South Ferry, Brooklyn

South Ferry was a ferry landing on the Brooklyn side of the East River, at the foot of Atlantic Avenue below the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood.

The name "South Ferry" does not derive from serving the southern tip of Manhattan and what was then known as "South Brooklyn", it was the name of one of the ferries between what were then the separate cities of New York and Brooklyn.

The "Old Ferry", which later was renamed the "Fulton Ferry", crossed between Manhattan and Brooklyn from streets that in each city would eventually be renamed "Fulton Street".

As the City of Brooklyn grew, the area south of Atlantic Avenue (known as "South Brooklyn") began to become built-up, but lacked easy access to the ferry terminals in the northern parts of the city of Brooklyn.

Thus, the South Ferry Company established the South Ferry on May 16, 1836, to connect Lower Manhattan to the foot of Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn and the month-old Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad – later the Atlantic Avenue Railroad's streetcar line, and later still part of the Long Island Rail Road, now called the Atlantic Branch – through the Cobble Hill Tunnel.