New York Harbor, a geographic term, refers collectively to the rivers, bays, and tidal estuaries near the mouth of the Hudson River in the vicinity of New York City. This is sometimes construed in the sense "the Ports of New York and New Jersey". More narrowly, the term occasionally refers only to "Upper New York Bay".

Manhattan, across the harbor from the New Jersey shore at Liberty Park.

Geography

In 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 , with over a of shoreline. At peak it contained 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 history

Before the Erie Canal

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.)

A U.S sailor's album snapshot of a railroad car float in the Harbor, 1919.?

The Erie Canal and its consequences

In 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]

Convoy out of Brooklyn, February 1942, probably bound for Belfast. Photograph from a blimp from NAS Lakehurst.

World War II and later

After the United States entered World War II, Operation Drumbeat loosed the top U-Boat aces against the merchant fleet in U.S. territorial waters in January 1942, starting the Second happy time. The U-Boat captains were able to silhouette target ships against the glow of city lights, and attacked with relative impunity, in spite of U.S. Naval concentrations within the Harbor. Casualties included the tankers Coimbria off Sandy Hook and Norness off Long Island. New York Harbor, as the major convoy embarkation point for the U.S., was effectively a staging area in the Second Battle of the Atlantic, with the U.S. Merchant Marine losses of 1 of 26 exceeding those of the other U.S. forces.^[8]

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 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]

Maritime

Nautically, the Harbor consists of a complex of about 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.

Port

Staten Island Ferry terminal at South Ferry depicting Lower Manhattan as well as New York Harbor

Channel maintenance

Responsibilities 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]

A lightly loaded Post-Panamax container vessel transits the north end of the Anchorage Channel between Liberty and Governors Island.

Safety and Security

The Coast Guard deals with 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]

New York Harbor near Jersey City, New Jersey.

Harbor Ecology

A 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

• Marine life of New York Harbor
• Geography of New York Harbor
• Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
• Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor
• Staten Island Ferry
• NY Waterway
• Hudson Canyon
• Raritan Bay
• Arthur Kill
• Ambrose Light

Notes

External links

• National Parks of New York Harbor ConservancyNational Parks and other recreational and educational sites on the harbor
• New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary Program Partnership to protect and restore the Harbor Estuary.
• New York and New Jersey Harbor USACE, New York District.
• digging deeper in New York, Mechanical Engineering Magazine, Nov. 2003.
• Public Parks, Recreational Access, and the Post-Industrial Harbor of New York, Gotham Gazette, 2000.
• Cornell NY harbor tour summary,September 24, 2005.
• The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey by Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Dept. of Economics & Geography, Hofstra University, 1998-2006.
• The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey: Global Changes, Regional Gains and Local Challenges in Port Development, Jean-Paul Rodrigue Department of Economics & Geography, Hofstra University, Les Cahiers Scientifiques du Transport, February 2004.
• Convoy Routing Codes World War II
• Allied Convoys 1939-1945 map and tables by year of convoys (in German).

Further reading

• The Works: Anatomy of a City, Kate Ascher, researcher Wendy Marech, designer Alexander Isley Inc. Penguin Press, New York, 2005. (ISBN 1-59420-071-8)
• The Rise of New York Port (1815-1860),Robert G. Albion with the collaboration of Jennie Barnes Pope, Northeastern University Press, 1967. (ISBN 0-7153-5196-6)
• South Street: A Maritime History of New York, Richard McKay, 1934 and 1971. (ISBN 0-8383-1280-2)
• Maritime History of New York, WPA Writers Project, 1941; reissued by Going Coastal, Inc. 2004. (ISBN 0972980318)
• On the Waterfront, Malcolm Johnson, ("Crime on the Waterfront," New York Sun in 24 parts, 1948; Pulitzer Prize, 1949); additional material, Budd Schulberg; introduction, Haynes Johnson; Chamberlain Bros. 2005.(ISBN 1-59609-013-8)
• Great Ships in New York Harbor: 175 Historic Photographs, 1935-2005, William H. Miller, Jr.,Dover Books.(ISBN 0-486-44609-3)
• Operation Drumbeat, Micheal Gannon, Harper and Row, 1991.(ISBN 0-06-092088-2)

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