New York Bay

“ To the west, beyond the Hudson, lies the Jersey shore, covered by Jersey City and Hoboken. To the northeast, over the Harlem, lies the mainland of New York state; and to the southeast is Long Island with Brooklyn. East River, which separates Manhattan from Long Island, is not a river but a strait connecting upper New York Bay with Long Island Sound. It is long and winding, a mile wide at its narrowest point, and contains three large islands — Ward's, Randall's and Blackwell's — that are occupied chiefly by the city's institutions and prisons. ”

“ The Upper Bay or harbor of New York, about eight miles long by five wide, lies between the mouth of the Hudson River on the north and the Narrows on the south. From the bay, vessels can pass into the East River and thence to Long Island Sound, between Long Island and the main-land. Westward is Newark Bay, through which vessels can pass from the Upper Bay of New York, thence into Staten Island Sound, thence into Raritan Bay and the Lower Bay. ”

“ All the rivers that flow east from the mountains in the Eastern States below New York Bay have had to fight with this creeping beach before they could escape into the sea. In some places the beaches have crept right across the streams, and compelled them to turn aside and go another way. ”

“ All estuaries are most beautiful viewed in the calm; but this is peculiarly true of the Bay of New York—neither the colour of the water, nor its depth, nor the height of the surrounding land, being favourable to the grander efforts of Nature. There is little that is sublime in either the Hudson, or its mouth; but there is the very extreme of landscape beauty.
Experience will teach every one, that without returning to scenes that have made early impressions, after long absences, and many occasions to examine similar objects elsewhere, our means of comparison are of no great value. ”

“ New York has not to-day a dock worthy of the name; magnificent steamships and palatial ferry-boats all lie alongside wharfs, or enter “slips,” which are semi-enclosed wharfs. Brooklyn and Jersey City have, however, docks.
Who that has visited New York will ever forget his first impressions? The grand Hudson, or the great East River, itself a strait: the glorious bay, or the crowded island, alike call for and deserve enthusiastic admiration. ”

“ It is served by the Long Island railway, by several lines of electric railway, and (in summer) by steamboat lines. The island is the most popular seashore resort of the United States. There are four quite distinctly marked districts. At the extreme western extremity, Norton’s Point, is the district known as Sea Gate, lying between Gravesend Bay and Lower New York Bay. It is an exclusively residential section, has a fine light-house, a large number of summer homes and the handsome club-house of the Atlantic Yacht Club. ”

“ Coney Island is one of these travelling beaches, Rockaway is another, Sandy Hook is part of another.
The only thing that can stop one of these creeping beaches is a river. The Hudson River, flowing out of New York Bay, breaks the beach in two between the Highlands of Navesink and Long Island. ”

“ We also have a lovely view of Staten Island and Brooklyn. We have delightful bathing in New York Bay and in Newark Bay; it is still. We go in nearly every day, and enjoy it very much. I have a brother Henry who is nine years old, and a sister Hattie, seven years old. Our mamma and papa are both dead, and we live with grandma and uncle. I love to lie in the hammock on the balcony and look out over the bay and watch the sails and row-boats.
Pink B. ”

“ Likewise the fresh salt wind that blows into your face as you stand at the front of the boat, in crossing San Francisco Bay, is like a spring or summer wind in New York Harbor. So, if you cross at night, you have only the lights to tell you that you are not indeed arriving in New York.
The ferry is three miles wide. There are no skyscrapers, with lighted windows, looming overhead, as they loom over the Hudson. To the right the myriad lamps of Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda are distributed along the shore, electric trains dashing in front of them like comets ”

“ A minute afterwards, with a suddenness that was strange, the whole blue ocean lay before us. Then full steam ahead. The fog still was thick behind us in New York Bay. We saw it far ahead coming in from the ocean. All at once the captain closed his chronometer with a snap. We were over the bar and into the Atlantic, and that is how the captain got the Arrowic out of New York Bay.
My Stowaway “Ye can play yer jokes on Nature,
An’ play ’em slick,
She’ll grin a grin, but, landsakes, friend,
Look out fer the kick!” ”

