NEW YORK'S RICH MARITIME HERITAGE
LOWER MANHATTAN WALKING TOUR
Theodore W. Scull
Many of the most interesting reminders of the city's rich maritime heritage are in Lower Manhattan, and a walking tour is an ideal deal way to seek them out.
WAVERTREE
with her sails unfurledSouth Street Seaport Museum, by far the most visible, is perhaps the best place to begin. The museum complex is made up of many parts scattered amongst attractive early 19th -century waterfront buildings that once served the sailing ship industry. The museum interprets the history of the Port of New York in permanent and changing exhibits and with a clustered fleet of historic ships docked at East River Piers 16 and 17. They include the sailing packets PEKING (accessible) and WAVERTREE; cargo schooner PIONEER offering public trips, Ambrose lightship (accessible); Gloucester fishing schooner LETTIE G. HOWARD that once brought its catch to the adjacent Fulton Fish Market; and the cute little tug W. O. DECKER,also offering public trips. A new ocean liner gallery has opened up on Water Street, and the entrance is across the way from the green Titanic Memorial Lighthouse(1913) that once stood atop the former Seaman's Church Institute.
Just north in the next block on Water Street, the present Seaman's Church Institute, an arm of the Episcopal Church, aids seafarers in trouble, offers courses in navigation and has a ground floor gallery of ship models open weekdays during normal working hours. The entire setting is further dramatized by the Brooklyn Bridge arcing across the East River to the Brooklyn Heights skyline and glass and steel skyscrapers that form an inland backdrop.
Walk up Fulton Street, named after Robert Fulton who established early 19th-century steam ferry services here and in the waters around New York, to Broadway.
Robert Fulton's CLERMONT at the Fulton Street subway station.
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Below left Fall River Line's COMMONWEALTH
and right MAURETANIA.
On the downtown platform of the Fulton Street 4&5 trains, there are four superb terra cotta bas-reliefs depicting Fulton's North River Steamboat of CLERMONT. Two concourses linking the 4 & 5 trains with the 2 & 3 and the A & C are now decorated with six demilune tiled bas-reliefs (in two sets of three) of ships and New York harbors scenes that originally graced the Marine Grill (1913) at the old McAlpin Hotel near Penn Station.
One mural shows the MAURETANIA of 1907, another the Fall River Line steamboat COMMONWEALTH(1908) and a third, Robert Fulton's CLERMONT.
The Bowling Green 4&5 Station has a series of black and white drawings printed on mounted metal mural showing an earlier Lower Manhattan.
The Cunard Building at 25 Broadway
in a photograph taken in the mid-1950's.
Walking south on Broadway, at Number 25 Broadway, the former Cunard Line Building, built in 1921, was the city's most opulent steamship booking hall. The wonderful murals depicting Cunard's world in the foyer and in the main hall are no longer accessible as the most recent occupant, the US Postal service has moved out. .
The old entrances to the U.S.Lines office at One Broadway.
At Number One Broadway, now Citibank, but once the United States Lines Building, you can still see the 'First Class' and 'Cabin Class' lettering over two former booking hall entrances on the south side. Tourist Class (lettering long gone) was at the far corner with steps leading into the basement. Inside the main entrance on Broadway, there is a door marked "Cruises."
One Broadway Main Entrance.
Across the street, the former US Custom House (1899-1907), a Beaux Arts extravaganza by architect Cass Gilbert of Woolworth Building fame, houses the Museum of the American Indian (free admission). Make straight for the Rotunda where in the height of the Depression, WPA artist Reginald Marsh, painted a series of panels showing the arrival of a transatlantic liner.
Panel showing NORMANDIE docking.
You will see, amongst others, the WASHINGTON being approached by the Sandy Hook pilot boat and a tug, the QUEEN MARY passing the Statue of Liberty and Greta Garbo being interviewed on deck, and the liner NORMANDIE being guided to her berth by half-dozen tugs and unloading a then modern motorcar through the side. Bring a strong flash because the panels are high up and not well lit.
Behind the Custom House, the two-tone green Battery Maritime Building (1909) is the city's sole remaining ferry terminal built in elaborate Beaux Arts style. Once serving the South Ferry to Brooklyn and most recently the Coast Guard Ferry, it has been restored and the eastern ferry slip serves Governors Island which is open to the public five days a week from late May to mid-October. Next door, a splendid new terminal serves the Staten Island Ferry, a free ride across Upper New York. Generally, service is every half hour, and be sure wait for one of the new ferries for the best ride and the most outdoor deck space, and avoid the SAMUEL I. NEWHOUSE and the ANDREW J. BARBERI.
The Statue of Liberty - Ellis Island ferry.
Another boat trip from Battery Park to Ellis Island provides a wonderful window into the immigrant experience and on the next island, the base of the Statue of Liberty offers an excellent photo exhibit. Coincidentally, the round fort in Battery Park where you purchase the ferry tickets was also once the immigration depot from 1854 to 1892. Originally the East Battery and later Castle Clinton and its larger counterpart the West Battery or Castle Williams were built in the early 19th century to protect the East River entrance to New York Harbor from attack by the British.
Pier A with the Merchant Marine sculpture in the foreground.
To the right along the Battery sea wall, a sculpture dedicated to the merchant marine at war, shows one man trying to rescue another, and failing. In the background is the working, chiming clock tower at Pier A (1883), the former fireboat headquarters for Marine Company Number One, City of New York. Reconstruction work into a restaurant and visitors' center have been suspended.
The promenade at Battery Park City is a fine location for viewing cruise ships underway. One would never suspect unless you visited here forty years ago that this stretch was once southern end Manhattan's commercial shipping with finger piers stretching from One (United Fruit Line) to 97 (Furness Bermuda). Apart from the cruise ship terminal on the West Side and freight facilities at Red Hook most of the commercial shipping has moved over to more spacious Port Authority container berths in New Jersey. The miles of finger piers that once jutted into the Hudson River from the West 60's to the Battery have either have been torn down or recycled into mostly recreational uses such as open parks and the Chelsea Piers complex in the West 20's.
Start the Hudson River walk by climbing the arched platform overlooking Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park and out to the harbor then head north along the waterfront. A subsequent tour will cover the maritime sites along the West Side from Battery Park City north into Riverside Park.