The Staten Island Ferry carries about 60,000 people every weekday from the St. George Terminal in Staten Island to the Whitehall Station in Lower Manhattan. The ride takes about 25 minutes on average. It route takes longer in the off-peak hours (30 minutes) when it’s generally hauling tourists back and forth and a tad faster when it’s primarily commuters (20 minutes).
St. George Terminal in Staten Island: Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan:
The ferry is free, and during the “tourist time” (10am-5pm) it sneaks closer to the Statue of Liberty. There are 10 currently running ferries, but I’ve only ever seen 8 of them. Not sure what the other two do. They generally house many floors, with the exception of the John Nobel, which they run late at night.
Generally, the lower floor is difficult to find and it’s where you will find those of us that use the ferry to commute hide out. It’s quiet and you can read and have a relatively peaceful ride across the New York harbor.
This means the tourists are on the upper decks and it’s stressful up there because of it. Truly, a mad house up stairs. Really, and not just the kids are running (usually the kids). Sometimes you get the person that runs to every possible spot on the ferry. They start out looking at the Brooklyn Bridge on the East side of the boat, then RUNNING over to see the Statue of Liberty on the West, finally they slow down and fast walk back to the East side of the boat to see the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Then, they realize they can go out on the loading deck and they run out those doors and take pictures of the approaching island. It’s crazy what some people do. I’m not sure if hey chill out on the route back. They’ve already taken pictures of everything.
Anyways, each time they go back and forth they open a door to the deck and just leave it open. So, unless you want to freeze in the winter, you have to get up and close it. Then they will just open it again and run away without closing it and open the one on the other side of the boat. This happens again, and again. Sure, this air isn’t so bad in the warmer months, but those winter months, it can turn your ferry ride frigid.
This is why regular commuters sit downstairs and dread the rides where the tourists find the commuter hang out and then ask you to take their picture. Okay, the asking to take the picture has only happened a handful of times, but it’s always when you’re in the middle of a good book or trying to not think about anything and you’re disturbed.
Anyway, I didn’t actually start to this blog post to complain about tourists (although it’s easy to do since there are so friggin’ many of them). I actually wanted to say good things about the ferry. It’s generally clean, dependable, and the crew has those Staten Island Accents which are growing on me.
One of the most fascinating things about the ferry is the mass marketing. The ads directly targeting Staten Islanders and the giant bill boards in the Whitehall terminal and ads in the ferry itself are directly targeted to those riding the ferry or who live on the island. I guess it makes sense. Even New York City’s least populated borough has almost 500,000 people (almost the size of Portland, OR). I suppose it makes it profitable to up the sales of even just the least populated region of New York.
These are the Maker’s Mark ads on the ferry ride home last night. Actually, the entire ferry system has been taken over with Maker’s Mark ads.
I’ll try and snap a couple of the ads at Whitehall and add them later.
**** MORE PICTURES ****
Here are some more photos from the ferry itself. I believe I was on the 'Spirit of America' taking these:
I apologize for the poor quality.
The left one says "What the tourists are looking at." The right: "What the locals are looking at."
Here at the ads from the Whitehall ferry terminal. Again, I apologize for the quality.
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