Cortlandt Street Ferry Depot

Cortlandt Street Ferry Depot in the early 1890s

Cortlandt Street Ferry Depot was the main ferry terminal for passengers of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the West Shore Railroad traveling to and from lower Manhattan. Both railroads operated ferries from the ferry slips at the depot to their stations in New Jersey, at Exchange Place and Weehawken, respectively. The depot was next to Liberty Street Ferry Terminal from which the Central Railroad of New Jersey operated its Communipaw ferry to Communipaw Terminal.

History

A map showing the Jersey City Ferry's terminal at Cortlandt Street, 1857

As early as July 1764[1]:243-246 a ferry began operating from Paulus Hook to Mesier's dock which was located at the foot of Courtland Street (where Cortlandt Street Ferry Depot would be built).[2]:64 Almost immediately and for several decades subsequently, a complicated series of legal battles broke out over who should operate the ferries, where the crossing(s) should be located and at what rate passengers and other cargo should be charged for the journey.[1]:243-250

The first steam ferry service in the world began in 1812 between Paulus Hook and Manhattan[3] and reduced the journey time to a then remarkable 14 minutes.[1]:250 With the arrival of the railroad station at Paulus Hook in 1834 and the arrival of the Morris and Essex Railroad service on October 14, 1836[2]:64 the number of passengers and the value of the Jersey City Ferry continued to increase.

The terminal was located one block west of the Ninth Avenue Elevated's Cortlandt Street Station which operated from 1874 until 1940.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 History of the County of Hudson, New Jersey: From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, Charles Hardenburg Winfield, Kennard & Hay Stationery M'fg and Print. Company, 1874
  2. 1 2 Railroad Ferries of the Hudson: And Stories of a Deckhand, by, Raymond J. Baxter, Arthur G. Adams, 1999, Fordham University Press, ISBN 978-0-82321-954-4
  3. ↑ Cudahy, Brian J. (1990). Over and Back: The History of Ferryboats in New York Harbor. New York: Fordham University Press. pp. 20–24, 360, 362. ISBN 0-8232-1245-9.

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