As heavy industries began to trickle away from the New York and New Jersey waterfront in the mid-20th century, they left behind vast swathes of vacant land and rotting piers.
It stayed that way for many decades, with good reason – the sheer expense of clearing the land, complicated by pollution that preceded environmental laws of the 1970s. Toxic brews bubbled in backwaters, and the very air in those places seemed corrosive. A harbor pilot once told me about his experiences in Brooklyn, starting out as a tug deckhand: “You hated going into Newtown Creek, because you knew that night you’d have to do the brass.”
Newtown Creek will have its problems for a long time to come. But other waterfronts are becoming new neighborhoods, adding to the metropolis like growth rings on a tree.
To the northwest is Weehawken, N.J., where the Lincoln Tunnel funnels highway traffic under the Hudson River. Its historic claim to fame is being the place where Aaron Burr plugged former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in an 1804 duel.
Today it will set you back at least 222 of those $10 Hamilton bills each a month to rent a one-bedroom at The Landings at Port Imperial Apartments, one of the luxury housing developments still rising at the former abandoned rail yard that a trucking magnate named Arthur Imperatore bought in 1986.
I went to see Imperatore Monday at his NY Waterway ferry terminal, for a WorkBoat business feature we will have in the July issue of the magazine. The historic cross-Hudson ferry industry ended in 1959, starved by commuters choosing the tunnels. For Imperatore, reviving it was a logical business decision.
“I bought it in one meeting in 15 minutes. Now that I had it, how was I going to connect it?” Imperatore recalled. Gesturing across the river to Manhattan, he said, “I owned two miles of land. That’s where the money was.”
From a single ferry built by Blount Boats, Imperatore built NY Waterway into 400 employees and 36 vessels, including its newest 400-passenger ferry Molly Pitcher and sister ship Betsey Ross, coming in June from builder Yank Marine.
On the New York side, waterborne commuting with a citywide ferry service is a key part of the city’s economic development strategy, with plans already up and running to give workers more options from getting between Manhattan and residential neighborhoods in the outer boroughs.
In a way, it all started at Port Imperial, and the new housing followed. For a lot of people that $2,215 apartment with a reliable commuting connection is a bargain compared to a high-priced Manhattan broom closet. As an old Jersey joke has it: Why pay to live in New York and look at Hoboken?
