Manhattan Waterfront (1937)

[Music] Magic Manhattan. Like a cluster of thin ironed mountain peaks, its man-made mansions of industry rise out of the bay. From the battery to the Bronx, its brightly lighted avenues are a byword. Its waterfront, the frayed frontier of this golden island, is the greatest on Earth, a kaleidoscope of all those who go down to the sea in ships. And no less than 10,000 ships each year come into New York Harbor from voyages to the seven seas to rest, exchange their cargos, and then quietly slip away on their restless wanderings. It's more than 1,800 warves and other waterfront facilities, if put end to end, would stretch almost one-third the distance across the United States, and more than 200,000 persons are employed daily to handle the traffic of the harbor. The tugs, approximately 700 in number, are an institution unto themselves. Appearing like puny little water bugs hitting at great drifting logs, they nevertheless handle the mighty leviathans of the deep with amazing ease. Innumerable are the types of seagoing craft in the harbor. From the most modern of ships to picturesque formed schooners reminiscent of wind jamming days of the almost forgotten past. On the lower East River waterfront is the Seaman's Church Institute which for more than a 100 years has befriended all men of the sea. Thousands of barges carry thousands of products about the harbor. An occasional line draped with freshly washed clothing is often the only outward indication that many of these barges are the permanent homes of those who tend them. This little girl has brought a doll and carriage up on deck. Hello there, young lady. How are you today? All right. Well, that's good. She and her little brother were both born on this particular barge. And it's the only playground they know. Sunrise over the Lower East River always discloses long lines of sturdy little schooners tied to the warves at the foot of Fulton Street. Here at the famous 100-year-old Fulton Fish Market, boats come periodically from near and far to unload their catch within the shadow of the towering skyscrapers of lower Manhattan. Some of these fishermen have caught their cargo as far away as the coast of Nova Scotia or as far south as Stormy Cape Hatteris on the coast of North Carolina. The Fulton Fish Market, of which this is but one pier, is the largest wholesale fish market in the world. Each year, it handles approximately 500 million pounds of seafood of more than 100 different varieties. Nothing is more characteristic of the New York waterfront than these bulldog little tugboats that pull off push floating cargos often 100 times their own size. Let's go aboard one for a sail up East River for a midstream view. There's the famous Brooklyn Bridge. For more than half a century, it has proudly spanned the Broad East River and watched the ever growing skyscrapers. First of New York's great bridges, yet its 14,000 m of cable continue to defy the ravages of wear and time. And it still retains its place as one of the principal thorough affairs to Manhattan. [Music] Just above Brooklyn Bridge is Manhattan Bridge, considerably greater in length. And beyond that, Williamsburg Bridge, the waterfront is a place of contrast, where the elegant sits besides the ugly, where graceful white yachts are looked down upon by the smoky black chimneys of industry. Here and there are extravagant dwellings such as pretentious riverhouse with landing floats especially designed for the racy speedboats of its affluent residents and exuding opulence and prosperity to the very top of lofty towers. And then there are the jungles of the less fortunate, whose only homes are made of discarded boards and bits of tin collected in the back alleys of the same metropolis, and whose household furnishings come from ash cans and public refuge heaps, dead ends of Manhattan. They wandered dejectedly about their shacks on this decrepit spot of the waterfront, like unholy ghosts of men who have failed in every opportunity that life in a land of opportunity can afford. [Music] Some of the backwater bends and little used coes become the grave of harbor derelicts, barges, tugs, and other craft which have completed their life of usefulness and have been abandoned to sink and rot. Even the outofwater ends of some of these damp and dilapitated harbor wrecks are converted into homes for Manhattan beach [Music] comrs. In the less repellent little bays are occasionally to be found somewhat more pretentious improvised living quarters. Neat homes built on deserted barges lifted above the meer and murky water with clean window curtains and front porches that look out across beached and sunken hulks of various types, sizes and stages of wreckage, warehouses and sprawling factories and the homes of other waterfront squatters. [Music] Manhattan is a city of bridges. The overwater roadways that connect the metropolis with surrounding points total more than twice the entire length of the island. Some are mechanical, swinging or lifting, while others span the sky well above the tallest smoke stack or mast head. This is one of the less lofty spans of the Great Triber Bridge, a mere segment that straddles the Harlem River, high enough for tugs and other small craft to go underneath. also capable of lifting like an elevator to permit the passing of large vessels. Here is one of the automobile approaches on this same Harlem River crossing of the Triber Bridge, the newest of all those serving Manhattan. It is 17 1/2 m in length, and its three arms extend to the burrows of Queens and the Bronx. There are also 14 mi of highway approaches and the concrete alone that was used in the construction of the bridge proper would pave a four-lane highway from New York to Philadelphia. The most imposing part of this great engineering achievement is the suspension path over the East River at Hellgate near the point where it spreads out into Long Island Sound. The span is sufficiently high to permit all vessels to pass underneath. Beyond can be seen the famous Hellgate Bridge used exclusively for railway traffic. This gives a better idea of the great length of Hellgate Bridge looking toward the main span from a point approximately in the middle of the entire structure. Probably the most imposing of all Manhattan's bridges is the George Washington across the expansive and historic Hudson. Its many traffic arches, curving of and silver framework are things of beauty. Its towers rise twice the height of any of the other bridges, and this massive structure of steel and concrete reaches gracefully almost 3/4 of a mile in a single span. Skirting a goodly part of the western shoreline of the island is famous Riverside Drive, which looks out across well-hidden railway tracks onto the Hudson, where the battleships of many navies have anchored on parade, and where now and then, even today, an occasional antiquated square rigger can be seen tied to a The industries of Manhattan's magic waterfront are manysided and never ending. The falling shadows of evening bring no silencing to its towering skeletons of steel and fast dropping and rising clamshell buckets unloading barges of coal sand and gravel. Or its great dry docks capable of lifting great ships so that men may work under their monstrous kees from sunrise to sunset and through the bleak grab hours of darkness. Round and round this ever varying waterfront, from Hellgate's lofty bridges to the battery that looks out toward the open ocean, there are sites at which to marvel, and sites one may best avoid. Nature has indeed been kind to the little island on which the American metropolis is built. But were it not for the development of maritime transportation which has made it a mecca of ships and merchants of the sea, its great harbor might be only a vacant expanse of inland water at the edge of the mighty Atlantic. No age, no century in history, no place on any continent has known such a monstrous melting pot of human and industrial accomplishment as is clustered about the Manhattan waterfront. [Music] Hello. Hey.