USA > New York > New York City > New York panorama : a comprehensive view of the metropolis > Part 35
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"Duty-Free" Imports
F
The only commodities brought into the port from foreign lands during 1936 of which there is no record were smuggled goods. The total value and volume of this traffic were probably unimpressive.
Time was when smuggling was a highly respectable practice in New York and its environs, some of the city's most reputable citizenry not only encouraging this practice but even participating in it on occasion. There is no question that many early New York fortunes were erected on such a basis. How vigorously smuggling once flourished in this area is indicated by the state of affairs that prevailed at Oyster Bay early in the 18th century. The Customs Officer, who received 30 pounds as salary and
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ne-third of all seizures, begged to be relieved of his duties; for although nost of the inhabitants were relatives of his, he had been threatened with bodily violence.
Nowadays the United States Treasury Department, through the Com- nissioner of Customs and a special staff of agents, keeps a vigilant eye on duty-evasion rackets in the port, which fall into four general categories. Least spectacular are the drawback fraud and undervaluation. The former s a method employed by dishonest commercial firms to collect illegally he refund of import duty allowed by law on certain raw materials hat have been processed or made into manufactured articles. "Under- valuation" is chiefly practiced by returning globe-trotters, but even large- cale importers have been known to indulge in it.
The most spectacular duty-evasion rackets are classified as miscellaneous ind narcotics. Under miscellaneous fall such practices as the smuggling of watch-movements, diamonds, etc. Recent tariff revisions have deprived he watch-movement racket of its lucrative character, but illicit traffic in high-quality optical equipment, such as binoculars and cameras, has been ncreasing. Although diamond smuggling remains a constant challenge, 'Miscellaneous Division" agents in the port dealt the trade a severe blow in 1937 when they seized more than $200,000 worth of gems in a single rulpaul.
The narcotic traffic is most vexing of all. Usually operated by syndi- the cates or big-time mobsters, this traffic is not necessarily checked for long wasby apprehension of the carriers. In spite of the strictest vigilance, a certain I flow of drugs into the port is inevitable. Seizures and arrests are fre- quent, however; during the fiscal year that ended June 1937, drugs- mostly opium-valued at approximately $2,350,000 were seized in the port district.
Handling the Cargoes
The main bulk of New York's waterborne freight moves, of course, through the normal channels of trade; and when this deluge of freight descends on the waterfront, processes far more involved and impressive than duty evasion are brought into motion. To the uninitiated, the result is chaos and bedlam. The discharge, loading and transfer of waterborne freight are accompanied, indeed, by great confusion and travail. But the latter are surface phenomena. Beneath tumult and turmoil the waterfront functions with the smoothness and precision of a new Diesel engine.
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Consider the following: During 1935, 21,589 cargo carriers of al of types and sizes passed through Ambrose Channel. (Figures showin similar traffic bound in and out via East River are not available.) In thei Co cabins were 1,106,260 passengers; in their holds was an overwhelming proportion of the port's 55,569,076 tons of foreign and coastwise freight The great majority of these carriers arrived and sailed on schedule time
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This remarkable accomplishment was made possible by the highly co ordinated activities of three armies of labor: one inland, one alongshor and one afloat. Equipped with tens of thousands of trucks, the inland army storms the waterfront from near and far, bombarding it with freigh and being bombarded in return. Making use of a harbor fleet second to none, the army afloat storms the waterfront from every point of the compass, likewise bombarding it with freight and being bombarded ir return. Finally, equipped with more freight-handling machinery than i available in any other port in the world, the alongshore army stands or the docks between, giving and taking in both directions, and maintaining in addition a private feud with the ships. On the shoulders of this "middle" army of longshoremen, numbering from 30,000 to 40,000, rest: the heavy and dangerous responsibility of moving freight into and oui of the cargo carriers.
The port's supply of machinery for this work consists chiefly of esca. lators, trailers, skids, and lift-trucks. The lift-trucks, of which there are well in excess of 1,000 in the port, are usually electrically operated. rubber-tired and self-loading. They can be turned in their own length, and are fitted with special equipment such as small crane hoists, cradles, tiering apparatus, chisel prongs and newsprint scoops. With the last-named appliance, newsprint rolls weighing 1,700 pounds can be automatically; tiered three high. These trucks are also used to shuttle trailer and skid loads of freight about the docks and warehouses. The number of trailers and skids in the port has been estimated at 150,000.
