Talk:Staten Island Ferry

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Almost certainly not the Staten Island Ferry. By 1941 the municipal ferries were well into double-deckers, diesel powered. That ferry has just left its docking, looks like, and that it is probably the Jersey shore behind. Probably not a Lackawanna ferry--they were huge. The name of the ferry appears to be "Edgewater." I'd say Erie or Jersey Central. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 16:40, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"Edgewater" identifies it as the 125th Street Ferry that ran from pre-World War I and closed in the winter of 1950-51. It is just leaving its Manhattan slip: those are the Palisades across the river. I rode it a couple of times as a child.--Wetman 21:02, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This was part of the Public Service Corporation of New Jersey, right? If so, I'm going to add it there (after changing the name). --SPUI (talk) 22:26, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That I don't know. Surely the ferry predated the Corporation's founding. A sailing ferry at the site existed in the early 19th century. --Wetman 23:01, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, looks like it was run by the New Jersey and Hudson River Railway, which merged into PS. It may have existed separately before that. --SPUI (talk) 20:44, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Travel time 2 Fare 3 Westfield disaster 4 Updated Classes of Ferries 5 Funny Girl on Ferry? 6 Proposed Updates: Music, Vessel-Based History Table, Terminal Fire and Student History

[edit] Travel time

Could someone please indicate at the beginning of the article the time required for a trip? Thanks! Psychonaut 19:23, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

It is approximately 25 minutes each way. It is actually already in the article, in the second section. -- Decumanus 19:39, 2005 May 8 (UTC)

[edit] Fare

In Bob Dylan's song Hard Days in New York, he sings something like "if you've only got a nickel, it's the Staten Island Ferry", which I always took to be the fare at the time. The article says it started at a quarter. Can any historian help me on this? Ringbark 08:16, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The Staten Island Ferry was a nickel each way for as long as I could remember (from 1950s on). You had to get off at each terminal, i.e., you couldn't ride endlessly. You also could buy a commuter ticket on the Staten Island Rapid Transit, which included your ferry fare. The fare was famous but it covered very little of the cost, which was cited in the '60s (IIRC) as being 50 cents, so the "farebox recovery ratio," as it was called was only 10%. It guess it was during the fiscal crisis that the fare went up to 25 cents for a round trip; i.e., the fare was only collected one way, so it was really 12-1/2 cents. Then (I think under Giuliani) they gave up collecting the fare at all since it covered so little of the cost, and just made it free. -- Cecropia 09:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Close -- Actually, under Guiliani, they dropped the fare when they instututed "one fare" zones on mass transit. Which means, in part, if you pay a fare on one form of transit like a bus, you don't have to pay to transfer to another form such as a subway. The vast majority of people taking the ferry are transferring from or to a bus or subway, so to institute the one fare policy, they would in effect be collecting no fare from most of the users. They decided it would be too expensive to collect from the tourists and a few SI'ers who only take the ferry. EGregory 14:11, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

This is a very interesting point! It should be on the article itself. The mention that the ferry is free, like virtually nothing in New York, but then not explaining it, is a glaring omission. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nyh (talk • contribs) 13:02, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Westfield disaster

The Northfield disaster is mentioned in this artice, but there's no mention of the 19th century Westfield inicident, which was the worst Staten Island Ferry disaster in history. I believe the death toll was around 165 with hundreds scalded when the boiler of this steam ferry exploded. EGregory 17:20, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Done. -- Cecropia 09:50, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Nice write-up. Thanks, EGregory 16:55, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Updated Classes of Ferries

I recently updated the section of classes of ferries now that all three Molinari-class vessels are in operation. I also merged a later paragraph, which was outdates and in future tense into the ferry descriptions. The following line "The Marine Group also will build two similar-sized boats." was part of that graph. I am not familiar with this info, but since I don't know that it's innacurate, I did not delete. If anyone can verify, please do. (By the way, does anyone else fing the phrase "Molinari Class" to be an oxymoron?) EGregory 15:09, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Funny Girl on Ferry?

Is there a scene in Funny Girl on the Staten Island Ferry, or does Barbara Streisand's character just appear on a tug boat in the harbor? If so, it should be added. Digit LeBoid 18:52, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed Updates: Music, Vessel-Based History Table, Terminal Fire and Student History

I'd like to propose four additions to this page:

1) "The ferry in music" would be great, either as a subsection, or just merging it with the film and television section. Someone mentioned the Dylan reference. Billy Joel also makes a reference in his song "Everybody Loves You Now", iirc. I'm sure there are others.

2) A table of history by the vessel would be a great addition, I think, with an eye toward eliminating redundancy. I'd like to simply show every ferry vessel known about, year built, commissioned and decommissioned (if any), and eventual fate. References to incidents or other bits of notes as internal links would also be nice.

3) I'd like to add the Manhattan terminal fire of the mid 90s to the incidents list. It was really a sad loss of a lot of architectural history, and i believe it noteworthy.

4) Finally, the ferry plays a special role in the lives of middle- and high-school students that commute between the Island the Manhattan. I'd like to start a section to seed additions in this area, such as historical "sections" where students would meet, and similar. If no one adds to it, we can always let it atrophy and delete it.

Thoughts, anyone? I'm very open to feedback.

An Earthshine 03:33, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

RE: 4) -- Perhaps instead of just a section on the high schoolers, perpaps a section on sub-cultures of the ferry. The high-schoolers are just one group. There are the women who congregated in the Ladies room and formed their own clique that was featured in a short film. There are the babooska-ed ladies who commute to their after-hours jobs (I believe as cleaning ladies in Manhattan), cyclists, messengers, buskers, tourists, vendors (the shine guys and the pushcart guy with the "little shopping mall", the folks who congregated at the old bar... Digit LeBoid 19:16, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

RE: your note -- Absolutely! I think this is a great generalization of my idea that would be a much better addition to the article, allowing for a wide variety of items. Thanks! An Earthshine 03:48, 19 February 2007 (UTC)