New York: Key to a Continent

All the world’s fastest steamship services from Europe to the United States converge on the Port of New York, with its magnificent natural harbour on the Atlantic seaboard of the North American continent

GREAT PORTS OF THE WORLD - 5

CUNARD WHITE STAR PIERS on Manhattan Island, facing the Hudson River. Even the largest vessels can sail up this river to the heart of the city. Of the ships seen in the photograph the largest - with four funnels - is the Aquitania. This quadruple-screw turbine liner, of 45,647 tons gross, was built at Clydebank (Dumbartonshire) in 1914. She has a length of 868 ft. 8 in, a beam of 97 feet, and a depth of 49 ft. 8 in.

THE Port of New York is the gate to the entire continent of North America. Such is the vastness and complexity of New York that many people in other countries are confused by certain local peculiarities which make it different from other great ports.

The area of the jurisdiction of the Port of New York Authority is greater than that of New York City and Greater New York. It includes part of two distinct States - New York State and New Jersey. The estimated population living in the port area is over eleven millions. According to the 1930 census, the population was more than ten millions, of whom seven and a half million persons lived in New York State and over two and a half millions in the State of New Jersey. These figures show that New York is a more populous area than London. Some authorities contend, however, that Greater London has a larger population than Greater New York, which is only part of the area of the Port of New York.

New York City is a sky-scraping monument to the power of the steamship. It is the magnet that attracts the greatest liners and fleets of freighters from the ends of the earth. No ship is too big for New York, none too small. The biggest ships in the world are built solely for the passenger traffic to and from New York. Speed is all-important.

On the European side of the North Atlantic the Western Ocean traffic is divided between a number of big ports, and the passenger or shipper in Europe has a selection of routes, but if he wishes to go to North America New York is the port he must use if he wants the quickest route. He may book his passage from Southampton, Liverpool, Glasgow, Havre, Hamburg, Rotterdam or a Mediterranean port, but he enters North America at New York. Moreover, for purposes of freight, New York is one of the most convenient of the North Atlantic ports.

Although New York City, built on Manhattan Island, is the financial, commercial and shipping capital of the United States, Washington is the political capital, and Albany, on the Hudson River, is the capital of New York State. Manhattan is one of the five boroughs of the city of New York. The other four boroughs are the Bronx, on the mainland north-east of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, both on Long Island, and Richmond, on Staten Island. All these boroughs are in New York State. The Hudson River separates New York State from New Jersey State, and Hoboken, Jersey City and other towns on the mainland side of the river are not politically part of New York City, although they are within the port area.

The natural facilities make the harbour one of the best in the world. It is landlocked, on a large river, the Hudson. The channel had ample water until the development of the big ship demanded dredging.

From the beginning, New York has had no need to build breakwaters and other artificial means of protection Nature has provided her with ample shelter, and despite the growth of the port, there is still room for expansion.

The total water-front of the port is about 770 miles long. Some 350 miles, measured around piers and slips, have been developed. The area of the port covers a radius of about twenty miles from Manhattan Island. The nearest great United States ports are Boston, 330 miles by water to the north-east, and Philadelphia, 265 miles by water to the south-west. Inland waterways give access to the Great Lakes through the Hudson River and New York State Barge Canal system, and to the St. Lawrence River through the Hudson River, Lake Champlain, Richelieu River and Chambly Canal. Small craft also have access to Philadelphia along the Delaware and Raritan Canal. Railways operating about 40,000 miles of track radiate from New York to all centres in the United States.

For large vessels the Ambrose Channel is the principal entrance to the port. It is seven and a half miles long from deep water to the Narrows (described below), 40 feet deep and 2,000 feet wide and is used by most ships coming from Europe. There are other channels south of the Ambrose, including the Main Ship - Bayside - and Gedney Channel, which is 30 feet deep and

1,000 feet wide. This channel is used by the scows that carry the refuse of New York to the dumping grounds at sea. The Ambrose Light is the starting or finishing point of Atlantic speed records, because the pilot is dropped or taken on there.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION of New York, with its great land-locked harbour, makes the port one of the most sheltered in the world. The Hudson River, which is called the North River in New York, separates the State of New York from the State of New Jersey. The port of New York lines either shore of Upper Bay and of the Hudson and East Rivers. The largest ocean liners in the world enter the port from Lower Bay. They pass through the Narrows, a contraction of the channel dividing Long Island on the east, from Staten Island, on the west. This strait is about a mile across.