“ Our own is, with scarcely an exception, low, monotonous and tame. It wants Alpine rocks, bold promontories, visible heights inland, and all those other glorious accessories of the sort that render the coast of the Mediterranean the wonder of the world. It is usual for the American to dilate on the size of his bays and rivers, but objects like these require corresponding elevation in the land. Admirable as is the bay of New-York for the purposes of commerce, it holds but a very subordinate place as a landscape among the other havens of the world. ”

“ Though strictly a Manhattanese as a sailor, I shall not run into rhapsody on the subject of the beauties of the inner or outer bay of this prosperous place. No man but one besotted with provincial conceit could ever think of comparing the harbour of New York with the Bay of Naples ”

“ When the conformation of the coast-line is of the nature of an indentation in the land, as in the case of a bay, gulf, or river-mouth, then a portion of it may be utilized, to take the place of one or more of the structures necessary to form an open-coast harbor. For example, the harbor of New York is so inclosed by land that no artificial structures in the shape of piers or breakwaters are needed to secure a tranquil harbor basin. Where the bay or inlet is less perfectly landlocked, piers, breakwaters, or jetties are constructed to supply the necessary protection at the exposed points. ”

“ It is really two thousand miles shorter than via San Francisco and New York. From James's Bay as a centre, the cities of Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, Hamilton, London, and Winnipeg, are pretty nearly equidistant. How immense, then, will be the power which the possession of the Hudson's Bay, and of the railway route through to the Pacific, must confer upon Great Britain, so long as she holds it under her sole control. ”

“ Strangers, particularly Englishmen, will find a great convenience in the five o'clock ordinary, now established there, which is, I am told, excellently conducted and appointed.
[24] The whole of this passage is in fact a succession of small bays, forming a continuation to the grand bay of New York, and dividing Staten Island from the mainland of New Jersey; the Raritan river does not properly begin till Amboy, where it empties itself into a bay of its own name.
[25] I had always heard that the face of nature was gigantic in America ”

“ Here are the expanding works of a formidable fort defending the harbor entrance, and an artillery trial and proving ground. Behind the Navesink Highlands and the Hook, the Jersey shore of the lower bay stretches far back westward into Raritan Bay, thrust up into the land between New Jersey and Staten Island. The green hills of this island, crowned with villas, 10 make the northwestern boundary of the bay. To the right hand of the Hook, and north of the entrance, is the sand strip of Coney Island, with its stretch of hotels and buildings, the popular seashore resort of New York. ”

“ Within the bay Ellis' Island is near the Jersey shore; Bedloe's Island is not far from its centre, and is the selected site of the colossal statue of Liberty which France has presented to New York; while Governor's Island, the largest of the three, lies to the right, between New York and Brooklyn. Each island is fortified, the latter containing Castle William and old Fort Columbus.
The bay is dotted with the shipping of every nation. Ocean steamers are setting out on their long journeys, or just returning from foreign shores. ”

“ Here also is an old stone fort down by the waterside, with the extensive ramparts of a modern fort on the bluff above. These are the defensive works commanding the approach to New York from Long Island Sound. In the neighboring havens are favorite anchorages for yachts. Beyond are the expansive waters of the Sound, and far off southward, thrust into the land, are the deep recesses of Little Neck Bay, made famous by its clams, and protected to the eastward by the curiously bifurcated peninsula of Great Neck. The northern Long Island shore is very irregular, and rises into hills. ”

“ Simply because until the free navigation of the bay for purposes of commerce is impeded, Congress has no power to interfere with the buildings and wharves constructed.
There are wharves and piers constructed, under State authority, at New York City, where the waters of the Hudson once flowed. There are wharves and piers in all our bays and harbors which are built in their waters. ”

“ From there you can look over the great bay between the Nevesinck and the west point of Staten Island into the sea. As regards view, therefore, it lies as well as New York, and is quite safe to be reached by ships. The land around it is tolerably good, and therefore the place is reserved from sale. There is an abundance of oysters on the shore, considered to be of the best. The ebb tide being spent, we entered the Kill achter Kol with a good wind and, rowing ahead, arrived at about three o'clock at the point of Woodbridge Creek. ”

