East 34th Street Ferry Landing

The East 34th Street Ferry Landing provides slips to ferries and excursion boats in the Port of New York and New Jersey. It is located on the East River in New York City east of the FDR Drive just north of East 34th Street in Midtown Manhattan. The facility, owned by the city, received Federal Highway Administration funding for improvements for docking facilities and upgrading the adjacent East River Greenway in 2008. A new terminal was built and completed in 2012.

Service is provided by Seastreak, which signs the landing as East 35th Street, and by NYC Ferry, which signs it as East 34th Street/Midtown. There is a M34 Select Bus Service bus stop adjacent to the ferry landing; the M15 local, M15 Select Bus Service and the M34A Select Bus Service have stops in the immediate vicinity at the intersection of First Avenue and East 34th Street. The East 34th Street Heliport is also on the waterfront south of the ferry landing.

History

Opening and early years

A ferry crossing between Hunters Point and 34th Street was established on April 20, 1859 by Anthony W. Winans. The route was originally operated by the East River Ferry Corporation, which was taken over by the Metropolitan Ferry Company in 1887 and later came under the control of Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) in 1892. The ferry dock in Hunters Point was located adjacent to the LIRR's Long Island City station, which became the railroad's western terminus in 1861, and was also situated near the beginning of Jackson Avenue, a road leading to Flushing that opened in 1860. (By 1920, most of this road had been renamed as Northern Boulevard.)

In 1905, the LIRR expanded the ferry terminal between 33rd and 34th Streets which had five slips and was able to accommodate automobiles, and is now the site of the heliport. Connecting mass transit service was provided by the 34th Street Ferry elevated station which was located east of First Avenue and operated from 1880 to 1930. Usage of the 34th Street Ferry peaked at 28 million riders in 1906. In addition to carrying daily commuters to and from Long Island, the ferry was also heavily used by passengers destined to Belmont Park, Sheepshead Bay Race Track, the North Beach Amusement Park (located adjacent to Bowery Bay), and Calvary Cemetery, requiring the use of special guards to accommodate the crowds on race days, Sundays, and holidays. Ferry service was discontinued on March 3, 1925 after a decline in ridership following the completion of numerous tunnel and bridge crossings, including the Queensboro Bridge in 1909, the East River Tunnels in 1910 (which enabled the LIRR to operate trains directly to Midtown Manhattan in a new terminal at Pennsylvania Station), and the Steinway Tunnel in 1915.

While the opening of the Queensboro Bridge led to the demise of the original ferry service from 34th Street in 1925, increased traffic congestion on the span soon led to calls for the resumption of ferries operating to Long Island City. The city declined to operate a municipal ferry—projecting that the route would operate with a deficit—but suggested finding a private company willing to operate the ferry if they thought the service would be profitable. A ferry was not intended to be a permanent solution to the traffic problem, and plans had already been drawn up for a proposed vehicular tunnel connection between 38th Street in Manhattan and Long Island City. In January 1927, two applications were submitted to the city by private entities seeking to operate a ferry route between Manhattan and Long Island City. An editorial in ''The New York Times'' commended the efforts made by private enterprise to relieve traffic congestion by seeking to operate a ferry, especially when vehicles using a ferry would have to pay a toll when they could instead drive over the Queensboro Bridge for free.

Ferry service to Queens was reinstated in September 1927 by the East 34th Street Vehicular Ferry Company, which only carried autos and trucks. To help make the route financially viable, the company secured contracts with the American Railway Express Company and the National Sugar Refining Company to carry the businesses' trucks across the East River. The East 34th Street Vehicular Ferry Company took over the property in Manhattan that has been used by the LIRR for its ferry operations, but determined it was necessary to demolish the old structures and build an entirely new terminal, which had slips for two boats. The vehicular ferry service operated until July 1936 when service was suspended during the midst of the Great Depression; a bankruptcy petition was later filed against the company. Four years later, the Queens–Midtown Tunnel opened, providing a new connection between for vehicles traveling between Midtown Manhattan and Long Island City.

Late 20th century to present

Beginning in the mid-1980s, proposals were made to provide ferry service along the East River corridor as an alternative form of public transportation. A landing at East 34th Street was included as a potential point that could be served by water taxi. The feasibility of a new ferry service between Hunters Point and Manhattan was also studied as a means to improve access to the proposed Queens West redevelopment project along the Long Island City waterfront. A new ferry dock was added to provide service to 34th Street, which consisted of a barge moored near the foot of East 35th Street. The landing was accessed from the bulkhead via gangways and could accommodate both side- and front-loading vessels.

The city originally planned to have the ferry landing completed by July or August of 1988, but sped up the process so it could be available for use when the Williamsburg Bridge was temporarily closed for emergency repairs in April 1988 and was negotiating to have a privately operated ferry run between Greenpoint, Brooklyn and East 34th Street. The first service to use the new ferry terminal was the Pan Am Water Shuttle to LaGuardia Airport. The water shuttle was originally launched in 1987 to provide service between Pier 11/Wall Street and the Marine Air Terminal (which at the time was used for Pan Am Shuttle flights to Boston Logan and Washington National airports); a stop at 34th Street was added to the route in July 1988. The ferry service was rebranded as the Delta Water Shuttle in 1991, when the Pan Am Shuttle was taken over by Delta Air Lines and became the Delta Shuttle. Ferry service to the LaGuardia Airport continued until December 2000.

Commuter service to New Jersey began with a short-lived ferry to Port Liberté that operated for seven months in 1989. Service to Atlantic Highlands and Highlands began in January 1999 and October 1994, respectively; these two routes were originally operated by TNT Hydrolines (now Seastreak).

Through the 1990s and early 2000s, several proposals and various attempts were made to provide commuter service to other locations from 34th Street, among them service to Inwood and Glen Cove on Long Island, Pier 11/Wall Street (on a shuttle from the Upper East Side and a shuttle that operated around the southern tip of Manhattan to West 44th Street), Staten Island, and South Amboy in New Jersey. Attempts were also made at providing summer service for weekend getaways to Fire Island and Greenport on Long Island and the beaches on the Rockaways in Queens. During this time, other ferries using the terminal at East 34th Street provided service to baseball games at Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium

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