New York is approached through the Lower Bay, 88 square miles in area, and the Upper Bay, 14 square miles in area. These two bays are connected by the Narrows, a mile-wide strait between Long Island and Staten Island. Sandy Hook Bar lies to the south.

Passing the Narrows between the boroughs of Richmond and Brooklyn, incoming ships sight the Statue of Liberty on Bedloe’s, or Liberty Island, opposite Governor’s Island. Ellis Island, where immigrants are examined, is beyond, and then rise the skyscrapers of New York City. Ocean liners from Europe generally berth at the piers on the western side of Manhattan Island, in the North River, as the Hudson River is called in New York. Across the river, to the west, are the piers of Hoboken.

Manhattan is the heart of New York. On this island the great buildings have reared skyward because they could not spread outwards. This makes New York the most imposing of cities, but its traffic problems are complicated. Every person bound to or from Manhattan has to cross water, by bridge, tunnel or boat. The Hudson River separates Manhattan from New Jersey, the narrow Harlem River cuts it off from the rest of New York State, and the East River divides it from Long Island. Manhattan Island is about thirteen and a half miles long with an average breadth of one mile and three-fifths. Harbour traffic problems have been complicated by the fact that only one of the great trunk railways - the New York Central - runs in from the north across the Harlem River. The others have had to build terminals on the New Jersey mainland or on Long Island. They transport goods across the water to Manhattan.

The piers are on Manhattan, on the Hudson and East Rivers, on the New Jersey shore, and on Staten Island and Long Island. In 1930 the water-borne traffic of the port, exclusive of the railway and car ferries, was 120,400,000 short tons of 2,000 lb, valued at £2,000,000,000. This was 26 per cent of the total volume and 56 per cent of the total value of the water-borne commerce of the United States. There were 138 established steamship lines, of which 103 were in foreign trade, twelve were inter-coastal, and twenty-three were coastwise. There were also thirty local and inland lines, of which seventeen operated on the New York State Barge Canal. The piers number over 800. Long Island, separated from the mainland by Long Island Sound and from Manhattan by East River, is 118 miles long and from thirteen to twenty-three miles broad.

The story of New York begins in the autumn of 1609, when an 80-tons vessel, the Half Moon, under the command of Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the service of the Dutch East India Company, sailed into the Bay and up the Hudson River. Hudson was not the first European to enter New York Harbour. A Florentine, Verrazani, is said to have, explored New York in 1524, followed the next year by Esteban Gomez.

Attack by Indians

Hudson was looking for the North-West Passage. He had only twenty men and had sailed all the way from Amsterdam. He took the Half Moon some 150 miles up what is now the Hudson River as far as there was water to float her, and then sent a boat up another score of miles to make sure that the Hudson River was not the way to India. On his way back Hudson beat off an attack by Indians, and killed several of them. On Manhattan he traded trinkets for furs, and made the Indians drunk with “fire-water”. He put in at Dartmouth, England, on his way back, and sent word to his Dutch employers that a good trade in furs could be begun with the Indians. The English authorities, however, took Hudson off his ship. They were concerned that he, an Englishman, should have explored for his Dutch employers territory that England had claimed by the discoveries of Cabot.

The merchants of the Netherlands acted upon Hudson’s report, and enterprising traders followed in the wake of the Half Moon. They founded trading posts on the tip of Manhattan Island, on the mainland and as far up the Hudson River as Fort Orange, which afterwards became Albany. Adrian Block, one of the mariners who followed Hudson, had the misfortune to lose his ship by fire while she was anchored off Manhattan. He and his men felled forest trees and built a 45-ft. vessel which they named the Onrest (Restless). This was the first ship to be launched in what are now United States waters.

BROOKLYN BRIDGE spans the East River and joins Long Island and the borough of Brooklyn to Manhattan Island. The bridge was opened in 1883. The main suspension span is 1,595 feet long between towers. The total length of the bridge, including the approach viaducts, is 5,989 feet, a distance of more than one mile.