“ Perhaps the earth does not contain another port with so many advantages for commerce. In this respect I think it positively unequalled; but I know a hundred bays that surpass it in beauty. Indeed in the Mediterranean it is not easy to find a natural haven that does not."
Eve was too fresh from the gorgeous coast of Italy to be in ecstasies with the meagre villages and villas that, more or less, lined the bay of New-York ”

“ Everywhere he presented gifts to the Indians to induce them to go down to the Bay. On the way back to York, the explorers canoed all the way down the Saskatchewan, and Hendry paused at Fort La Corne, half-way down to Lake Winnipeg. The banks were high, high as the Hudson river ramparts, and like those of the Hudson, heavily wooded. Trees and hills were intensest green, and everywhere through the high banks for a hundred miles below what is now Edmonton bulged great seams of coal. The river gradually widened until it was as broad as the Hudson at New York or the St Lawrence at Quebec. ”

“ But the great advantage which New York of the Pacific possesses over other places above San Francisco is, that it is at the head of ship navigation, as two regular surveys, published by distinguished military and naval officers of Suisun Bay have demonstrated. Ships of the largest class can sail direct from the ocean to New York, where they will find a safe and convenient harbour, and where at this time are lying a number of merchant ships from differents parts of the Union, directly alongside the bank upon which they have discharged their cargoes. ”

“ South of New York there are two indentations of importance—Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay,—the former being, as it were, the expanded mouth of the river of the same name, the other being in somewhat similar relations to two large rivers, the Susquehanna and the Potomac. Philadelphia and Baltimore are the cities that command the advantages for commerce which these two bays offer.
The Gulf of Mexico is of large dimensions, and of great importance as affecting the accessibility of the interior, and still more as influencing the climate of the country. ”

“ One other element is of determining value as to the necessity for his occupation and defence of Brooklyn Heights. New York was the only base from which Great Britain could operate against the colonies as an organized State. By Long Island Sound and the Hudson River, her right hand would hold New England under the guns of her warships, and by quick occupation of Chesapeake and Delaware Bays and their tributary streams, her left hand would cut off the South. ”

“ On the Pacific coast, ... wherever there is a bay that will afford a harbor, and a town that will support people, the yacht is used as a vehicle of pleasure.... Many of the San Francisco boats are large schooners, a number are powerful sea-going sloops, while of smaller craft there is an abundance of almost every type, although the New York catboat and the flat-bottomed sharpie of Long Island Sound are seldom met with, and seem not to be in favor.... ”

“ Because of their increased size they attracted the makers of cloth, of leather goods, of glass, of metal ware and cutlery, and of all the great list of goods that go to make up commerce. These artisans came to important ports because the ease of distribution made it simpler for them to sell their wares.
A MAP OF THE PORT OF NEW YORK
The Lower Bay has not yet been developed, but about the Upper Bay and along the Hudson and East rivers hundreds of piers are in everyday use. ”

“ Andrew Graham's "Memo."—Prince of Wales Fort—The garrison—Trade—York Factory—Furs—Albany—Subordinate forts—Moose—Moses Norton—Cumberland House—Upper Assiniboine—Rainy Lake—Brandon House—Red River—Conflict of the Companies.
The new policy of the Company that for a hundred years had carried on its operations in Hudson Bay was now to be adopted. As soon as the plan could be developed, a long line of posts in the interior would serve to carry on the chief trade, and the forts and factories on Hudson Bay would become depôts for storage and ports of departure for the Old World. ”

“ Nevadans spoke of her, as "the Bay" still. The city itself stands on a peninsula of shifting dunes or sand-hills, at the mouth of the harbor, much the same as if New York were built at Sandy Hook. It was a great mistake, that its founders did not locate it at Benicia, or Vallejo, or somewhere up that way, where it would have been out of the draft of the Golden Gate, had better wharfage, and been more easily defended. But, it seems, when the gold fever first broke out, in 1849, the early vessels all came consigned to Yerba Buena, as the little hamlet was then called ”