Speed Graphic Film and Video | Hollywood Outtakes: Lower Manhattan in the 1930's @SpeedGraphicFilmVideo | Uploaded October 2022 | Updated October 2024, 14 hours ago.
The following film was taken some time in the 1930's from a boat sailing around the south end of Manhattan Island. It's a beautiful day out, and Battery Park is full of people....
0:12 On the left is Pier A, then occupied by the Department of Docks and the Harbor Police.
0:15 Down the street from Pier A is the Battery Place station of the Ninth Avenue Elevated.
0:20 There's an idle steam pile driver on the edge of the park.
0:29 The New York Fire Department building here was the quarters for what was then known as Engine 57. It was demolished around 1941 in preparation for building the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. The fireboat is the John J. Harvey, built 1931, decommissioned 1994 and since preserved.
0:40 Right next to it is Castle Garden. Originally built as Fort Clinton, in the 1930's it housed the New York Aquarium. The Aquarium was relocated and the structure partially demolished in the 1940's as part of Robert Moses's plans for the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.
1:05 Look quickly and you'll see a three car train headed north on the Ninth Avenue El.
1:24 In the 1930's, ferry service to Bedloe's Island and the Statue of Liberty was provided by the excursion boat Hook Mountain. Neither of these two small boats appear to be that boat.
1:49 The large steamboat is the City of Keansburg. Built in 1926, it ran between the Battery and Keansburg, New Jersey until 1962.
2:01 The ferry boat coming into berth here is the Ellis Island ferry, Ellis Island. Built in 1904, it ran until Ellis Island closed in 1954. It sank at its pier at Ellis Island in 1968 and its remains were removed in 2009.
The substantial building behind the ferry slip is the U. S. Barge office, where immigrants and their baggage first set foot in Manhattan. The third building of that name to occupy the site, it was built in 1911 and torn down in the 1940's, again as part of work on the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.
2:20 The small white ferry is the General Charles H. Humphries, the U. S. Army's boat to Governor's Island.
2:33 This is the Staten Island Ferry's Whitehall Terminal. This terminal opened in 1909 and was replaced in the 1950's. That one, in turn, was replaced in the 2000's.
The boat on the left is the Dongan Hills, built 1929 and retired in the 1960's. The other appears to be the Mayor Gaynor, delivered 1924, scrapped 1951.
2:45 Can anybody tell me which ferry boat this is?
2:55 The South Street Ferry Terminal, now known as the Battery Maritime Building, also opened in 1909. It and the Whitehall terminal were supposed to be part of a grand seven-slip ferry terminal, but the central portion was never built. Nonetheless, the slips here were always numbered 5, 6 and 7.
Ferries from here went to 39th Street, Atlantic Avenue and Hamilton Avenue in Brooklyn. The 39th Street ferry shut down in 1938, while the Atlantic and Hamilton Avenue ferry services were combined, then discontinued, in 1942.
When the Brooklyn Ferries shut down, the Governor's Island Ferry switched to the South Street Terminal, so that it no longer had to cross the Staten Island ferries' route.
3:25 East River piers 5 and 6 are the New York State Barge Canal terminal. Behind them is a building sign for the Industrial Workers of the World. Though the "Wobblies" were in general decline by the 1930's, they were still a force among organized dock workers.
3:55 A common sight, even into the 1960's: a railroad barge moving freight cars around New York Harbor.
The following film was taken some time in the 1930's from a boat sailing around the south end of Manhattan Island. It's a beautiful day out, and Battery Park is full of people....
0:12 On the left is Pier A, then occupied by the Department of Docks and the Harbor Police.
0:15 Down the street from Pier A is the Battery Place station of the Ninth Avenue Elevated.
0:20 There's an idle steam pile driver on the edge of the park.
0:29 The New York Fire Department building here was the quarters for what was then known as Engine 57. It was demolished around 1941 in preparation for building the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. The fireboat is the John J. Harvey, built 1931, decommissioned 1994 and since preserved.
0:40 Right next to it is Castle Garden. Originally built as Fort Clinton, in the 1930's it housed the New York Aquarium. The Aquarium was relocated and the structure partially demolished in the 1940's as part of Robert Moses's plans for the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.
1:05 Look quickly and you'll see a three car train headed north on the Ninth Avenue El.
1:24 In the 1930's, ferry service to Bedloe's Island and the Statue of Liberty was provided by the excursion boat Hook Mountain. Neither of these two small boats appear to be that boat.
1:49 The large steamboat is the City of Keansburg. Built in 1926, it ran between the Battery and Keansburg, New Jersey until 1962.
2:01 The ferry boat coming into berth here is the Ellis Island ferry, Ellis Island. Built in 1904, it ran until Ellis Island closed in 1954. It sank at its pier at Ellis Island in 1968 and its remains were removed in 2009.
The substantial building behind the ferry slip is the U. S. Barge office, where immigrants and their baggage first set foot in Manhattan. The third building of that name to occupy the site, it was built in 1911 and torn down in the 1940's, again as part of work on the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.
2:20 The small white ferry is the General Charles H. Humphries, the U. S. Army's boat to Governor's Island.
2:33 This is the Staten Island Ferry's Whitehall Terminal. This terminal opened in 1909 and was replaced in the 1950's. That one, in turn, was replaced in the 2000's.
The boat on the left is the Dongan Hills, built 1929 and retired in the 1960's. The other appears to be the Mayor Gaynor, delivered 1924, scrapped 1951.
2:45 Can anybody tell me which ferry boat this is?
2:55 The South Street Ferry Terminal, now known as the Battery Maritime Building, also opened in 1909. It and the Whitehall terminal were supposed to be part of a grand seven-slip ferry terminal, but the central portion was never built. Nonetheless, the slips here were always numbered 5, 6 and 7.
Ferries from here went to 39th Street, Atlantic Avenue and Hamilton Avenue in Brooklyn. The 39th Street ferry shut down in 1938, while the Atlantic and Hamilton Avenue ferry services were combined, then discontinued, in 1942.
When the Brooklyn Ferries shut down, the Governor's Island Ferry switched to the South Street Terminal, so that it no longer had to cross the Staten Island ferries' route.
3:25 East River piers 5 and 6 are the New York State Barge Canal terminal. Behind them is a building sign for the Industrial Workers of the World. Though the "Wobblies" were in general decline by the 1930's, they were still a force among organized dock workers.
3:55 A common sight, even into the 1960's: a railroad barge moving freight cars around New York Harbor.
