Ferry service has been particularly good to Hoboken, New Jersey. The suburban town is directly across the river from the New York City neighborhoods of Greenwich Village, Chelsea, and Hell’s Kitchen, and a ferry runs between Hoboken North and Manhattan in only 5 minutes. One of the most interesting and historic buildings in town is the Hoboken terminal built in 1907 which has 6 ferry slips and tiffany glass skylights in its ceiling. The terminal is unique in that it is also the terminus of New Jersey Transit Railroad. The only other intermodal terminal in the country that served both ferries and rail was here, 

in Tiburon. In the early 1900s, ferries carried commuters between the New York waterfront and Hoboken, but service dwindled in the 1950s. Being just one mile square, Hoboken is a self-proclaimed small town, and it stagnated when the Manhattan-Hoboken run ceased in 1967. When compared to hip Manhattan, Hoboken was not.

It was Arthur Imperatore who brought ferry service back to the area in 1985. Arthur was a Hudson County waterfront property owner who felt it might be time to stir things (and property values) up. His previous involvement in the trucking business had provided him the insight to understand both the cost of driving and value of transit. His plunge into the ferry business drew doubt from most who thought the concept was a waste of money sure to end in bankruptcy. "Arthur’s folly" they called it. That was over 

fifteen years ago. Today, transporting 35,000 passengers each day, he currently runs the largest privately run ferry transit business in the United States. And, best of all, Hoboken is gaining hip status, even when compared to Manhattan. Why just last year, independent book publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc., who had been publishing in Manhattan for the last 170 years (making it the oldest in the business in the United States) signed a lease to move its headquarters to the Southern Waterfront Development in Hoboken. Next, the Sierra Club, encouraging 

projects that make neighborhoods friendly to people on foot, offer residents public transportation options, and create a healthy balance of shops, jobs, and housing around a downtown or mainstreet, named Hoboken’s same Southern Waterfront as one of the best examples of a development project in their national report entitled "Smart Choices or Sprawling Growth."

Hoboken works because its got commuter rail, (and a subway rail (PATH) connecting the Arthur’s NY Waterway ferries’ 5 minute ride from Manhattan. The region’s most active intermodal facility, "Arthur’s folly has become Arthur’s fable," muses Carter Craft of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance (MWA), a growing network of 

organizations and individuals dedicated to helping the region reclaim and reconnect to the harbor, rivers and estuaries of the NY and NJ waterfront. The MWA provides grassroots efforts to facilitate environmentally sustainable and appropriate development. MWA hosts shipboard tours of the Port of New York and New Jersey to increase public awareness of the port and to encourage environmentally sustainable economic development. One of MWA’s tours visits the Hoboken Terminal, and the Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan, which is being considered for use in helping to accommodate the region’s expanding ferry system. These tours are meant to increase public awareness of the potential for such underutilized resources. There are 47 municipalities under the MWA’s umbrella, and they all have to work as one. As Carter points out "You can’t build a transportation system by building one stop."

One of MWA’s goals is a regionwide ferry system to link waterfront communities. In that direction, MWA is currently studying the feasibility of a New York Harbor Ferry Loop, in which 7 day service would connect 25 waterfront sites and 2 dozen cultural and recreational attractions on the waterfront of the Upper Bay. To get things rolling, MWA uses education, grass roots organizing, and media advocacy to include the public’s voice in decision making. To help connect the regions’ waterfront, MWA, basically an on-line community center for the metropolitan area’s current waterfront issues, publishes Waterwire, an electronic newsletter covering waterfront and watershed issues throughout the region. 

Where the shoreline is occupied by the Port of Richmond, the Bay Trail is undeveloped from here to Point Richmond, so one must follow surface streets. You can find accommodations along the way at the Quality Inn on Cutting Boulevard, or continue to the historic Hotel Mac in Point Richmond, with 6 rooms that will charm you with their vintage flair.

In fact, the entire neighborhood of Point Richmond is charming. A registered historic district on the National Register of Historic Places, this is the oldest part of Richmond, and many of the original buildings remain. Originally named Santa Fe, Point Richmond began as a railroad town in 1897. The Richmond History 

Association operates a visitor center in a tiny building next to the library at the heart of town where you can pick up a map. The place is staffed by old timers who can tell you stories about the old days as you get oriented. There are two small old-time grocers and several good restaurants, like Louis’ Cafe, The Baltic, the Point Orient, and Hotel Mac. Guillermima’s Oriental Antiques is a very special shop you won’t want to miss. So is the woodshop of Shigoto Ya, which provides an opportunity to explore Japanese style woodwork. Inside, Gordan Hirano, along with partner 

Frank Zia constructs custom cabinets, screens, fences, decks and other Japanese accents for both interiors and exteriors that are highly prized by Shigoto Ya’s many local resident customers. In fact, their reputation has extended their work throughout the Bay Area. 2000 Treasures, a couple of doors down with a wide range of treasures (as the name implies) from distant points of the globe, and near-wholesale candle prices.