The Dutch called this settlement on Manhattan Island, New Amsterdam. It was founded in 1613. Eight years later the Dutch West India Company was chartered, and the territory of New Netherland was given to it. In 1624 Peter Minuit, director, or governor, of the colony arrived. A year or so later he bought Manhattan from the Indians for ribbons, beads, clothes and baubles estimated to be worth less than a five-pound note. Minuit was succeeded by another governor who built a church and a fort costing more than£300. The Swedes then became interested in America, and founded settlements on the Delaware River, but these were captured by the Dutch from New Amsterdam. Meanwhile the British settlements in New England and Virginia thrived at a great pace, and to guard against possible aggression by the British the Dutch built a wall of palisades across Manhattan Island: hence Wall Street.

These early Dutch were sharp traders, and knew the value of furs, but they were not farmers. The British settlers, who were farmers, took deeper root and thrived more surely. The British always maintained that the Dutch had no right on the North American continent because Cabot had been there first. Charles II gave the territory occupied by the Dutch to his brother James, Duke of York. When a British fleet arrived, the Dutch surrendered in 1664.

New Amsterdam became New York, and Fort Orange became Albany. By this time there was one dock called the Hooft on Manhattan, and slaves from Africa were employed as dock workers. All incoming ships hove-to off the Battery, at the tip of the island, for their papers to be inspected before they were allowed to anchor or land passengers. The Western Ocean service to Amsterdam was as regular as circumstances permitted. Ships traded to the West Indies and to the British colonies in America and also maintained a service up the Hudson River to Albany. There was a skeleton ferry service to New Jersey, Staten Island and Long Island.

The Dutch recaptured New York with a fleet in 1673, but the city passed back to the British the following year under the terms of the Treaty of Westminster. Thus what is now one of the largest English-speaking centres of population in the world was not founded by the British. Huguenots, Walloons, Germans and British, as well as the original Dutch settlers, made the early settlement cosmopolitan. Some of the British inhabitants were bond-servants and apprentices who had escaped from New England and Virginia. From the beginning, therefore, New York was different from her neighbours, and she has always remained so.

Under the British flag New York had a turbulent career. When news was brought of the flight of James II in 1688 the city flared up into a local rebellion that lasted for two years. One party held that the authority of the king had ended and that New Yorkers should appoint their own officials. The others contended that the officials should continue in office until new appointments were made by King William. There were bloodshed and executions until order was restored.

Then New York entered upon a strange phase. The city prospered by privateering and selling powder, shot and supplies to acknowledged pirates. The port was ideal during the almost incessant wars between Britain and France for any mariner with a stout ship, a tough crew, guns, powder and shot. The whole seaboard of North America afforded opportunities for these New York freebooters. To the north were the French settlements in Canada, with the French shipping to raid, and to the south were the buccaneers of the West Indies with whom New York did a thriving trade. In the Indian Ocean Madagascar became a stronghold of the pirates who preyed upon the rich ships from the East. New York captains could buy Jamaica rum at two shillings a gallon in New York, sail it to Madagascar and sell it for three pounds a gallon. From the Governor downwards everybody shared in the profits of trading with pirates.

THE FAMOUS “SKY-LINE” of New York seen from the south-east tower of Brooklyn Bridge across the East River. In the photograph above are shown some of the world’s highest buildings. Among these are the Empire State Building (1,243 feet), the Chrysler Building (1,033 feet), the Radio Building (843 feet), the Bank of Manhattan (838 feet) and the Woolworth Building (792 feet). The first two are higher than the Eiffel Tower (935 feet) in Paris. New York’s water-front, fringed with docks and served by innumerable ferries, is the busiest in the world.

MANHATTAN BRIDGE, on the right of the photograph continued above, connects the borough of Brooklyn with the island of Manhattan, nucleus of New York City. The section illustrated on this page is similarly lined with docks, but the skyscrapers are less numerous. On the east, Manhattan Island is separated from the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens by the East River, and from the borough of Bronx by the Harlem River. On the west of Manhattan is the Hudson River, opening into Upper Bay. In this bay are the famous statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the immigrant station.

