The Gouverneur Street Ferry was a

ferry A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus ...

route connecting

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

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, with the city of

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, by joining Manhattan's Gouverneur Street to Brooklyn's Bridge Street across the

East River The East River is a saltwater Estuary, tidal estuary or strait in New York City. The waterway, which is not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island, ...

History

The ferry, originally the Walnut Street Ferry and later the Jackson Street Ferry or Hudson Avenue Ferry, was established on December 1, 1817. The route originally connected Manhattan's Walnut Street (now called Jackson Street, just west of Corlear's Hook) with Brooklyn's Little Street (later named Jackson Street, just east of today's Hudson Avenue and west of the

Brooklyn Navy Yard The Brooklyn Navy Yard (originally known as the New York Navy Yard) is a shipyard and industrial complex in northwest Brooklyn in New York City, New York (state), New York, U.S. The Navy Yard is located on the East River in Wallabout Bay, a se ...

). At some point, the Manhattan landing was moved two blocks west, to Gouverneur Street, driving the name change to Gouverneur Street Ferry. Smith & Bulkley gained control by May 1852, and, effective May 23, 1853, the Brooklyn side was moved two blocks west, from Hudson Avenue to Bridge Street. Being unable to compete with the one-cent fare adopted by the Brooklyn Union Ferry Company in November 1850, it was sold to the new

Union Ferry Company of Brooklyn The Union Ferry Company of Brooklyn, commonly known as the Union Ferry Company, was a ferry company operating routes across the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn, New York City, United States. History The New York and Brooklyn Union Ferry C ...

(the successor to the Brooklyn Union) in December 1853. The lease expired on September 12, 1856, but the company continued to operate the ferry. They petitioned the City of New York to abandon the Roosevelt Street Ferry, in exchange for continuing Gouverneur Street operations and expanding the Manhattan landing. The city refused, and operations ended in January 1857. A new ferry, known as the Navy Yard Ferry or Hudson Avenue Ferry, was established on July 8, 1859 between Jackson Street in Manhattan and Hudson Avenue in Brooklyn, almost exactly where the original Walnut Street Ferry ran in 1817. The

Hudson Avenue Railroad Hudson may refer to: People * Hudson (given name) * Hudson (surname) * Hudson (footballer, born 1986), Hudson Fernando Tobias de Carvalho, Brazilian football right-back * Hudson (footballer, born 1988), Hudson Rodrigues dos Santos, Brazilian ...

opened a

streetcar line A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include segment ...

from the ferry to

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in late 1867. The ferry shut down in early June 1868, leading the railroad to move its line to the Bridge Street Ferry.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle The ''Brooklyn Eagle'' (originally joint name ''The Brooklyn Eagle'' and ''Kings County Democrat'', later ''The Brooklyn Daily Eagle'' before shortening title further to ''Brooklyn Eagle'') was an afternoon daily newspaper published in the city ...

, Travel, August 18, 1868, page 1

References

{{reflist East River Ferries of New York City