The Manhattan Cruise Terminal, formerly known as the New York Passenger Ship Terminal or Port Authority Passenger Ship Terminal is a ship terminal for ocean-going

passenger ship A passenger ship is a merchant ship whose primary function is to carry passengers on the sea. The category does not include cargo vessels which have accommodations for limited numbers of passengers, such as the ubiquitous twelve-passenger freig ...

s in

Hell's Kitchen Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, or Midtown West on real estate listings, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, ...

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 ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. It was constructed and expanded in the 1920s and 1930s as a replacement for the

Chelsea Piers Chelsea Piers is a series of piers in Chelsea, on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located to the west of the West Side Highway ( Eleventh Avenue) and Hudson River Park and to the east of the Hudson River, they were originally ...

History

Construction

The New York Passenger Ship Terminal originally consisted of Piers 84, 86, 88, 90, 92 and 94, located on the

Hudson River The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...

between West 44th and 54th streets. They were first designed to replace the

as the city's luxury liner terminal and accommodate bigger ships that had outgrown the Chelsea Piers. The two southernmost piers, each 1,000 feet long, were initially constructed in the 1920s to keep up with the growth in maritime traffic. By the 1930s, however, even larger facilities were needed, leading to the construction between 1935 and 1937 of Piers 88–92, each 1,100 feet (340 m) long and 400 feet (120 m) apart. The plan was to lengthen a number of existing 800-foot piers, but the

US Army Corps of Engineers The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the military engineering branch of the United States Army. A direct reporting unit (DRU), it has three primary mission areas: Engineer Regiment, military construction, and civil wor ...

, who controlled the waterfront dimension, would not allow the extension of the pierhead line farther into the river, so the city was forced to extend the pier by cutting away at the land. The city had previously done this for the

, however in Chelsea only landfill was removed. At the Passenger Terminal, actual

Manhattan schist In the United States, the Manhattan Prong of the New England Uplands is a smaller belt of ancient rock in southern New York (including Manhattan, the Bronx, and segments of Brooklyn and Staten Island), parts of Westchester County, and upland po ...

was taken away. The results of this can also be seen in the

West Side Highway The Joe DiMaggio Highway, commonly called the West Side Highway and formerly the Miller Highway, is a mostly surface section of New York State Route 9A (NY 9A), running from 72nd Street (Manhattan), West 72nd Street along the Hudso ...

's diversion eastward from West 57th to 42nd Street.

Modernization

By the 1960s, the old facilities had deteriorated and lacked the amenities of modern cruise terminals. After years of planning, a new terminal was designed around Piers 88-92, to be operated by the

Port Authority A port authority (less commonly a port district) is a governmental or quasi-governmental public authority for a special-purpose district usually formed by a legislative body (or bodies) to operate ports and other transportation infrastructure. ...

. Construction began in 1971 and was completed in 1974.

Further renovations

In 2004, the NYPST piers began another $200 million renovation to accommodate newer and larger cruise ships. The renovation plans included the decommissioning of Pier 92 and for the remaining piers to handle three large ships at a time.

Norwegian Cruise Line Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) is an American cruise line founded in Norway in 1966, headquartered in Miami, Florida, and incorporated in the Bahamas. It is the List of cruise lines, fourth-largest cruise line in the world by passengers, controlling ...

's ship the '' Norwegian Breakaway'' sails year-round out of the New York Passenger Ship Terminal. In 2011 the city committed $4 million to renovate and upgrade the cruise terminal to accommodate the ship.

Notable incidents

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the pier was in the news when the SS ''Normandie'' caught fire and subsequently capsized at its Pier 88 berth. In response to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, the docked at Pier 90 to assist area medical facilities by treating non-coronavirus, and later on, coronavirus-positive patients.

Current operation

The current ship terminal now consists only of North River piers 88 and 90. For decades, the terminal was the only ocean-going passenger terminal in

New York Harbor New York Harbor is a bay that covers all of the Upper Bay. It is at the mouth of the Hudson River near the East River tidal estuary on the East Coast of the United States. New York Harbor is generally synonymous with Upper New York Bay, ...

. Many major passenger ships have docked there, including the RMS ''Queen Mary 2'' and ''Freedom of the Seas''. With an upsurge in cruise ship traffic and the terminal's ability to comfortably handle only three large ships at a time, two new terminals have opened in the harbor — the

Cape Liberty Cruise Port The Cape Liberty Cruise Port is one of three trans-Atlantic passenger terminals in the Port of New York and New Jersey. It is located in Bayonne, New Jersey at the north side of the long pier of the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor, a former military ...

opened in 2004 in

Bayonne, New Jersey Bayonne ( ) is a City (New Jersey), city in Hudson County, New Jersey, Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey, in the Gateway Region on Bergen Neck, a peninsula between Newark Bay to the west, the Kill Van Kull to the south, and New York ...

(used by

Royal Caribbean Cruise Line Royal Caribbean International (RCI), formerly Royal Caribbean Cruise Line (RCCL), is a cruise line founded in 1968 in Norway and organized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Group since 1997. Based in Miami, Florida, it is the Lis ...

Celebrity Cruises Celebrity Cruises is a cruise line headquartered in Miami, Florida, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Group. Celebrity Cruises was founded in 1988 by the Greece-based Chandris Group, and merged with Royal Caribbean Cruise Line in ...

and Azamara Cruises), and the

Brooklyn Cruise Terminal The Brooklyn Cruise Terminal is a cruise terminal in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. The terminal is and sits on Buttermilk Channel, a tidal strait separating Brooklyn from Governors Island. It is owned by the City of N ...

(used by the ''

Queen Mary 2 RMS ''Queen Mary 2'' (''QM2'') is a British ocean liner. She has served as the flagship of the Cunard Line since April 2004, and as of 2025, is the only active, purpose-built ocean liner still in service. ''Queen Mary 2'' sails regular transat ...

'' and other ships of the

Carnival Corporation Carnival (known as Shrovetide in certain localities) is a festive season that occurs at the close of the Christian pre-Lenten period, consisting of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras. Carnival typi ...

and MSC cruise brands) opened in 2006 in

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 ...

. With the opening of new piers elsewhere in the city, Piers 92 and 94 were leased to Vornado Realty Trust in 2009, for the development and operation of a mid-sized trade show and exhibition space, a project that has not been realized. Piers 92 and 94 were damaged by

Hurricane Sandy Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as Superstorm Sandy) was an extremely large and devastating tropical cyclone which ravaged the Caribbean and the coastal Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States in late ...

in 2012, and in 2019 a routine city inspection found Pier 92 to be structurally unsound. Vornado's current proposal is to develop a television and film studio on Pier 94. Pier 86, once used by

United States Lines United States Lines was an organization of the United States Shipping Board's (USSB) Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC), created to operate German liners seized by the United States in 1917. The ships were owned by the USSB and all finances of t ...

, is now home to the , which is now part of the

Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum The ''Intrepid'' Museum (originally the ''Intrepid'' Sea, Air & Space Museum) is a military and maritime history museum in New York City, United States. It is located at Pier 86 at 46th Street (Manhattan), 46th Street, along the Hudson River, ...

. In 2003, the terminal handled 900,000 passengers, and in 2016, it handled 1.02 million.

References

{{reflist

External links

Official website
Water transportation in New York City Piers in New York City Port of New York and New Jersey Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan Hudson River Park West Side Highway 1935 establishments in New York City Passenger ship terminals Transport infrastructure completed in 1935