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GeographyIn the broad sense, the term includes the following bodies of water and their waterfronts: Upper New York Bay, Lower New York Bay, North River (i.e. the lowest part of the Hudson River), East River, Kill Van Kull, Newark Bay, Arthur Kill, The Narrows, Jamaica Bay, Raritan Bay, and Harlem River. This includes about 1200 square miles, with over a 1000 miles of shoreline. At peak it contained 650 miles of developed waterfront in 11 individual, active ports in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, Perth Amboy, Elizabeth, Bayonne, Newark, Jersey City, Hoboken, and Weehawken. Although the U.S. Board of Geographic Names does not include the term, New York Harbor has important historical, governmental, commercial, and ecological usages. Harbor historyBefore the Erie CanalImage:Castelloplan.jpg New Amsterdam, Lower Manhattan: Early East River docks along left bottom; protective wall against the British on right. West is at top. (Castello Plan, 1660.)
Image:NYH carfloat.jpg A U.S sailor's album snapshot of a railroad car float in the Harbor, 1919. The Erie Canal and its consequencesIn 1824 the first American drydock was completed on the East River. Because of its location and depth, the Port grew rapidly with the introduction of steamships; and then with the completion in 1825 of the Erie Canal New York became the most important transhipping port between the American interior and Europe as well as coastwise[3] destinations. By about 1840, more passengers and a greater tonnage of cargo came through the port of New York than all other major harbors in the country combined and by 1900 it was one of the great international ports.[4] The main immigrant port of entry at Ellis Island had 12 million arrivals from 1892 to 1954.[5] In 1870 the city established the Department of Docks to systematize waterfront development, with George B. McClellan as the first engineer in chief. Before the major road improvements allowed efficient trucking, rail freight was ferried to Manhattan from New Jersey, meaning railroads had small fleets of towboats, barges, and 323 car floats, specially designed barges with rails so cars could be rolled on.[6] New York subsidized this service which undercut rival ports.[7] Image:G2411 troopship convoy 1942.jpg Convoy out of Brooklyn, February 1942, probably bound for Belfast. Photograph from a blimp from NAS Lakehurst. World War II and later
The Harbor reached its peak activity in March 1943, during World War II, with 543 ships at anchor, awaiting assignment to convoy or berthing (with as many as 425 seagoing vessel already at one of the 750 piers or docks). 1100 warehouses with nearly 1.5 square miles of enclosed space served freight along with 575 tugboats and 39 active shipyards (perhaps most importantly New York Naval Shipyard founded 1801). With a staggering inventory of heavy equipment, this made New York Harbor the busiest in the world.[9] MaritimeNautically, the Harbor consists of a complex of about 240 miles of shipping channels (requiring pilotage), as well as anchorages and port facilities, centered on the Upper New York Bay.[10] Larger vessels require tugboat assistance for the sharper channel turns, for example from Kill van Kull into Port Newark. The Harbor has the main entrance from the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, between the Rockaway Point and Sandy Hook; it has another entrance via the Long Island Sound from the northeast at the outlet of the East River. The Harbor extends to the southwest to the mouth of the Raritan River, to the northwest at Port Newark and to the north to the George Washington Bridge.[11] Other vehicular routes cross the Harbor include the PATH tunnel and lower down the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Image:Liberty Maersk.jpg A lightly loaded Post-Panamax container vessel transits the north end of the Anchorage Channel between Liberty and Governors Island. PortAs the port facilities of New York and New Jersey it is the largest oil importing port and second largest container port in the nation.[12] Although the phrase has always implied the commercial activity of the port of New York City, including the waterfronts of the five boroughs and nearby cities in New Jersey, only since 1972 has this been formalized under a single bi-state Port Authority.[13] Since the 1950s, the New York and Brooklyn commercial port has been almost completely eclipsed by the container ship facility at nearby Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal in Newark Bay, which is the largest such port on the Eastern Seaboard. The port has diminished in importance to passenger travel, but the Port Authority operates all three major airports in New York (La Guardia, 1939 and JFK/Idlewild, 1948) and Newark (1928).[14] New York City is still serviced by several cruise lines, commuter ferries, and tourist excursion boats. A new passenger facility has recently opened in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Although most ferry service is private, the Staten Island Ferry is operated by the New York City Department of Transportation. Channel maintenanceResponsibilities within the Harbor are divided among all levels of government, from municipal to federal. Port facilities are controlled by bi-state Port Authority, but actual channel depth control is under the US Army Corps of Engineers, which has been involved in the Harbor since about 1826 when Congress passed an omnibus rivers and harbors act.[15][16] The natural depth of New York Harbor is about 17 feet, but it has been deepened over the years, to about 24 feet controlling depth in 1880.[17] By 1891 the Main Ship Channel was minimally 30 feet. In 1914 Ambrose Channel became the main entrance to the Harbor, at 40 feet deep and 2000 feet wide. During World War II the main channel was dredged to 45 feet depth to accommodate larger ships up to Panamax size. Currently the Corps of Engineers is contracting out deepening to 50 feet, to accommodate Post-Panamax container vessels, which can pass through the Suez Canal.[18][19] This has been a source of environmental concern along channels connecting the container facilities in Port Newark to the Atlantic. PCBs and other pollutants lay in a blaket just underneath the soil. [20] In many areas the sandy bottom has been excavated down to rock and now requires blasting. Dredging equipment then picks up the rock and disposes of it. At one point in 2005 there were 70 pieces of dredging equipment in the harbor working to deepen the harbor, the largest fleet of dredging equipment anywhere in the world. The work occasionally causes noise and vibration that can be felt by residents on Staten Island. Excavators alert residents when blasting is underway. Safety and SecurityThe Coast Guard has waterways management, including spills, vessel rescues, and counter-terrorism.[21] Deterrence and investigation of criminal activity, especially relating to organized crime, is also the responsibility of the bi-state Waterfront Commission.[22] The Commission was set up in 1953 (a year before the movie On the Waterfront), to combat labor racketeering. It is held that the Gambino crime family controlled the New York waterfront and the Genovese crime family controlled the New Jersey side.[23] In 1984 the Teamsters local was put under RICO trusteeship, and in 2005 a similar suit was brought against the International Longshoremen's Association local.[24] In March 2006, the Port passenger facility was to be transferred to Dubai Ports World. There was considerable security controversy over the ownership by a foreign, particularly Arab, of a U.S. port operation, this in spite of the fact the current operator was the British based P&O Ports,[25] and the fact that Orient Overseas Investment Limited, a company dominated by a Chinese Communist official, has the operating contract for Howland Hook Marine Terminal.[26] An additional concern is the U.S. Customs "green lane" program, in which trusted shippers have fewer containers inspected, providing easier access for contraband materiel.[27] Image:New York Harbor.jpg New York Harbor near Jersey City, New Jersey. Harbor EcologyA persistent misconception holds that the Harbor is largely devoid of marine life. In reality, it supports a great variety of thriving estuarine aquatic species. Indeed tidal flow occurs as far north as Troy, over 100 miles north.[28] The National Park Service now maintains the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Governors Island, Castle Clinton, Gateway National Recreation Area, and Grant's Tomb.[29]
See also
Notes
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