A ship would sail out of New York as a privateer entitled to engage any vessel flying the flag of a nation at war with Britain. If she failed to find such a vessel, the captain sometimes turned pirate. Dead men told no tales and, by slaughtering the crew of a captured ship, the pirate would destroy the evidence against him and could return to New York as a privateer. Many of the vessels were slavers. New York was a port without manufacturers, and depended upon the sea for her existence. The taverns along the water-front were filled with carousing sailors whenever a ship returned with prize-money. The captains mixed with the gentry and merchants. Pirate captains openly walked the streets of the port until the scandal came to the ears of the British Government. The wife of one Governor flaunted the silks, satins, gold ornaments and gems that she had received as part of the bribes given to her husband by the pirates. The Governor was recalled to England, and a new one sent out to purge the town of corruption. One vessel made £30,000 out of one voyage to Madagascar and back. She took out rum, wine and gunpowder and brought back East India goods, slaves, and twenty-nine pirates who had paid £4,000 passage money. The brig Clinton took the French ship La Pomme with a cargo worth £40,000. Every man received £160, and the captain contributed a feast of an ox roasted whole in the fields with a hogshead of punch to wash it down.

For seven years during the War of Independence New York was in the hands of the British. Before the Revolution there was constant friction between the seafarers of the port and the British. The seafarers, who always risked being kidnapped by the press gangs of the British Navy, lost no opportunity of fighting the men of the Royal Navy or of the Army garrison, and many lives were lost in these encounters. For a short time after the Revolution New York was the temporary capital of the Republic. When the British marched out in 1783 it was a port of 23,000 inhabitants, many of whom were negro slaves. By 1810 the population had increased to 95,000. A set-back came when the war with Britain began in 1812. A British fleet blockaded New York and crippled trade, but this was only a temporary pause before the real rise of the city to its present importance in world affairs. The astounding growth of modern New York is due to the steamboat, the canal and the railway.

It was from New York that Robert Fulton’s Clermont earned fame in 1807 by steaming 150 miles against wind and current to Albany, up the Hudson River, in thirty-two hours. Within two years there was a regular steamboat service. In 1818 a service on Long Island Sound was begun, and by 1830 eighty-six steamboats were running in New York Harbour. Enterprising men flocked to New York. One, John Jacob Astor, set up as a fur merchant. Astor bought furs from Canada and sold them in China. He fitted out a ship, sent her round the Horn and opened a trading post called Astoria - now a busy port - at the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific coast. In later years Astor retired from sea ventures and bought land on Manhattan.

Astor was a German immigrant, but Cornelius Vanderbilt was descended from the Dutch of New Amsterdam. As a youth he sailed a ferry boat from Staten Island to New York and he soon realized the advantages of steam. He saved every nickel and went into steam, building larger and faster ferry boats and charging cheaper fares than any of his competitors. In this way he amassed a fortune. He founded a line of steamships to Havre and then withdrew from the sea and put his capital into railways.

During this period other New Yorkers were experimenting with the idea of speed. Certain merchants inaugurated the Black Ball Line of sailing packets between New York and Liverpool and began the era of fast sailing ships. This was in 1816. Steam was still too unreliable and too novel for the remorseless surge of the rollers of the Atlantic, so these pioneers pinned their faith to tall masts and clean wooden hulls. They reaped ample dividends. The world began to realize that while at sea passengers and cargo are not earning money. People began to understand that a speed of five knots was not the limit of speed at sea, under sail.

About the middle of the last century New York was the focal port for the American clippers. Fast sailing ships linked the port with Europe, or sailed round the Horn to San Francisco or to China, and steamers took gold-seekers to the Isthmus of Panama. There the men toiled overland to Panama City and took other steamers up to the gold-fields of California. Ships from New York secured cargoes in every big port of the world. The Civil War, however, and the rise of the steamship dealt two blows that ended the era of the American clipper. For many years the American overseas shipping trade depreciated, so that the biggest ships in New York Harbour were under foreign flags.

Meanwhile clever brains were at work in New York, and eyes were turned inland as well as seaward. It is an axiom that the cheapest form of transport is by water. New York is south of the Canadian ports of Montreal and Quebec on the St. Lawrence River, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence is closed by ice in winter. The project of tapping the Great Lakes route to the heart of the continent by using the Erie Canal was put in hand.

