The route
The Staten Island Ferry runs 5.2 miles between Whitehall Terminal at the tip of Manhattan and St. George Terminal on Staten Island. The crossing takes about 25 minutes. Boats leave every 15 to 30 minutes, around the clock, every day of the year. The city's Department of Transportation runs the service, and it carries more than 20 million passengers in a normal year.
The boat passes the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on one side, Governors Island on the other, and the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge ahead. It is the cheapest harbor cruise in the world because it costs nothing.
The fare
Ferries have crossed the Upper Bay since the Dutch, first by sail and oar, then by steam. Cornelius Vanderbilt, a Staten Island native, ran a boat across the harbor as a young man in the 1810s. Private companies and railroads held the route through the nineteenth century. The City of New York took over the ferry in 1905, after Staten Island joined the consolidated city in 1898.
The city charged a nickel. The fare stayed at five cents from 1897 until 1975, long after the subway had left the nickel behind. It rose to 25 cents in 1975 and to 50 cents in 1990. On July 4, 1997, the city made the ferry free. It has stayed free since.
The boats are painted orange so they can be seen in fog. The fleet carries names from the boroughs and from the island's history.
The Verrazzano
The Verrazzano Narrows Bridge opened on November 21, 1964. It joined Staten Island to Brooklyn across the Narrows, the channel where the harbor meets the ocean. Its main span of 4,260 feet was the longest suspension span in the world when it opened. Othmar Ammann designed it. Robert Moses, as chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, built it.
The name honors Giovanni da Verrazzano, the Florentine navigator who sailed into the harbor in 1524, the first European known to have done so. The bridge carried his name with one z for 54 years, until New York State corrected the spelling in 2018. The bridge ended the island's isolation. Staten Island's population grew from about 222,000 in 1960 to about 379,000 in 1990.
What the harbor was
The harbor made the city. It is deep, sheltered, and free of ice most winters, and it sits where the Hudson meets the sea. After the Erie Canal opened in 1825, goods from the Great Lakes came down the Hudson and out through New York, and the port handled more cargo than any other in the country. Ships from Europe landed here because the return cargo was waiting.
The islands record the city's work. Governors Island held the Army and then the Coast Guard until 1996. Ellis Island processed about 12 million immigrants between 1892 and 1954. Liberty Island has held the Statue of Liberty since its dedication on October 28, 1886. On the Staten Island shore, Sailors' Snug Harbor opened in 1833 as a home for aged and infirm seamen, paid for by a sea captain's bequest, and its Greek Revival halls now house a cultural center and botanical garden.
The shipping moved to New Jersey after the 1950s, when container ships needed room the Manhattan and Brooklyn piers did not have. The harbor is still one of the busiest in the country. It is just quieter from the ferry deck.
In the census
The Ferry room of the museum hangs the deckhands, the commuters and the tourists who ride out and ride back. The Liberty room holds the statue's keepers and the harbor crowd, the Governors Island room holds the picnic day people, and the Snug Harbor room holds the old sailors and the gardeners. The atlas at map.html pins each character to a pier, a deck or a shore.
STATEN ISLAND FERRYThe harbor crossing
GOVERNORS ISLAND HILLSThe harbor observatory
SNUG HARBORThe sailors' rest
LIBERTY ISLANDThe climb to the crownIs the Staten Island Ferry free?
Yes. The city stopped charging a fare on July 4, 1997. Before that the fare was 50 cents, and for most of the twentieth century it was a nickel.
How long is the Staten Island Ferry ride?
About 25 minutes each way over 5.2 miles between Whitehall Terminal in Manhattan and St. George Terminal on Staten Island.
Does the ferry pass the Statue of Liberty?
Yes. The route runs past Liberty Island and Ellis Island on one side and Governors Island on the other, with the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge ahead.
When did the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge open?
November 21, 1964. Its 4,260 foot main span was the longest in the world at the time, and New York State corrected the spelling of the name to Verrazzano in 2018.
- NYC Department of Transportation, Staten Island Ferryprimary
Route, schedule, fleet and fare history - MTA Bridges and Tunnelsinstitution
The Verrazzano Narrows Bridge - National Park Service, Statue of Libertyprimary
Liberty Island and Ellis Island history - Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Gardeninstitution
History of Sailors' Snug Harbor - Trust for Governors Islandinstitution
Governors Island history - U.S. Census Bureauinstitution
Borough population figures
Corrections are welcome. Write to the census at @degens on X and name the line. The reading room cites institutions, not the census; the census cites the reading room.