Before bridges and tunnels crossed the East River, ferries were an important part of transportation within New York. Ferries powered by oars and sail began operating in the East and Hudson Rivers in the seventeenth century. The first steam powered ferries were introduced in the 1810s, and service quickly grew on a number of routes from Manhattan. In Rose Hill and Kips Bay, passenger ferries ran across the East River from the ends of both 23rd and 34th Streets. The first ferry service in the area was the Calvary Cemetery Ferry that was briefly operated by the Catholic Church from 1851 to 1853 to carry passengers from 23rd Street to Calvary Cemetery in Queens. Regular commercial service began in 1853 when the Greenpoint Ferry began operation between East 23rd Street and the industrial area of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. In 1859, the Long Island Railroad began operating a ferry between East 34th Street and its railroad terminal in Hunter’s Point, Queens. Other ferries carried freight and even railroad cars to the railroad terminal. Additional ferry service to Brooklyn began in 1885, when the Broadway-23rd Street Ferry began running between East 23rd Street and Broadway in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Street railroads, and later elevated trains, carried passengers to the 23rd and 34th Street ferry terminals.
Construction of bridges across the East River in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries significantly reduced the number of ferry passengers and the number of boats serving New York began to decline. The ferry to Williamsburg ended operation in 1918, the Hunters Point