This canal linked Buffalo, at the eastern end of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River, with New York through the valleys of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers. It brought a constant stream of traffic to New York. It was a great enterprise for those days and was opened in 1825. As the waters of Lake Erie entered the canal, the signal was sent to New York by the firing of cannon placed at intervals along the canal and the Hudson River.

By the time that railways began to develop, New York had become so populous and thriving that no other port on the seaboard could compete with it as the eastern terminal of the railways and as the western terminal of the shipping lines from Europe. The city had altered beyond recognition during its rapid growth. The American-born New Yorkers were swamped by successive tides of foreign immigrants and the city became the most cosmopolitan in the world. In the ’eighties up to 400,000 immigrants landed yearly and many of them remained in the city. Middle-class people moved from Manhattan as the price of land rose, but they had to come to the city every day to work. The wealthy built palatial homes in the city, and the poor crowded into slums. The influx of immigrants raised a problem of special complexity, as large numbers of the new arrivals were from Central and Southern Europe, ignorant of any language but their own.

The traffic problem of the port became complicated. Only one of the trunk railways had the right to build its goods terminal station on Manhattan. Seven other railways terminated in New Jersey, one in the Bronx, one on Long Island and one on Staten Island. Railway companies built their terminals on the water-front and linked with Manhattan by car floats, lighters and tugs. These craft added to the congestion in the port and the railway piers covered a considerable part of the water-front in the congested areas.

Since the arrival of the railways the districts at the terminals have developed, and it would not be possible for the railways to buy land for expansion at an economic price. The Port Authority has planned a scheme to improve facilities and to ease the waterborne traffic.

Owing to the depth of water and the sheltered position of the port, vast breakwaters and an expensive system of docks were not required. The only necessity was to build piers or jetties. There are more than 800 piers, from 200 feet to 1,800 feet in length and from 80 feet to 200 feet in width. The big liners on the Atlantic run berth at the piers of their companies on the Manhattan side of the Hudson River, as the East River is too narrow to allow the construction of long piers. The piers on the East River accommodate vessels trading to Europe, the West Indies, the Gulf and the U.S. Coast.

The mile-wide Hudson River prevented New York from spreading westwards. The western shore of the river is in a separate state, but Staten Island, separated from New Jersey by the narrow Kill van Kull, is in New York State. The Kill van Kull is the entrance to Newark Bay. Staten Island is separated from Long Island by the Narrows. East River lies between Manhattan and Long Island, and is a tidal strait 16 miles long, varying in width from 600 feet to 4,000 feet. Brooklyn, now a borough of New York City, lies 562

opposite the business centre of Manhattan. Brooklyn and its neighbouring borough, Queens, are linked with Manhattan by bridges and tunnels across the East River. The first bridge was Brooklyn Bridge, opened in 1883. The main suspension span is 1,595 feet long between towers, and the total length, including the approach viaducts, is 5,989 feet.

The Hudson River is spanned by the magnificent George Washington Bridge between 178th Street, Manhattan, and Fort Lee, New Jersey. This bridge was opened in October 1931, and work was completed in October 1932.

THE UPPER END OF BATTERY PARK, at the south-western corner of Manhattan Island. Lying at the foot of the island, it divides the series of docks facing East River from that facing the Hudson River. It also marks the beginning of the serried line of skyscrapers that tower behind the docks. In the Hudson River, opposite Battery Park, is shown the Cunard White Star liner Georgic, leaving New York. The Georgic, a twin-screw vessel of 27,759 tons gross, is one of the world’s largest and most powerful motor ships.

The Bush Terminal in South Brooklyn is one of the most famous terminals in the port. It is situated on the Upper Bay above the Narrows and has piers, warehouses, factories, tugs, lighters and road and railway facilities. In New York City the goods made in the factories at the terminal are displayed to buyers, and orders are delivered from the terminal. The Atlantic and Baltic Terminals, U.S. Army Base, and Jay Street Terminal are among the terminals on the Brooklyn shore. On the Staten Island side are the American Dock and the Pouch Terminals. On the New Jersey side of the Hudson River are the numerous piers of the railway companies, and many piers at which berth the liners and freighters of the principal companies connecting with Europe and other continents.

