Cortland Street Ferry Depot
Cortland 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
As early as July 1764[1] a ferry began operating from Paulus Hook to Mesier's dock which was located at the foot of Courtland Street (where Cortland Street Ferry Depot would be built).[2] 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.[3]
The first steam ferry service in the world began in 1812 between Paulus Hook and Manhattan[4] and reduced the journey time to a then remarkable 14 minutes.[5] 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[6] 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 Cortland Street Station which operated from 1874 until 1940.
See also
- Whitehall Terminal
- Chambers Street Ferry Terminal
- Liberty Street Ferry Terminal
- Battery Park City Ferry Terminal
Gallery
- The Jersey City Ferry slip at the foot of Courtlandt Street, ca. 1860
- Cortland and Liberty Street Ferries, ca. 1882
- The New Brunswick one of the Pennsylvania Railroad's ferries across the Hudson,ca. 1905
- Cortland Street Ferry Depot is visible underneath a pedestrian overpass at Liberty Street Ferry Terminal, 1938
References
- ↑ History of the County of Hudson, New Jersey: From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, Charles Hardenburg Winfield, pg. 243-246, Kennard & Hay Stationery M'fg and Print. Company, 1874
- ↑ Railroad Ferries of the Hudson: And Stories of a Deckhand, by, Raymond J. Baxter, Arthur G. Adams, pg. 64 ,1999, Fordham University Press, 978-0823219544
- ↑ History of the County of Hudson, New Jersey: From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, Charles Hardenburg Winfield, pg. 243-250, Kennard & Hay Stationery M'fg and Print. Company, 1874
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ History of the County of Hudson, New Jersey: From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, Charles Hardenburg Winfield, pg. 250, Kennard & Hay Stationery M'fg and Print. Company, 1874
- ↑ Railroad Ferries of the Hudson: And Stories of a Deckhand, by, Raymond J. Baxter, Arthur G. Adams, pg. 64 ,1999, Fordham University Press, 978-0823219544