In 1743, a formal ferry was established when Alexander Colden received a royal charter from King George II to carry passengers and goods for profit.

[3] In fact, the NYSBA opened the Kingston bridge ahead of schedule because river ice was keeping the ferry in dock and people couldn't get to work.

The bells on board and on shore tolled as the boats crossed the river in the early evening chill against the imposing silhouette of the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge, which had opened the day before.

Ten minutes later, when the ferries docked in Beacon and disgorged their cargo, people got in their cars or hopped on the waiting buses and went home, over the new bridge.

The end of ferry service resulted in decreased activity on Newburgh's once-vibrant waterfront, and in the early 1970s urban renewal led to much of the land being cleared in preparation for new construction projects that never came to fruition.

However, plans never quite seemed to materialize despite considerable appropriations of money, and in the interim commuters had to be content with a shuttle bus across the bridge from the park and ride lot on NY 17K near its connection to the New York State Thruway.

Meanwhile, MTA began for the first time to require parking permits at Beacon, and the waiting list swelled to at least 600 more than capacity, even after the lots were enlarged in the early 2000s.

[6] Eventually, it was able, with the help of the region's congressional delegation, to secure a $1.1 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration to close the gap between fares and costs, along with other subsidies.

[10] MTA moved the West New York, a boat which had been used to evacuate Lower Manhattan after the September 11, 2001 attacks, to Newburgh Bay to inaugurate its new service.

[6] One major problem MTA and NY Waterway had to overcome in planning was the ice floes that can sometimes clog the shallows near the riverbanks, particularly on the Newburgh side, in cold weather.

This situation is not encountered by its ferries downriver as the salinity of the river below the Hudson Highlands is high enough to prevent ice from forming in all but the coldest temperatures.

On February 6, 2007, however, a cold snap had left enough ice at each bank that the MTA decided to do as it had done with the downriver ferry the day before and suspend service until conditions improved, renting buses to take commuters across the bridge in the meantime.