NYC Walking Tour - Fulton Ferry Landing

Fulton Ferry Landing ca.1889

Fulton Ferry is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is named for a prominent ferry line crossing the East River between  Manhattan and Brooklyn, and is also the name of the ferry slip on the Brooklyn side.

Though boats and sail ferries called at these locations since the 18th century, the inauguration of Robert Fulton's steam Fulton Ferry Company in 1814 established his name on the ferry service, which revolutionized travel between the then City of New York on Manhattan Island and the Village of Brooklyn and the rest of Long Island.

The opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 assured the decline of this and other ferries on the East River. Fulton Ferry service ended in 1924. The major thoroughfares leading to the Fulton Ferry from both landings were (and are) named Fulton Street; see Fulton Street (Manhattan) and Fulton Street (Brooklyn).

The BMT Fulton Street Line and BMT Lexington Avenue Line (or "Old Main Line") elevated railways both ended at the Brooklyn side of the ferry, but were later moved with the majority of trips using the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Fulton Ferry District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

Today, the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory sits on the Fulton Ferry pier, on the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge.

NYC Walking Tour - The Collect Pond

The Collect Pond

The Collect Pond or Fresh Water Pond was a body of fresh water near the southern end of Manhattan in New York City, occupying approximately 48 acres and as deep as 60 feet  For the first two hundred years of European settlement of Manhattan, Collect Pond was the main water supply for the growing city. The pond was fed by an underground spring A stream flowed north out of the pond and then west through a salt marsh.

In the 18th century, the pond was used as a picnic area during summer, and a skating rink during the winter. However, industries began to use the water and dump waste there. These included tanneries, breweries, ropewalks, and slaughterhouses. By the late 18th century, the pond was already considered “a very sink and common sewer.

Proposals were made to solve the problem, including the conversion of the pond to a park and the creation of a canal between the East and Hudson Rivers. In the end, it was filled in from land removed from nearby Bayard's Mount, the highest hill in lower Manhattan.

Inventor John Fitch was an instrument maker working in the later part of the 18th century. As an early pioneer of steam navigation, Fitch tested several steamboats on the Delaware River between 1785 and 1788. Fitch’s real success, however, occurred a few years later when, in 1796 he tested another ship equipped with a paddle wheel on New York’s Collect Pond. On the boat with him was fellow inventor Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston, who was the first Chancellor of New York and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and 16-year-old John Hutchings steering. Though Fulton seems to have received most of the credit for the era of steam navigation it is hoped, that some light is shed on Fitch’s contributions as well.

John Fitch with hus Steam Boat on the Collect Pond