Then bridges, subways and vehicular tunnels were constructed, most ferry routes were abandoned, and by the 1960s, there were just a handful, and all but one had expired by November 1967. The 69^th Street Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to St. George, Staten Island ferry closed down in November 1964 with the opening of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The Central of Jersey ferry between Jersey City and Liberty Street, Manhattan went on April 25, 1967, and the diesel trains re-routed to Newark Penn Station and the electric lines into Penn Station Manhattan.

Outerbridge Crossing under construction in 1927
will link Staten Island and New Jersey.

The Erie-Lackawanna ferry from Hoboken to Barclay Street Manhattan closed on November 22, 1967, and passengers for Manhattan then transferred to the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad that tunneled under the Hudson then along the uptown line to Christopher Street and stops north to 33^rd Street/Herald Square or the downtown line to the Hudson Terminal. That left the St. George, Staten Island to Whitehall Street, Manhattan Ferry as the sole remaining public operation. The SI Ferry currently handles 70,000 daily passengers and 20 million on an annual basis.

The early 20th Century Pennsylvania Railroad ferry JERSEY CITY
running between New York City and Jersey City.

Ferries were generally considered old-fashioned and obsolete, but then along came an entrepreneurial father and son - Arthur Imperatore and Arthur Imperatore, Jr. - who had bold new ideas. The family owned a successful trucking company and had acquired land below the New Jersey Palisades at Weehawken, the site of the former freight and passenger facilities for the New York Central's West Shore Line. The NYC's ferry to West 42^nd Street closed down in 1959, and the car float operations, carrying box cars on barges to the West Side freight yards between 60^th and 72^nd Streets, wound down soon after.

With the decline of waterfront industries and cross-Hudson freight and passenger operations, nearly the entire New Jersey waterfront between Edgewater, just south of the George Washington Bridge, and Exchange Place, Jersey City became ripe for office, residential, and recreational development. To attract buyers and renters to the planned riverside real estate developments, the Imperatores saw the need to provide a convenient and attractive way to cross the river.

In 1986, the cross-Hudson ferry was reborn with a single route between Port Imperial, Weehawken and West 38^th Street, Manhattan, in essence a revived New York Central midtown ferry. Then to get the passengers from the remote West Side waterfront to where most wanted to go, private ferry buses met every boat arrival and operated over several routes to midtown Manhattan between 57^th and 34^th Streets and soon downtown along West Street. Many commuters were bound for the financial district in Lower Manhattan, so a second route opened to the Battery Maritime Building next to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. With the PATH trains (former Hudson and Manhattan RR) woefully overcrowded during rush hours between Hoboken and the World Trade Center station, a ferry route was established between a new slip at the south end of the Hoboken Terminal and a pontoon landing at Battery Park City opposite the World Financial Center.

With many Lower Manhattan firms establishing offices directly across the Hudson in Jersey City, a route opened between Battery Park City and Exchange Place, landing between the Colgate clock and Harborside Terminal, redeveloped into offices.

The passenger mix began to broaden from riverside dwellers and regular commuters, who arrived at the New Jersey landings by train, bus, car and even on foot, to off-peak leisure riders bound for Manhattan to shop, dine and attend the theater, concerts and opera. At Port Imperial, Weehawken, there was ample space to lay out a vast parking lot and charge ferry patrons a moderate fee. With reliable connecting ferry bus services in Manhattan in place, ridership took off. To reflect the expansion beyond a single New Jersey terminal and a couple of Manhattan landings, the company changed its name from Port Imperial Ferry to NY Waterway.

The company then began sightseeing trips in the harbor, seasonal ferries to Sandy Hook Gateway National Recreation Area, and to Tarrytown for the Sleepy Hollow Restorations and Kykuit, the Rockefeller Estate, and baseball park bound boats from Wall Street to Yankee and Shea Stadiums returning to the East Side.

Then came the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001. On that one fateful day, NY Waterway ferries evacuated 160,000 people from Manhattan, no mean feat. The collapse of the World Trade Center towers badly damaged the PATH station in the basement, and the normal commute for tens of thousands between home and Manhattan was severed or severely disrupted. Many companies lost their offices and moved their employees elsewhere.

For a time, the NY Waterway's Battery Park City terminal was temporarily closed, and a new route opened to Pier 11 at the foot of Wall Street on the East River and late in 2001 to a new covered pier between Pier A and the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island's Battery Park ferry landing. The World Financial Terminal at Battery Park City reopened but on a more limited basis than prior to 9-11. On the New Jersey side, there are now landings, beginning at the south end, at Port Liberte, Jersey City, located behind and to the south of Liberty Island; Liberty Harbor, near the former Jersey Central Terminal; Colgate, south of Exchange Place; Harborside, north of the Harborside Terminal; Newport (formerly Pavonia); Hoboken South, south side of Hoboken Terminal; Hoboken Pier A, north side of the terminal; Hoboken North, 13^th Street at north end of Hoboken; Lincoln Harbor, Weehawken, opposite the Lincoln Tunnel entrance; and Port Imperial, Weehawken.

NY Waterway ferries now carry about 60,000 passengers a day (up from 32,000 before 9-11) or ten million a year as of the end of 2001. The ferry and ferry bus services operate without a subsidy, but public funds are earmarked to expand ferry landings to handle the huge ridership increases. Of necessity, the fares are higher than the subsidized PATH trains and interstate buses, so patronage is largely higher income passengers attracted to comfort, convenience and in the case of the midtown routes, to the reliable connecting ferry bus services.

When the last Erie-Lackawanna ferries finished with engines in 1967, the remaining boats were 62 years old. They were traditional double-ended passenger and vehicle ferries with propellers at both ends. The NY Waterway ferry fleet, with new deliveries every year, is a modern, two-deck, bow-loading passenger ferry, either monohull or catamaran. The standard speed boats make 10-12 knots, sufficient for the shortest routes, up to craft capable of 35 knots and higher for the longer routes where high speeds are required to attract business.

NY Waterway also operates a cross-Hudson route between Haverstraw and the Ossining Metro-North Station, and many more long-distance commuter and leisure travel route are in planning stages, some ready to go as soon as the new boats arrive, from Alaska!

(Images from the author's collection unless otherwise indicated.)

Staten Island ferry passengers arriving in
New York City in 1901 at South Ferry.

North River ferries of the Pennsylvania Railroad
sail between New York City and New Jersey in the early 1900's.

An Erie Railroad ferry nears the Erie Terminal in Jersey City.

Passengers begin to board a ferry at Fulton Street
in New York City in the 1920's.

Click for "Guide to Present Day Ferries"

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