New York Harbor
[6] A project to replace two water mains between Brooklyn and Staten Island, which will eventually allow for dredging of the channel to nearly 100 feet (30 m), was begun in April 2012.
[citation needed] Since the 1950s, container ship traffic has been primarily routed through the Kill Van Kull to Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal, where it is consolidated for easier automated transfer to land conveyance.
[11] The harbor supports a very diverse population of marine species, allowing for recreational fishing, most commonly for striped bass and bluefish.
It is fairly firmly held by historians that his ship anchored at the approximate location of the modern Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge's approach viaduct in Brooklyn.
[13] The colonial Dutch Director-General of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant, ordered construction of the first wharf on the Manhattan bank of the lower East River sheltered from winds and ice, which was completed late in 1648 and called Schreyers Hook Dock (near what is now Pearl and Broad Streets).
The new channel Gedney discovered was 2 feet (0.61 m) deeper, enough of an added margin that fully laden ships could come into the harbor even at slack tide.
Various and lovely are the objects which meet the eye on every side, but the naming them would only be to give a list of words, without conveying the faintest idea of the scene.
The Statue of Liberty National Monument, encompassing both islands, recalls the period of massive immigration to the United States at the turn of the 20th century[22] While many stayed in the region, others spread across America, with more than 10 million leaving from the nearby Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal.
The strike resumed March 4 after workers rejected the War Board labor ruling and ended on April 20, 1919 after new terms had been offered by both public and private port employers.
[24][25][26]After the United States entered World War II, the German navy's Operation Drumbeat set the top U-boat aces loose against the merchant fleet in U.S. territorial waters in January 1942, starting the Second happy time.
The U-boat captains were able to silhouette target ships against the glow of city lights, and attacked with relative impunity, in spite of U.S. naval concentrations within the Harbor.
New York Harbor, as the major convoy embarkation point for the U.S., was effectively a staging area in the Battle of the Atlantic, with the U.S.
The Harbor reached its peak activity in March 1943 during World War II, with 543 ships at anchor awaiting assignment to convoy or berthing (with as many as 426 seagoing vessel already at one of the 750 piers or docks).
Eleven hundred warehouses with nearly 1.5 square miles (3.9 km2) of enclosed space served freight along with 575 tugboats and 39 active shipyards, the largest being Brooklyn Navy Yard.
[33] An additional concern is the U.S. Customs "green lane" program, in which trusted shippers have fewer containers inspected, providing easier access for contraband material.
Water pollution from these sources has been a constant phenomenon, although there have been improvements in some areas of the harbor complex in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
The Lower New York Bay region has the highest quality, due to frequent exchange of water with the Atlantic Ocean.
The implementation of the Clean Water Act and related pollution control laws, along with cleanup programs and conservation measures throughout the region, have begun to yield some improvements since the 1970s.