Cargo is transferred from the lower holds of ships to pier or lighter by the ship's tackle and winches. Some 50 piers are equipped with special cargo masts. For use in handling extra-heavy cargo, 150 floating hoists are on call in the harbor, together with 70 floating derricks, some of them built to handle weights up to 300 tons.
In spite of this mechanization, or perhaps because of it, longshoremen in the port nurse many grievances. "Speed-up" causes the loudest and most frequent complaint. Others include (1) the "shape-up" system of hiring, which is said to breed favoritism and the "kick-back" or buying
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f jobs; (2) excessive "sling-loads," dangerously heavy load hoists out of he hold; and (3) the 44-hour week. The loudest demand is for "West Coast conditions," which include: (I) union hiring halls and the rotation ystem of hiring; (2) 2,100-pound maximum sling load; and (3) the o-hour week.
Completely organized in the International Longshoremen's Association, Port of New York longshoremen are under conservative American Fed- ration of Labor leadership. While rank and file sentiment (1937) looked oward the swelling Committee for Industrial Organization tide, ILA fficialdom dropped its anchor and prepared for storm.
As figures already cited will indicate, 48,940,000 tons, or about 44 percent of New York's waterborne commerce, is strictly inner harbor raffic, classified as intraport and local freight movements. The operation of this traffic requires, as has been pointed out, a harbor fleet second to ione.
This fleet numbers no fewer than 6,000 barges, scows, lighters, car- Hoats and tugs, and the "army afloat" that mans it approximates 15,000 nen. Functioning on the port's water highways as efficiently as switching engines on a railroad belt line, this harbor fleet is indispensable for the distribution of general freight, food products and building materials throughout the port district.
These operations are conducted by scores of private firms and eight of the great trunk-line railroads-the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Baltimore & Ohio, the Lehigh Valley, the Pennsylvania, the Erie, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, the New York Central and the New York, New Haven & Hartford. In addition to lighterage (towed barges that have been loaded from freight cars or terminals), the railroad lines employ carfloatage (towed barges carrying freight cars on rails) as a means of harbor freight transfer. Carfloats may transfer freight cars via float bridges to the tracks of terminals, such as Bush and New York Dock; or they may tie up alongside a pier or ship. Much to the annoyance of competing ports, both services are performed by the railroads without extra cost to the consignor or consignee, since they are merely the equiv- alent of terminal extensions of the carriers' rails.
Lighterage service in the harbor may originate at any of the following general points: (1) rail terminals; (2) local points; (3) vessels from foreign ports; (4) vessels from coastwise ports; (5) vessels from internal ports. Since traffic may move from each of these general points of de- parture to each of the other four and to destinations identical with the
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point of departure itself (with two exceptions: "local" and "vessels fro internal ports," which naturally dispatch lighterage only to each of tl
The shipya other four), there is a total of 23 possible forms of lighterage freigh After t truct Fa
transfer in the port. All of which helps to explain the endless and di cordant whistling and lowing of New York harbor craft. The infini possible combinations of lighterage routes intersect at an infinite possib Disre number of points, and the result is a kind of efficient bedlam in micains channel.
In B
Railroad marine equipment in New York Harbor represents an inves water ment of $35,000,000 in 150 towboats, 323 carfloats, 1,094 lighters an destr barges and 44 ferryboats. This fleet is manned by 3,400 men. Carfloat limit from 257 to 360 feet long, some of them carrying 23 cars, float a monthi average of 75,000 freight cars loaded with about 940,000 tons of mi
A the cellaneous freight. In this connection, it should be noted that carfloatof t freight tonnage is not included in the "local" and "intraport" statistic previously cited in this article.
låncr ime The magnitude of private and industrial lighterage operations in th thu harbor is indicated by the fact that more than 500 tugs are owned b- of towboat and lighterage companies; about 50 by oil, coal and termina
Har companies; and 20 more by steamship companies. Although tugboats ar generally associated with the drama of ocean liner sailings and arrivals this is but a minor phase of their role in port economy. In addition to the lighterage and carfloat towing duties already mentioned, their work in cludes removal of waste material, wrecking and salvage operations, trans: fer of ships from pier to pier or from pier to drydock, towing of cargoes to coastwise and internal ports, and so forth. Docking the Normandie is merely a detail in the average work week of a towboat.
