New York Harbor

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New York Harbor is a geographic term that refers collectively to the bays and tidal estuaries near the mouth of the Hudson and adjacent rivers in the vicinity of New York City. In a narrower sense, the term is sometimes taken to refer specifically to Upper New York Bay.

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Manhattan, across the harbor from the New Jersey shore at Liberty Park.

In the broad sense, the term may be loosely taken to include the following bodies of water:

Upper New York Bay
Lower New York Bay
Newark Bay
The Narrows
North River (i.e., the lower Hudson River)
East River
Arthur Kill
Kill Van Kull
Jamaica Bay
Raritan Bay
Harlem River

In socioeconomic terms, the phrase has historically implied the commercial activity of the port of New York City, including the waterfronts of the five boroughs and nearby cities in New Jersey on the Hudson River.

Throughout most of its history, the harbor has been the most important port in the United States and furnished one of the principal means by which passengers and goods were transported to and from New York City and the rest of the country, particularly after the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825.

New York Harbor near Jersey City, New Jersey.

Since the 1950s, New York City proper as a commercial port has been almost completely eclipsed by the container ship facility at nearby Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal in Newark Bay, which is the largest such port on the Eastern Seaboard. New York City is still serviced by several cruise lines, commuter ferries, and tourist excursion boats.

A persistent misconception holds that the harbor is largely devoid of marine life. In reality, it supports a great variety of thriving aquatic species.

If one is travelling down the Hudson in some sort of watercraft, the last tunnel he will cross over is the Port Authority Trans-Hudson. He will probably next cross under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

New York harbor has been deepened over the years to accommodate larger ships. The natural depth of the harbor is about 17 feet. It is now about 45 feet. In many areas the sandy bottom has been excavated down to rock and now requires blasting. Dredging equipment then picks up the rock and disposes of it. At one point in 2005 there were 70 pieces of dredging equipment in the harbor working to deepen the harbor, the largest fleet of dredging equipment anywhere in the world. The work occasionally causes noise and vibration that can be felt by residents on Staten Island. Excavators alert residents when blasting is underway.

New York Harbor

See also