The Port of New York and New Jersey is the port district of the New York–Newark metropolitan area, encompassing a region within a radius of the Statue of Liberty National Monument.
It includes the system of navigable waterways in the New York–New Jersey Harbor Estuary, which runs along over of shoreline in the vicinity of New York City and northeastern New Jersey, and is considered one of the largest natural harbors in the world.
Having long been the busiest port on the East Coast it became the busiest port by maritime cargo volume in the United States in 2022 and is a major economic engine for the region.
The region's airports make the port the nation's top gateway for international flights and its busiest center for overall passenger and air freight flights. There are two foreign-trade zones (FTZ) within the port.
Geography
Port district Encompassing an area within an approximate radius of the Statue of Liberty National Monument, the port district comprises all or part of seventeen counties in the region. The nine that are completely within the district are Hudson, Bergen, Essex, Union (in New Jersey), and the five boroughs of New York City, which are coterminous with the counties of New York, Bronx, Kings, Queens, and Richmond. Abutting sections of Passaic, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, and Somerset in New Jersey, and Nassau, Westchester, and Rockland in New York are also within the district.
Waterways
Bodies of water New York Harbor is one of the world's largest natural harbors."Port in a Storm: The Port of New York in World War II" , Joseph F. Meany Jr. & al., NY State Museum, 1992–1998.
The Atlantic Ocean is to the southeast of the port. The sea at the entrance to the port is called the New York Bight; it lies between the peninsulas of Sandy Hook and Rockaway.
In Lower New York Bay and its western arm, Raritan Bay, vessels orient themselves for passage to the west into Arthur Kill or Raritan River or to the north to The Narrows. To the east lies the Rockaway Inlet, which leads to Jamaica Bay. The Narrows connects to the Upper New York Bay at the mouth of the Hudson River, which is sometimes (particularly in navigation) called the North River. Large ships are able to navigate upstream to the Port of Albany-Rensselaer. To the west lies Kill van Kull, the strait leading to Newark Bay, fed by the Passaic River and Hackensack River, and the northern entrance of Arthur Kill.
The Gowanus Canal and Buttermilk Channel are entered from the east. The East River is a broad strait that travels north to Newtown Creek and the Harlem River, turning east at Hell Gate before opening to Long Island Sound, which provides an outlet to the open sea.
Channels
The port consists of a complex of approximately of shipping channels, as well as anchorages and port facilities.Chapter 11 , New York Harbor and Approaches, Coast Pilot 2 , 35th Edition, 2006, Office of Coast Survey , NOAA. Most vessels require pilotage, and larger vessels require tugboat assistance for the sharper channel turns.
The Ambrose leads from the sea to the Upper Bay, where it becomes the Anchorage Channel. Connecting channels are the Bay Ridge, the Red Hook, the Buttermilk, the Claremont, the Port Jersey, the Kill Van Kull, the Newark Bay, the Port Newark, the Elizabeth, and the Arthur Kill. Anchorages are known as Stapleton, Bay Ridge and Gravesend.
The natural depth of the harbor is about , but it was deepened over the years, to a controlling depth of about in 1880.Interview with Kate Ascher on her book, The Works: Anatomy of a City , GothamGazette.com, February 13, 2006. By 1891, the Main Ship Channel was minimally deep. Following the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 over $1.2 million of initial funding was appropriated for the dredging of 40 ft (12.2 m)-deep channels at Bay Ridge, Red Hook, and Sandy Hook. In 1914, Ambrose Channel became the main entrance to the port, at deep and wide. During World War II the main channel was dredged to deep to accommodate larger ships up to Panamax size.
In 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers completed a $2.1 billion dredging project, deepening harbor channels to in order to accommodate Post-Panamax container vessels, which can pass through the widened Panama Canal as well as the Suez Canal.Why Deepen the Port?, USACE.Dredging Fleet Deepening NY/NJ Harbor , PortViews, Vol. 2, No. 3 October 2003, PANYNJ.In major milestone, Port Authority, Army Corps complete $2.1B harbor deepening project , Jonathan Lin, The Jersey Journal, September 1, 2016
This has been a source of environmental concern along channels connecting the container facilities in Port Newark to the Atlantic. PCBs and other pollutants lay in a blanket just underneath the soil.Dredging In New York Harbor – Economy vs. Environment? , Gotham Gazette, April 2006. In June 2009 it was announced that 200,000 cubic yards of dredged PCBs would be "cleaned" and stored en masse at the site of the former Yankee Stadium and at Brooklyn Bridge Park.
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 working to deepen channels, the largest fleet of dredging equipment anywhere in the world.
The channel of the Hudson is the Anchorage Channel and is approximately 50 feet deep in the midpoint of Upper Bay. A project to replace two water mains between Brooklyn and Staten Island, which will eventually allowing for dredging of the channel to nearly , was begun in April 2012. The Army Corps has recommended that most channels in the port be maintained at 50 feet deep. Dredging of the canals to 50 feet was completed in August 2016.