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Shipbuilding
Between the close of the War of 1812 and the outbreak of the Civil War, shipbuilding in the port of New York rivaled and possibly out- ranked even the shipping industry. More correctly, perhaps, these were facets of the same gem: an increase in the luster of one added to the brilliance of the other. In those days, American cargoes were carried in American ships. The East River yards were known the world over for the quality and numbers of packet and clipper ships sliding down their ways. There was a world demand for East River products, and tens of thousands of skilled artisans labored in the vicinity of South Street to supply it.
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Is from The Civil War drove American shipping from the seas and New York's ipyards into oblivion. Except for a brief upsurge during and shortly ter the World War, American shipping in general and New York con- ruction in particular have drifted in the doldrums.
Facilities for ship construction in the port, however, are still plentiful. isregarding those of the United States Navy Yard, the city proper con- midins 26 shipbuilding plants. Four of the largest in the United States are 1 Brooklyn; and several other large yards operate on the Kill van Kull nvestraterfront in Staten Island. But except for some city ferryboat and naval s an float inthl estroyer work during 1935-7, new construction in the port area has been mited in recent years to scows, barges and a few towboats.
Although 15,000 workers are engaged in this industry in the port area, misthe majority of them are employed on ship repairs. The fact that most rfloalf the yards in the port are accessible for ship repair work has naturally isticincreased the popularity of the port among ship operators. Special equip- hent and skilled mechanics are always available in the event of damaged therulls or machinery. Drydocking facilities include 50 floating docks, six I byof which can handle ships of 10,000 to 27,000 tons. In addition there inal re two commercial graving docks, one of which can care for ships up to ar& 13 feet in length. In case of an emergency in which no commercial als,Irydock is available, the four graving docks at the Navy Yard may be theused. All but a dozen of the largest ships afloat can be serviced at port in-drydocks.
ns- In ship repair facilities, as in all other facilities related to the flow of bes water-borne commerce, the Port of New York is first in the United States.
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The Port of New York Authority
New York's ascent to supremacy in the world of shipping and com- merce was conditioned by the major factors of a superior physiographic il situation plus the methods of hand-to-mouth commercial development. Long-range planning has been notably absent throughout the whole course
t- of its development. The port just grew; and men hurried along in the wake of its growth, striving breathlessly to adjust old conditions to new situations. Inefficiency and waste in port economy were consequently e inevitable.
Makeshift compromises with the demands of progress were permissible in the era of transition from Hudson River sloops to Hudson River steam- boats. In the era of transition from side-wheelers to the steel leviathan,
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The
makeshift compromises were injurious to the best interests of the por And since the contradictions thus engendered were aggravated in dire ratio to the growth of the whole organism, these compromises were boun to become downright dangers. The usurpation of valuable steamshi frontage by competing common carriers is a case in point. The sensele: duplication of harbor freight services, inevitably reflected in higher freigh rates for the inland shipper, is another. These problems were in tur complicated by a more serious circumstance.
Although natural geography, as we have seen, especially favored th port, political geography has not been so kind. The Port of New York is a economic unit, but the harbor and district are divided by state lines. Ther were-and are-not only state rivalries to complicate matters; municipa jealousies flourished-and still flourish-as well. New Jersey fought fo the Foreign Trade Zone; Port Newark demands a rate-differential of railroad freight. And looming in the background are the ambitious de signs of other Atlantic and Gulf ports on New York's foreign commerce
The compulsive need for a joint agency to correct the anarchies of por economy was finally recognized, and in 1921 the States of New York and New Jersey created a medium charged to protect their general mutua interests and to plan for the port's future.
