FERRY, ERIE RAILROAD
APRIL 9, 1936. ABBOTT FILE 106

FERRY, ERIE RAILROAD
MARCH 23, 1938. ABBOTT FILE 291

The ferry between Chambers Street and Jersey City opened in 1854 and was purchased by the Erie Railroad in 1864; it closed in 1958. Abbott photographed this terminal twice, in 1936 and 1938. The first photograph features commuters briskly leaving the terminal, which was built circa 1863. The second photograph, which shows the passenger terminal on the left, is dominated by the railroad's new steel shed, used to store most of the fruit shipped to New York from the West Coast. Abbott surely enjoyed the oversized letters, "ERIE," freshly painted on the southern end of the new structure.

Today the site is occupied by Stuyvesant High School (1992) and the eight-acre Governor Nelson Rockefeller Park (1992) at the northern edge of Battery Park City.

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