Ships of the seven seas

by Hawthorne Daniel

Entering New York Bay from the ocean a ship passes between Coney Island on the right and Sandy Hook on the left. Within these two points lies the Lower Bay, a great and largely undeveloped body of water around which practically none of the port’s equipment is placed. Standing on up the channel, with Long Island on the right and Staten Island on the left, the ship enters the Narrows, a restricted passage connecting the Lower and the Upper bays. Once through the Narrows the port begins to show itself. The Upper Bay is smaller than the Lower and is roughly rectangular, while at each corner a river or a strait connects it with other bodies of water. Of these the Narrows, just mentioned, is the most important, for through it flows far and away the greatest stream of shipping. The Hudson River is second in importance, for this great and navigable stream penetrates far into the interior and is connected with the Great Lakes by the Erie Canal, or, as the newly finished improvement on the Erie Canal is called, the State Barge Canal. The other two exits from the Upper Bay are the East River—a strait connecting the Bay with Long Island Sound—and, least important, the Kill von Kull, leading from the Upper Bay to Newark Bay.

Piers and huge railroad terminals are to be found on every side, and, more important still, they line the Hudson River for four or five miles on each side from its mouth at the Battery, to Fifty-ninth Street on the Manhattan side, and to Fort Lee in New Jersey. Similarly, but to a less extent, the East River is lined with piers while a great railroad terminal is located on Long Island Sound just beyond where the East River ends. Yet thriving as it is, this great port, compared with some other great ports, is an inefficient place.

Marseilles is a smaller port than New York, yet Marseilles, for every linear foot of equipped quay, averages annually 1,500 tons of cargo transferred as against 150 at New York.

The reason for this is that the ports are two different types. In New York the piers are long and narrow and are built on piles from the shore line out into the water to the pier line. Such structures are inefficient in many ways. The piers being narrow, they make it difficult for a roadway to be kept open throughout their entire length, and force the handlers of freight to store it high on both sides. Furthermore, the strength of the structures will seldom permit of the erection of numerous cranes along each side in order to expedite the loading and unloading of ships.

A MAP OF THE PORT OF MARSEILLES

In this case the city grew up practically without a harbour. Finally a breakwater was erected parallel to the shore in order that ships might be protected from the sea.

In Hamburg there are quays 1,500 feet long with 3-ton cranes spaced every 100 feet. In all of New York Harbour there is no installation similar to this. It is true that at the Bush Terminals there is an excellent installation of warehouses, piers, railroad facilities, and other port equipment—an installation comparable to the best—but New York as a whole could be greatly improved, although it is only fair to say that the difficulties and expense would be great.

But while foreign ports are likely to be more lavishly equipped with loading and unloading machinery, it must be remembered that they, long since, have developed the small areas at their disposal and cannot readily expand, while New York, great as it is, still has room for expansion and could add many times its present equipment to what it now has.

Furthermore, New York labours under another, and a very serious, handicap. It has grown to be one of the world’s great manufacturing centres. It abounds in factories. The wholesale houses, the stores, and other places of business handle huge stocks of goods, and the railroad facilities are limited. Every port should have a “belt line” railroad, that is, a railroad circling it about, crossing all the lines that come to it from any direction. With such a railroad, freight could be brought into the city by any line, turned over to the Belt Line, and switched to almost any of the industrial sections or quays. But New York has no such railroad. To begin with, New York proper is on the Island of Manhattan, and only one freight line comes into the city. The others all have their terminals in New Jersey, save for one on the north shore of Long Island Sound and one in Brooklyn. Therefore, it is necessary to transfer the freight intended for New York by means of “car ferries.” Furthermore, all the freight landed on New York piers must be transported by trucks, or reëmbarked on canal boats and barges. Except on the New Jersey side of the Bay and the Hudson River, on Staten Island and at the Bush Terminals, there are few places in the entire port where railroads can run their cars to warehouses conveniently placed for the reception of cargoes.