A thorough discussion of this medium, the Port of New York Authority is hardly possible within the limitations of this article. We have already had occasion to note its efforts to obtain the release of Manhattan railroad piers for steamship use. Several steps in this direction have been made, the most recent being the coordination of less-than-carload freight deliveries, initiated by the railroads in 1935 after 14 years of Port Authority agita- tion. In addition, the Authority has built in Manhattan a $16,000,000 union inland freight terminal which is served by the trucks of all the trunk line railroads.
Balked, on the whole, in its efforts to remedy the hardened harbor arteries, the Port Authority tackled the problem of efficient freight dis- tribution through the port district from another angle. Since the motor truck was becoming an increasingly important factor in the delivery and pick-up of freight at the port piers, interstate highways by bridge and tunnel were the logical solution. Port Authority accomplishments in this field-the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels, the George Washington Bridge, the Outerbridge Crossing, the Goethals and Bayonne Bridges connecting Staten Island with New Jersey-are too well known to require comment here.
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The organization's activities behind the scenes are less well known it no less vital. Port Authority lawyers are in the midst of a grim and tter warfare that rages in the chambers of the Interstate Commerce ommission and elsewhere between the port and combinations of its istern seaboard and Gulf rivals. Arguing that New York's great volume E foreign trade is due to certain unfair preferences and practices, these vals are more or less continually initiating or preparing wholesale as- tults on the railroad rate structures. Differentials of two and three cents er 100 pounds are already in the trophy rooms of Philadelphia and altimore respectively. New Orleans has differentials, and wants them nproved. Galveston occupies a similar position. Even tiny Port Albany is rowning at New York. The warfare is deadly serious, of course; much of he port's bulk traffic has already been diverted to rival ports. New York's igh-class freight traffic, however, is the coveted plum.
But the Port of New York, as we have demonstrated, is a Brobding- agian structure, equipped with almost limitless facilities and resources. Whatever the outcome of the differential wars, it will long continue to be he outstanding port of call in the western world.
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XVIII. TRANSPORT
City in Motion
IN WHAT is perhaps its most striking general aspect, the island of Mar. hattan may well be likened to a gigantic ant-hill, teeming with an inces sant and almost furious intensity of motion. Along the shadowed canyon of its streets, through vast stretches of tile-lined or whitewashed tunnel piercing its foundational rock, and over many miles of sky-effacing trestle work roars a ceaseless traffic of human freight exceeding in volume and density that of any like area in the world today.
Besides this centralized activity within the confines of Manhattan, ther me is a large and constant movement of traffic to and from the other borough of Greater New York. A river runs between Manhattan and the Bronx ou another river cuts it off from Brooklyn and Queens; and the Upper Bay spreads out between Manhattan and Richmond. These barriers to land travel from borough to borough have resulted in an almost unbelievable concentration via ferries, bridges and tunnels, nearly all of which lead tow Manhattan. There the greatest traffic flow of its kind in the world occur: twice each business day, this borough being the bottle-neck into which milo lions of passengers are poured between eight and nine in the morning, and from which these same millions are siphoned out again between five and six in the evening.
The public carriers involved in New York City's huge intracity passen- ger movement are: (1) Subway and elevated lines, the rapid transit sys- tem; (2) street surface railways; (3) motor buses; (4) taxicabs. For the year ending June 30, 1937, the combined traffic of all these carriers con- sisted of more than three billion passengers, or (reckoned on the basis of 340 "full traffic" days) a daily average of more than nine million. Of this total, approximately 60 percent was handled by the subway and elevated lines, 18 percent by street surface railways, 19 percent by motor buses, and three percent by taxicabs.
But for a complete picture of the "city in motion," one must take into account also the vast commuting army that like an ebbing and receding
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e daily flows into and out of New York; the horde of transient visitors, living and departing by railroad, bus, airplane and steamer; the hun- eds of thousands of private motor cars and commercial trucks that throng e city thoroughfares. Some of the commuters and perhaps all of the 0Ansient visitors, while they are within the city, figure in the intracity pas- iger totals above cited. But in their coming and going, at any rate, these pups as a whole comprise a separate and very considerable element of iffic movement.
ighlights of Transit History
Traffic has been a matter of public concern in New York since the days the Dutch, as is indicated by an ordinance of June 27, 1652, prohibit- g "fast driving" and forbidding cartmen to stand or sit in their vehicles andexcept on the Broadway." Seventy-nine years later, the revised laws and dinances of the English included regulations concerning "carts and cart- here en" on the public highways; and in 1786, the first hackney coach, fore- ughønner of today's taxicab, was introduced by James Hearn, whose stand was nxjatside the historic coffee house at Old Slip.
