FERRIES: OUT WITH THE OLD AND IN WITH THE NEW ...

Some grand ole ladies of days gone by are retiring. Oh, not straight away, mind you, but the dates have been set. Combined, these grand dames have about 500 years of service, so they’ve earned their gold watches several times over. They’re served millions on their big steel bottoms and still draw the occasional whistle. This group is bi-coastal, with three residing in New York City and six in Seattle. As you might guess, these are no ordinary ladies. They’re ferries.

The three in New York are the Hebert H. Lehman, John F. Kennedy and American Legion, all built and delivered by Levingston Shipbuilding in Texas in 1965.

These 3,500 passenger, 40 auto ferries serve on the 5.2 mile run between Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan and St. George Terminal in Staten Island.

Besides the three diesel-electric-powered, 297 ft x 69 ft Kennedy Class boats, New York City Department of Transportation’s Staten Island Ferry fleet includes two 6,000 passenger capacity ferries (the largest capacity passenger boats afloat) and two 1,200 passenger ferries. In all, the fleet carries about 20 million passengers a year.

REPLACEMENTS UNDER CONSTRUCTION
NYCDOT has already begun building replacements for the Kennedy Class boats.

Fittingly, the New Kennedy Class boats bare a striking resemblance to their predecessors. That is by design. The new 310 ft x 70 ft boats, now under construction at Marinette Marine Corp., in Marinette, Wis., were designed by George G. Sharp, Inc., New York, with a nostalgic feel. The first of the new class, the Guy V. Molinari, was launched in September and will be delivered in June 2004. The 310 ft, 4,400 passenger, 30 vehicle ferry and its sisters are being built under a $120 million contract. Propulsion will be supplied by a diesel-electric AC system, including three GM EMD turbocharged 710G engines.

It’s not just the vessel part of the operation that’s getting an update.

Renovations are also underway on the St. George and Whitehall Terminals. A 40-foot glass ceiling will highlight the waiting area at St. George and a 75-foot glass entry at Whitehall. Soaring indoor spaces will be matched by more than 120,000 square feet of outdoor plazas that provide scenic views of the working waterfront and harbor.

Whitehall passengers will be served by 7,000 square feet of new retail space, while the 33% larger waiting room will provide direct passenger access to ferry loading. A redesign of Peter Minuit Plaza in front of the terminal, pending completion of a new South Ferry subway station, will create an attractive public space with multiple transit links.

Attending the launch ceremony were New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Guy V. Molinari as the keynote speakers, and the Honorable Susan Molinari, former U.S. Congresswoman from New York and daughter of the ship’s namesake, as the sponsor.

“Throughout our 60-year history, Marinette Marine has constructed more than 1,300 ships for government and commercial customers, including buoy tenders for the U.S. Coast Guard and landing crafts, barracks barges, workboats, and tugs for the U.S. Navy,” said Dennis McCloskey, president of Manitowoc’s Marine Group. “We’re proud to play a part in continuing a 98-year-old municipal ferry service and to continue our own rich tradition of serving government customers by supplying these state-of-the-art ferries to the City of New York.”

The Molinari is the 25th ferryboat built to serve the Staten Island to Manhattan route since this mode of transportation became a municipal service in 1905. The current ferries operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and carry some 65,000 passengers daily on a 5.2-mile run between Staten Island and Lower Manhattan.