New York Harbor[1][2][3] is a bay that covers all of the Upper Bay. It is at the mouth of theHudson River near theEast Rivertidal estuary on theEast Coast of the United States.
New York Harbor is generally synonymous withUpper New York Bay, which is enclosed by theNew York City boroughs ofManhattan,Brooklyn, andStaten Island and theHudson County, New Jersey, municipalities ofJersey City andBayonne, although in colloquial usage it can sometimes expand to cover Upper andLower New York Bay.[4] New York Harbor is one of the largest natural harbors in the world.[5]
The harbor is fed by the waters of theHudson River (historically called theNorth River as it passesManhattan), as well as theGowanus Canal. It is connected toLower New York Bay bythe Narrows, toNewark Bay by theKill Van Kull, and toLong Island Sound by theEast River, which, despite its name, is actually atidal strait. It provides the main passage for the waters of the Hudson River as it empties through the Narrows. The channel of the Hudson as it passes through the harbor is called the Anchorage Channel and is approximately 50 feet deep in the midpoint of the harbor.[6]
A project to replace twowater mains between Brooklyn and Staten Island, which will eventually allow for dredging of the channel to nearly 100 feet (30 m), was begun in April 2012.[7][2]
The harbor contains several islands includingGovernors Island, near the mouth of the East River, as wellEllis Island,Liberty Island, andRobbins Reef which are supported by a large underwater reef on theNew Jersey side of the harbor. The reef was historically one of the largestoyster beds in the world and provided a staple for the diet of all classes of citizens both locally and regionally until the end of the 19th century, when the beds succumbed to pollution.[8]
Historically, it has played an extremely important role in the commerce of theNew York metropolitan area. TheStatue of Liberty National Monument recalls the immigrant experience during the late 19th and early 20th century.[citation needed]
Since the 1950s,container ship traffic has been primarily routed through the Kill Van Kull toPort Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal, where it is consolidated for easier automated transfer to land conveyance.[9] As a consequence, the waterfront industries of the Harbor experienced a decline leading to diverse plans for revitalization, though important maritime uses remain atRed Hook,Port Jersey,MOTBY,Constable Hook, and parts of the Staten Island shore.Liberty State Park opened in 1976. In recent years, it has become a popular site for recreation sailing andkayaking.[citation needed]
The harbor is traversed by theStaten Island Ferry, which runs between Whitehall Street at the southernmost tip ofManhattan nearBattery Park (South Ferry) andSt. George Ferry Terminal on Richmond Terrace inStaten Island near Richmond County Borough Hall and Richmond County Supreme Court.NY Waterway operates routes across the bay and throughThe Narrows to locations nearSandy Hook.[10]
The harbor supports a very diverse population of marine species, allowing for recreational fishing, most commonly for striped bass and bluefish.[11]
The original population of the 16th century New York Harbor, theLenape, used the waterways for fishing and travel. In 1524Giovanni da Verrazzano anchored in what is now calledthe Narrows, thestrait betweenStaten Island andLong Island that connects theUpper andLower New York Bay, where he received a canoe party of Lenape. A party of his sailors may have taken on fresh water at a spring called "the watering place" on Staten Island—a monument stands in a tiny park on the corner of Bay Street and Victory Boulevard at the approximate spot—but Verrazzano's descriptions of the geography of the area are a bit ambiguous. It is fairly firmly held by historians that his ship anchored at the approximate location of the modernVerrazzano-Narrows Bridge's approach viaduct in Brooklyn. He also observed what he believed to be a large freshwater lake to the north (apparently Upper New York Bay). He apparently did not travel north to observe the existence of the Hudson River. In 1609Henry Hudson entered the Harbor and explored a stretch of the river that now bears his name. His journey prompted others to explore the region and engage in trade with the local population.
The first permanent European settlement was started onGovernors Island in 1624, and in Brooklyn eight years after that; soon these were connected by ferry operation.[12]Thecolonial DutchDirector-General of New Netherland,Peter Stuyvesant, ordered construction of the first wharf on theManhattan bank of the lowerEast River sheltered from winds and ice, which was completed late in 1648 and called Schreyers Hook Dock (near what is now Pearl and Broad Streets). This prepared New York as a leadingport for theBritish colonies and then within the newly independentUnited States.[13]
In 1686, the British colonial officials gave the municipality control over the waterfront.