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Stages running at short intervals along regular routes included lines from and7 all Street and the lower city to the Dry Dock, Greenwich Street, ablend Fourteenth Street; and from the Bowery and Bayard Street to York- tolille, Bloomingdale, Harlem and Manhattanville. There were more than urso20 vehicles on all lines to and from Wall Street, some drawn by two and nil thers by four horses. The fare below Fourteenth Street was generally 121/2 ind ents ; to Yorkville, 183/4 cents; and to Harlem and Manhattanville, 25 cents. ndon all days except Sunday, when the horses were permitted to rest, the aver- ge number of passengers carried was about 25,000. The rush period came en- between noon and three P.M., when merchants and others were returning s. o their homes for dinner. The hackney coaches in 1837 totaled more than hepoo; and fares, fixed by law, were 371/2 cents for less than one mile and n-50 cents for from one to two miles.
In Manhattan, horsecars were operated at this time by the New York is & Harlem Railroad Company, which dispatched cars every 20 minutes dFrom the Bowery, opposite Prince Street, to Harlem-a distance of seven miles. At first, mules were used as motive power, especially in Brooklyn, but they were abandoned later in favor of the more popular and less opin- ionated horse. Street cars were introduced in Brooklyn on July 3, 1854, by the Brooklyn City Railroad, after New York had been using them for more
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than 20 years. These Brooklyn cars hauled a comparatively enormous tra. fic in the 1850's, the total in 1858 being 7,500,000 passengers, drawn fro York a population of only 225,000. After 1864, when the first open cars we lin ande
introduced in Brooklyn, the popularity of horsecars and the conseque year, passenger totals steadily increased.
Meanwhile, in 1846, the Harlem Railroad was operating steam trainratio as well as individual horsecars, the latter running chiefly to Thirty-Secor pass Street. Above that thoroughfare, steam power was permitted. Schedul ppe show that cars were dispatched from City Hall to Twenty-Seventh Stre betw at six-minute intervals throughout the day and every 20 minutes through out the night, at a fare of 61/4 cents; to Harlem, every hour durir. the day, at a fare of 121/2 cents; and to White Plains, four times daily
t p E Les a fare of 50 cents. Below Twenty-Eighth Street, transportation facilities : 1846 consisted chiefly of 12 lines of omnibuses, operating 258 vehicles. day.
By 1860, six street railroad lines were running horsecars and steam trait poft on a city-wide five-cent fare; and 16 omnibus companies controlled 54 mil licensed stages over fixed routes to all parts of the city below Fiftiet go Street, as well as to neighboring villages, at a six-cent fare.
The need for better transit facilities was reflected seven years later i Str the beginnings of elevated rapid transit. In 1867, an experimental hal. wie mile of elevated track for a projected cable-operated road from the Batterico to Yonkers was built, but it proved a failure. In 1875, the mayor was empre powered to appoint a board of commissioners to study the problem of rapi bei transit. This board chose elevated railways as the best rapid transit meliby dium, and selected Second, Third, Sixth and Ninth Avenues as routes fofo such railways.
On June 5, 1878, the Sixth Avenue elevated line was opened from Rec tor Street to Central Park; and in August 1878, the Third Avenue line war opened to Sixty-Seventh Street. Steam locomotives had been definitely sem lected as the motive power, much to the annoyance of the citizenry, whoa complained about soot, cinders and live coals dropping in the streets. It 1902, the elevated system did away with locomotives and live coal shower c by electrifying all the lines.
In 1880, the lines on both sides of the city reached Harlem, about on ( year after all elevated properties in New York had been leased by th Manhattan Railway Company; and on January 1, 1903, the Interborougl Rapid Transit Company, which was to operate the subways then being built, leased the Manhattan Company's elevated railroads for a term o: 999 years.
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