Working Waterfront

In their own words

Susan McAnanama

V.I.S.I.T. Center Manager  
Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island

The best way to see the Statue of Liberty is how the immigrants saw it, from a boat and from a distance. You get the feeling it gets much larger right in front of you. From afar, it looks very small. As you get closer and closer, you can see how large it is. When I’m traveling on the Staten Island ferry, I’m often asked to take pictures of tourists with the Statue of Liberty as proof positive that they were in New York. We joke that you can tell which side of the boat the Statue of Liberty is on by the way it’s tilting, because so many people go over to that side to look at it.

If you stand at the back of the ferry as it pulls out of the dock in Manhattan, you see the whole borough of Manhattan open up before you. Of course, our changed landscape looks completely different… but you get a real sense of the grandeur of the city. As you pull away it starts diminishing, getting smaller and smaller. Then you’re surrounded by water and you’re still in the middle of the city, yet you have Governor’s Island on your right and the Statue of Liberty to your left. If you walk through the ferry to the front of the boat you glimpse Staten Island from afar, rising up from the water.

The topography of Staten Island is completely different than Manhattan. It’s high with hills - probably a lot like San Francisco. Our highest elevation is about 450 feet, which really looks different from the ferry. When you approach the island, you see the green hills and you know that you are going to a place very different from the one you left far behind in Manhattan. Ferry commuters take off their work-a-day hats and relax. By the time they get off the boat they’re ready to enter their after-hours world and take care of their family, their friends, or dinner. It’s a wonderful transition.

For us, the ferry is a vital link. We don’t have alternatives. The bridge that connects Brooklyn and Staten Island has only been open since 1964. Prior to that, there was no other way to get off Staten Island and get into the city. The ferry takes people from the tip of Manhattan (Whitehall Station) to the tip of Staten Island, which is St. George. It’s about a five-mile crossing. About 55,000 to 60,000 people take the Staten Island Ferry each day. It operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The largest ferry holds up to 6,000 people. Those were completed in the ’80s. The boats from the ’60s and ’70s are still running and hold up to 3,500 people. The longest headway between boats is one hour and that’s late at night, from around midnight to six in the morning. During the day it varies. Between the rush hours of 6:00 and 9:00, it’s usually about fifteen, twenty minutes. Then in the middle of the day when most tourists take the boat, it’s only half an hour.

The best thing is that the ferry is free, which was not always the case. In the1800s, a trip cost five cents. (That was a lot of money back then.) The cost progressively increased to a high of fifty cents, round trip. In 1997, the New York City Council passed the “One City / One Fare” program and eliminated the fare. At this time, the Metropolitan Transit Authority introduced the Metro Card - an all month, all day, all week, or weekly pass. You can also just pay per ride, but most people get the $15 Metro Card - good for eleven passes on the bus and the subway. The Metro Card is the reason that the Staten Island ferry is free, because it’s a vital link for Staten Islanders and mass transit. It allows you to use the transfer between a bus and a subway without paying again. That’s really something new for New York City. Prior to 1997 if you lived in a zone where you had to ride the bus and then take the subway, you had to pay twice. That was $1.50, and then another $1.50, and then $.50 to cross on the ferry. So it was quite an expensive commute. With the Metro Card you just pay once. It’s a big benefit to New York City residents and visitors as well. You can buy a $4.00 card to use all day - as many rides as you want on the New York City subways and buses.