The channels also include bridges that limit the heights of vessels that can use the harbor. The Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge has a clearance of at mean high water. The Brooklyn Bridge has of clearance, while the Bayonne Bridge has been raised from to .
Pilotage
The Sandy Hook Pilots are licensed maritime pilots that go aboard oceangoing vessels, passenger liners, freighters, and tankers and are responsible for the navigation of larger ships through port district.
History
Early history The estuary was originally the territory of the Lenape, a seasonally migrational people who would relocate summer encampments along its shore and use its waterways for transport and fishing. Many of the tidal salt marshes supported vast oyster banks that remained a major source of food for the region until the end of the 19th century, by which time contamination and landfilling had obliterated most of them.
The first recorded European visit was that of Giovanni da Verrazzano, who anchored in The Narrows in 1524. For the next hundred years, the region was visited sporadically by ships on fishing trips and slave raids.
European colonization began after Henry Hudson's 1609 exploration of the region with the establishment of New Amsterdam, the capital of the Dutch province of New Netherland at the tip of Manhattan. The British colonial era saw a concerted effort to expand the port in the triangular trade between Europe, Africa, and North America with a concentration of wharves along the mouth of the East River. After the Battle of Brooklyn, the British controlled the harbor for the duration of American Revolutionary War, and prison ships housed thousands at Wallabout Bay.
19th century In the early 19th century, the Erie Canal (often used for grain) and Morris Canal (mostly used for anthracite) gave the port access to the American interior, leading to transshipment operations, manufacturing, and industrialization. The invention of the steam engine led to expansion of the railroads and vast terminals along the western banks of the Hudson River, complemented by an extensive network of ferries and carfloats, with a large cluster along the Harlem River. The era of the ocean liner around the turn of the 20th century led to the creation of berths at North River piers and Hoboken. This coincided with the immigration of millions, processed at Castle Clinton and later at Ellis Island, some staying in the region, others boarding barges, ships, and trains to points across the United States. In 1910, the port was the busiest in the world.
20th century During the World Wars the waterfront supported shipyards and military installations such as the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company and the Brooklyn Navy Yard and played an important role in troop transport as a Port of Embarkation. The mid-century also saw the construction of major highways such as the Belt Parkway, East River Drive, and Major Deegan Expressway along parts of the shoreline.
After the end of World War I, the 1919 New York City Harbor Strike shut down the port for weeks.
The era of the longshoreman, captured in the classic film On the Waterfront, faded by the 1970s as much of the waterfront became obsolete due to changing transportation patterns. The nation's first facility for container shipping, which became the prototype, opened in 1962. Expanded intermodal freight transport systems and the Interstate Highway System effected a shift to new terminals at Newark Bay.
Since the 1980s, sections of waterfront in the traditional harbor have been being redeveloped to include public access to the water's edge, with the creation of linear park greenways such as Hudson River Park, Hudson River Waterfront Walkway, and Brooklyn Bridge Park.
21st century The OOCL Berlin, the largest ship at the time to call at an East Coast port, passed under the raised Bayonne Bridge in July 2017. Two larger ships MSC Cristina and the MSC Virgo landed in 2021.
Jurisdiction and regulation Responsibilities within the port are divided among all levels of government, from municipal to federal, as well as public and private agencies.
Established in 1921, the bi-state Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, in addition to overseeing maritime facilities, is responsible for the vehicular crossings and the rapid transit system between New York and New Jersey, several of the region's airports, and other transportation and real estate development projects.
The Port Authority maintains its own police force, as does the Waterfront Commission, created in 1953 to investigate, prosecute, and prevent criminal activity.Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor (WCNYH)
The United States Army Corps of Engineers, which has been involved in harbor maintenance since about 1826, when Congress passed an omnibus rivers and harbors act,Chapter 3 , River and Harbor Improvement, History of the Waterways of the Atlantic Coast of the United States , Publication Number NWS 83-10, January 1983, USACE. is responsible for bulkhead and channel maintenance.
The United States Coast Guard deals with issues such as floatable debris,Floatable Debris , accessed 2010-05-01 spills, vessel rescues, and counter-terrorism.U.S. Coast Guard Sector New York Homepage .
Both states, and some municipal governments (New York City, in particular), maintain maritime police units. The United States Park Police monitors federal properties. The National Park Service oversees some of the region's historic sites, nature reserves, and parks.
The port is a port of entry. The United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regulate international imports and passenger arrivals. The "green lane" program, in which trusted shippers have fewer containers inspected.The Docks of New York , The New Yorker, June 19, 2006. There are two foreign trade zones in the port: FTZ 1, the first in the nation, established in 1937, on the New York side of the port; and FTZ 49, on the New Jersey side.