Liberty Street Ferry Terminal or Liberty Street Terminal was the

Central Railroad of New Jersey The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central or Jersey Central Lines , was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of ...

's passenger ferry slip in lower

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and the point of departure and embarkation for passengers travelling on the Central Railroad of New Jersey,

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...

Reading Railroad The Reading Company ( ) was a Philadelphia-headquartered railroad that provided passenger and commercial rail transport in eastern Pennsylvania and neighboring states that operated from 1924 until its 1976 acquisition by Conrail. Commonly calle ...

and the

Lehigh Valley Railroad The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad built in the Northeastern United States to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Pennsylvania. The railroad was authorized on April 21, 1846 for freight and transportation of passengers, goods, w ...

from the

Communipaw Terminal The Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal, also known as Communipaw Terminal and Jersey City Terminal, was the Central Railroad of New Jersey's waterfront passenger terminal in Jersey City, New Jersey. The terminal was built in 1889, replacing ...

across the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

Jersey City Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark. Detroit Photographic Company (0620)

Service by the Communipaw ferry dated back to 1661, from the village of

Communipaw Communipaw is a neighborhood in Jersey City in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. It is located west of Liberty State Park Liberty State Park (LSP) is a park in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located on Upper New York Bay in Jersey City ...

during the Dutch colonial period.''Railroad Ferries of the Hudson: And Stories of a Deckhand'', by Raymond J. Baxter and Arthur G. Adams, Fordham University Press, 1999, p. 46, . The terminal opened in 1865 following the completion of the Central Railroad of New Jersey's Communipaw Terminal. By the late 1960s the Jersey Central opted to close its station at Communipaw and the last ferry departed the terminal for Jersey City on April 26, 1967, bringing to an end 306 years of Communipaw ferry operations.''Railroad Ferries of the Hudson: And Stories of a Deckhand'', by Raymond J. Baxter and Arthur G. Adams, Fordham University Press, 1999, p. 60, . The terminal was subsequently demolished and the waterfront was filled in to create

Battery Park City Battery Park City is a mainly residential planned community and neighborhood on the west side of the southern tip of the island of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by the Hudson River on the west, the Hudson River shoreline on the north ...

in the early 1970s. The

Cortland Street Ferry Depot Cortlandt Street Ferry Depot was the main ferry terminal of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the West Shore Railroad on the North River (Hudson River) in lower Manhattan. The railroads operated ferries to their terminal stations on the Hudson River ...

, operated by the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

and the

West Shore Railroad The West Shore Railroad was the final name of a railroad that ran from Weehawken, New Jersey, on the west bank of the Hudson River opposite New York City, north to Albany, New York, and then west to Buffalo. It was organized as a competitor ...

, was located directly next to the terminal and also provided ferry service across the North River from lower Manhattan to their railroad terminals at Exchange Place and

Weehawken Weehawken is a township in the northern part of Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is located largely on the Hudson Palisades overlooking the Hudson River. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 17,197.

, respectively. The terminal was located one block west of the Ninth Avenue Elevated's Cortland Street Station which operated from 1874 until 1940. During the 1980s ferry service across the Hudson was restored by

NY Waterway NY Waterway (or New York Waterway) is a private transportation company running ferry and bus service in the Port of New York and New Jersey and in the Hudson Valley. The company utilizes public-private partnership with agencies such as the Port ...

and it has subsequently been expanded. Today the

Battery Park City Ferry Terminal The Battery Park City Ferry Terminal, is a passenger ferry terminal in Battery Park City, Manhattan, serving ferries along the Hudson River in New York City and Gateway Region, northeastern New Jersey. It provides ferry slip, slips to ferries, wa ...

is located a few blocks north of where Liberty Street Ferry Terminal and Cortland Street Ferry Depot once stood.

Gallery

File:New York by sunlight and gaslight - a work descriptive of the great American metropolis; its high and low life; its splendors and miseries; its virtu (1882) (14779729932).jpg, Cortland and Liberty Street Ferries, ca. 1882 File:128 WEST STREET. FOOT OF LIBERTY STREET.jpg, A crowded scene in front of the ferry terminal, 1893 File:Liberty Street Ferry Terminal 1938.jpg, A pedestrian overpass at Liberty Street Ferry Terminal in 1938

References

External links

Central Railroad of New Jersey Ferries (National Railroad Postcard Museum; Thursday, October 15, 2015)
{{Adjacent stations, system1=Central Railroad of New Jersey , line1=Communipaw Ferry, left1=Jersey City Ferries of New York City Water transportation in New York City Ferry terminals in Manhattan Demolished buildings and structures in Manhattan 1865 establishments in New York (state) Central Railroad of New Jersey Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Transit hubs serving New Jersey

See also

Gallery

References

External links