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In 1835, Lieutenant Thomas Gedney of the Survey of the Coast (renamed the United States Coast Survey in 1836 and theUnited States Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1878) discovered a new, deeper channel throughthe Narrows into New York Harbor. Previously, the passage was complex and shallow enough that loaded ships would wait outside the harbor until high tide, to avoid running into the huge sandbar, which was interrupted in a number of places by channels of fairly shallow depth: 21 feet (6.4 m) at low tide and 33 feet (10 m) at high tide. Because of the difficulty of the navigation required, since 1694, New York had required all ships to be guided into the harbor by an experienced pilot. The new channel Gedney discovered was 2 feet (0.61 m) deeper, enough of an added margin that fully laden ships could come into the harbor even at slack tide. Gedney's Channel, as it came to be called, was also shorter than the previous channel, another benefit appreciated by the ship owners and the merchants they sold to. Gedney received the praise of the city, as well as an expensive silverservice.[14]
In her 1832 bookDomestic Manners of the Americans,Fanny Trollope wrote of her impressions upon entering New York Harbor for the first time:
I have never seen thebay of Naples, I can therefore make no comparison, but my imagination is incapable of conceiving any thing of the kind more beautiful than the harbour of New York. Various and lovely are the objects which meet the eye on every side, but the naming them would only be to give a list of words, without conveying the faintest idea of the scene. I doubt if ever the pencil ofTurner could do it justice, bright and glorious as it rose upon us. We seemed to enter the harbour of New York upon waves of liquid gold, and as we darted past the green isles which rise from its bosom, like guardian centinels of the fair city, the setting sun stretched his horizontal beams farther and farther at each moment, as if to point out to us some new glory in the landscape.[15]
In 1824 the first Americandrydock was completed on the East River. Because of its location and depth, the Port grew rapidly with the introduction ofsteamships; and then with the completion in 1825 of theErie Canal New York became the most importanttransshipping port between Europe and the interior of the United States, as well ascoastwise[16] 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.[17] TheMorris Canal carried anthracite and freight fromPennsylvania throughNew Jersey to its terminus at the mouth of the Hudson inJersey City. Portions in the harbor are now part ofLiberty State Park.
In 1870, the city established the Department of Docks to systematize waterfront development, withGeorge B. McClellan as the first engineer in chief. By the turn of the 20th century numerousrailroad terminals lined the western banks of theNorth River (Hudson River) inHudson County, New Jersey, transporting passengers and freight from all over the United States. The freight was ferried across by the competing railroads with small fleets oftowboats, barges, and 323car floats, specially designed barges with rails so cars could be rolled on.[18] New York subsidized this service which undercut rival ports.[19] Major road improvements allowing for trucking and containerization diminished the need.
The harbor saw major federal investment at the end of the century whenCongress passed theRivers and Harbors Act of 1899. Over $1.2 million of initial funding was appropriated for the dredging of 40-foot-deep (12.2 m) channels atBay Ridge,Red Hook, andSandy Hook.[20]
TheStatue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World) stands onLiberty Island in the harbor, while the nearby main port of entry atEllis Island processed 12 million arrivals from 1892 to 1954. TheStatue of Liberty National Monument, encompassing both islands, recalls the period of massive immigration to the United States at the turn of the 20th century[21] While many stayed in the region, others spread across America, with more than 10 million leaving from the nearbyCentral Railroad of New Jersey Terminal.[22]
After the war, the1919 New York City Harbor Strike by theMarine Workers Union shut down the port for weeks.[23][24][25]
It started on January 9 and was paused on January 13 for arbitration. The strike resumed March 4 after workers rejected theWar Board labor ruling and ended on April 20, 1919 after new terms had been offered by both public and private port employers.[23][24][25]
After the United States enteredWorld War II, the German navy'sOperation Drumbeat set the topU-boat aces loose against the merchant fleet in U.S. territorial waters in January 1942, starting theSecond 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 tankersCoimbria offSandy Hook andNorness off Long Island. New York Harbor, as the majorconvoy embarkation point for the U.S., was effectively a staging area in theBattle of the Atlantic, with theU.S. Merchant Marine losses of 1 of 26 mariners, a rate exceeding those of the other U.S. forces.[26]
Bright city lights made it easier for GermanU-boats to spot targets at night, but local officials resisted suggestions that they followLondon's lead and blackout the lights of coastal cities. However, some lights were darkened, including those of the amusement parks inConey Island,Brooklyn, and theConey Island Light, andSandy Hook Lighthouse.
