helped kill the ferries.

In a matter of a few decades, almost all freight traveled by truck. While moribund freight concerns lived on, by 1968, the Staten Island Ferry, which began service in 1816, was the only major passenger service, its passengers complaining of grubby conditions and inadequate service.

Now ferries are making a comeback, both in New York and across the country. Every city is scrambling for ways to fight growing traffic congestion and give frustrated commuters new choices. This year alone new ferry services have sprung between Hoboken and Manhattan; from Glen Cove, Long Island to Lower Manhattan; and between Rockaway and Manhattan. The fares are no longer two cents. The one from Glen Cove is $14. The new ferry service, so far, is primarily for the affluent.

Today, there are fifteen commuter routes served by five private companies, with over 35,000 passengers now riding ferries daily. Many of these commuters were once in cars congesting the city's roadways.

NY Waterway claims to be the largest privately held ferry company in the country, operating ten commuter routes and leisure runs throughout the region. The commuter trips run primarily between Manhattan and New Jersey locations in Weehawken, Hoboken and Port Liberte. The leisure services include cruises around Manhattan, trips up the Hudson, and seasonal service to Yankee and Shea stadiums. Last month, summer service began on the weekend to Sandy Hook, New Jersey's historic attractions. The company has hopes and plans of expanding their ferry lines -- perhaps Battery Park City to Newark Airport; the Upper East Side to LaGuardia Airport; the Upper East Side to Wall Street. They recently christened their 24th boat.

Kent Barwick of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance has proposed an innovative Harbor Ferry Loop. The proposal seeks to link waterfront sites of cultural or historic importance via two ferry loops circling the harbor in opposite directions. The loops would also stop at now underutilized sites that someday may become the city's newest shorefront communities. The loops would connect with established transportation hubs such as Pier 11, at the foot of Wall Street on the East River.

The city has already spent $14 million to rebuild that pier, and has plans to improve five more East River ferry landings. This fall the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey hopes to commence construction on a $38.6 million expansion of the Battery Park City ferry terminal used for many of the cross-Hudson routes, one of many similar ambitious pier-rebuilding projects. The National Park Service is developing a ferry service between the beaches of Riis Park on the Rockaway Peninsula and lower Manhattan.

Through 1995, the Yankees had played over five thousand games in the Bronx just minutes from the Harlem River. In December of 1995, Rudy Giuliani decreed there would be ballpark ferry service by summer. Eight months later, the first ferry trip to the Bronx Stadium carried over two hundred fifty passengers. Today, roughly 800 fans sail to each home game. When Staten Island's waterfront minor league stadium opened last month, some of the spectators arrived for the games on a new ferry line.

In New York's bid for the 2012 Olympics, water traffic is pivotal. Ferries will move athletes, organizers and fans independent of the daily crunch of highway, subway and bus. Sports facilities extant and hoped for, almost all located on Gotham's shores, will be linked by ferry landings new, old and revived.

Since Fulton's time, New York harbor has hosted innovations in transportation. The Civil War ironclad, Monitor, was built in Greenpoint. Each bridge from the Brooklyn to the George Washington to the Verazzano-Narrows was, in its time, groundbreaking. Tunneling under the harbor for subway trains was path breaking. Now that tradition of innovation will be restored, and New York may become once again the ferry capital of the world.

Waterfront Topic Page Update on ferries, March 2001

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