At one time navigation of the East River was difficult because of the currents, especially at the Hell Gate, near the confluence of the Harlem River and the East River, and many craft were wrecked. Rocks and reefs were blasted out of the way and Hell Gate was subdued. The flood tide, however, still runs at five statute miles an hour. Beyond Hell Gate the strait widens into Long Island Sound. The Harlem River, which divides Manhattan Island from the New York mainland, is crossed by various bridges, and connects with the Hudson River at Spuyten Duyvil Creek. It has a channel 15 feet deep and 400 feet wide.

The increase in the size of great liners has caused many developments in the port of New York. At one time the length of the Hudson River piers on Manhattan was limited to 900 feet, but this limit has been extended to accommodate the super-liners. Piers 1,100 feet long and 125 feet wide to berth vessels such as the Queen Mary and the Normandie were provided in the Hudson River, forming the New Transatlantic Terminal. This has entailed modifying the entire pierhead line on both shores of the river, but a fairway with a width of from 2,800 feet to 3,500 feet is provided at the narrowest point between the pier-heads on the New York and the New Jersey shores. At the same time the deep-water channel has been deepened and widened.

The anchorage mainly used by foreign vessels is in Upper Bay, and includes an area of 3,000 acres westward of a line marked by white anchorage buoys from Ellis Island to the Greenville Channel of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. The eastern part of this area, for a width of 2,000 feet, is a temporary anchorage for large ships awaiting a berth, but occupancy may not exceed seventy-two hours without a permit. This temporary anchorage has an area of 135 acres, and ranges from 15 feet to 55 feet in depth.

It is necessary to resort to more figures to convey an idea of the size of the port of New York. There are 214 piers for ocean-going ships of 1,000 tons and upwards drawing 20 feet. The total length of berthing available at these piers is 308,926 feet. The berths are distributed as follows: New Jersey and Staten Island, 105,969 feet; Hudson River, Manhattan, 72,648 feet; East River, Manhattan, 18,932 feet; East River, Long Island, and Upper Bay, 111,377 feet.

The 121 piers on the Manhattan front of the Hudson River have a maximum depth alongside of 42 feet, and are occupied by the bulk of the passenger and express freight vessels. On the Manhattan side of the East River there are 108 piers, devoted mainly to the West Indies and Gulf services. On the opposite shore of the East River are 101 piers in addition to ferries, car-float bridges and shore wharves.

The maximum depth alongside these piers is 40 feet. The Brooklyn shore of Upper Bay is occupied by the Bush and other terminals already referred to, and there are dry docks and repair facilities. On the Staten Island shore of Upper Bay are the Quarantine Station, the United States Coastguard Station and the thirteen Stapleton Piers, which are owned by the City of New York and leased to tenants. These piers are all over 1,000 feet long, and from 125 feet to 200 feet wide, with 30 feet of water alongside.

The water-front on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River is largely occupied by railway terminals, but there are also many elaborately equipped piers for ocean ships. Bayonne is the centre for the petroleum industry. Goods and coal terminals are situated at Elizabeth-port, Communipaw and the Amboys. Port Newark, on Newark Bay, is served by railways, and goods may be directly conveyed from track to ship.

Many piers on Manhattan and elsewhere are owned by the Municipality of New York, and controlled through the Municipal Department of Docks.

There are ample facilities for loading and discharging at berth direct to lighters or wharves, and, at railway pierheads, to railway trucks. There are free lighterage limits, within which goods consigned inwards or outwards by railway are entitled to free delivery. The incoming passenger is more concerned with the stupendous sky-line of New York City than with the harbour, but the harbour, with its life and movement, is one of the wonders of the world. So vast is the local traffic of ferries, tugboats and lighters that the ocean-borne trade is only a fraction of the total. Ferries, bridges and tunnels carry human beings and goods on, above and beneath the water which bears the argosies of the Seven Seas.

New York is the supreme port of the New World, and behind it lies the largest English-speaking land area of the globe. Built on rock, the city’s temperament is hard; but the port is in itself a romance. It is pre-eminently the portal to adventure and it is a city of the sea.

Click here to see the photogravure supplement to this article.

You can read more on “The Great Lakes”, “Great Ports of the World”, and “The Manhattan and the Washington” on this website.

You can read more on “New York’s Giant Bridges” and “Tunnelling the Hudson” in Wonders of World Engineering