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 426 seagoing vessel already at one of the 750 piers or docks). Eleven hundredwarehouses with nearly 1.5 square miles (3.9 km2) of enclosed space served freight along with 575 tugboats and 39 activeshipyards, the largest beingBrooklyn Navy Yard. With a large inventory of heavy equipment, this made New York Harbor the busiest in the world.[27]
Deterrence and investigation of criminal activity, especially relating to organized crime, is the responsibility of the bi-stateWaterfront Commission.[28] The commission was set up in 1953 (a year before the movieOn the Waterfront), to combat laborracketeering. It is held that theGambino crime family controlled the New York waterfront and theGenovese crime family controlled the New Jersey side.[29] In 1984 theTeamsters local was put underRacketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) trusteeship, and in 2005 a similar suit was brought against theInternational Longshoremen's Association local.[30]
In March 2006, the Port passenger facility was to be transferred toDubai Ports World. There wasconsiderable security controversy over the ownership by a foreign corporation, particularly Arabic, of a U.S. port operation, this in spite of the fact the current operator was the British-basedP&O Ports,[31] and the fact thatOrient Overseas Investment Limited, a company dominated by a Chinese Communist official, has the operating contract forHowland Hook Marine Terminal.[32] An additional concern is the U.S. Customs "green lane" program, in which trusted shippers have fewer containers inspected, providing easier access for contraband material.[33]
Thewater quality in New York Harbor has been affected by centuries of shipping activity, industrial development andurbanization.Water pollution from these sources has been a constant phenomenon, although there have been improvements in some areas of the harbor complex in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. A 2019 study of the harbor identifies water quality trends in nine regions of the harbor, using data collected during 1996 to 2017. The Lower New York Bay region has the highest quality, due to frequent exchange of water with the Atlantic Ocean. The poorest regions are those with limited exchange of water flows:Newtown Creek,Flushing Bay andJamaica Bay. High levels ofnutrient pollution (nitrogen and phosphorus) were observed throughout the various harbor regions, although there has been a general lowering trend in total nitrogen, and some other indicator parameters show improvements. The implementation of theClean Water Act and related pollution control laws, along with cleanup programs and conservation measures throughout the region, have begun to yield some improvements since the 1970s. The study authors state that "the New York Harbor ecosystem is much healthier than it was 30 years ago."[34]
The Port of New York and New Jersey is the largest oil importing port and third largest container port in the nation.[35] The commercial activity of the port of New York City, including the waterfronts of thefive boroughs and nearby cities in New Jersey, since 1921 has been formalized under a single bi-statePort Authority of New York and New Jersey.[36] Since the 1950s, the New York and Brooklyn commercial port has been almost completely eclipsed by thecontainer ship facility at nearbyPort Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal inNewark Bay, which is the largest such port on theEastern Seaboard. The port has diminished in importance to passenger travel, but the Port Authority operates all three major airports, La Guardia (built 1939) and JFK/Idlewild (built 1948) in New York, and Newark (built 1928) in New Jersey.[37]
The harbor is still served bycruise lines, commuterferries, and tourist excursion boats. Although most ferry service is private, theStaten Island Ferry is operated by theNew York City Department of Transportation. Passenger ship facilities areNew York Passenger Ship Terminal, theBrooklyn Cruise Terminal atRed Hook, andMOTBY atBayonne.
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