24 - Millburn Public Library

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SUBURBIA
Life on a Ferryboat:
Routine Is Essence
Piloting a Ferry May Be Unexciting, But
The Ride Is a Pleasant 'Extra' for Commuters
By JOHN COAB
A LTHOUGH the Lackawanna
r\ railroad carries passengers
from Buffalo, Oswego and Utica
to New York, the tracks end. at
Hoboken, a scant three-quarters
of a mile as the sea gull flies,
from their destination, Manhattan.
In the intervening distance
flows the Hudson river, ucitunneled
and unbridged so far as the
lackawanna is concerned, forcing
the railroad to drop its passengers
^and freight, so to speak,
right at the water's edge almost
within swimming distance of the
city. The Lackawanna is not
alone in this category. Also in
the same bracket are the Jersey
Central. Baltimore & Ohio and
Erie railroads.
This condition does not strike
most travelers as particularly
unusual. They simply board one
of the ferries located at the stations'
piers and for the next few
minutes inhale the harbor
breezes before plunging into the
skyscraper canyons of the city.
And rather thaei being a handicap,
the ferries are an enjoyable
"extra"' for thousands of commuters
who get a water voyage
included in the price of their
monthly commutation ticket.
Passengers who ride the ferries
get a first hand view of the
world's largest and busiest port
in action. They see- all types of
craft; chunky tugboats puffing
their way busily about the harbor,
sleek pleasure ya-chts, huge oceangoing
liners, Navy cruisers and
battleships, ugly, efficient freighters.
It's a pleasant interlude
after breakfast and just before
plunging into the day's chores.
The ferries which pick their
way through this maze of harbor
traffic day in, day out, fair
weather or foul, have become as
much a part of the m-etropolitan
scene as Grant's Tomb, the
Statue of Liberty or the Empire
State building. And as an institution,
if one way use that term,
the ferry is at least a century and
a half older than any of the aforementioned
landmarks.
The Hoboken Ferry, oldest on
the Hudson, was started in 1775
hy a Cornelius Harring. Early
ferriea were rowboats or two
masted canal boats, called perrangers,
which carried passengers,
animals and produce across the
river according to an elaborate
rate schedule. It wasn't until the
early 1800's that the first steam
ferry waa put into operation, and
it was not until 1881 that the first
steel-hulled ferry, the Lackawanna,
was placed in service.
Today the Hoboken Ferry,
owned and operated by the Lackawanna
railroad, owns nine boats,
of which seven run Mondays
through Fridays. Like most ferries
they are not particularly
beautiful craft and look like
nothing so much as oversized
match boxes scooting about the
harbor. Their purpose is a functional
one, not aesthetic. They do
their job efficiently, without
glamour or fanfare.
An average day for a Lackawanna
ferry consists of making
18 round trips, during the day-
Jight hours, between Hoboken"
and New Tork. It takes a lit- Although the ferryman's life
tle over five minutes for the isn't fraught with the dangers
AUGUST 24, r950
Christopher street boat to make
its run, S to 12 minutes for the
Barclay street boat And the
cause of inclement weather.
The ferries are operated by the
Marine Division of the Lackawanna
with offices directly adjacent
to the ferry slips. Superintendent
of the Division m Captain
F. H, Cog-an who has spent a
good part of his life on the water
and who holds a Master's license
for all types of craff from ferries,
to tugs, to ocean-going liners.
Much of his professional life has
been spent with the tugboat fleet
and perhaps as a consequence of
this he expresses no great enthusiasm
about piloting a ferry.
His fleet of nine boats has a
carrying capacity of from 1200 to
1500 passengers each end are
operated by a crew of eight: a
captain, a wheelsman, an engineer,
a fireman and oiler, two
deckhands and a porter.
Some of the men who captain
the ferries are almost literally
bore into the profession, others
take up the profession after experience
on more adventurous
type of craft.
Oldest captain in the Marine
Division's employ, from point of
service, ia Captain William Cole
of East Orange, who has been
either working on or steering the
beats since 1907. He more or less
came by hLs profession through
Inheritance. Both his grandfather
and father were ferrymen in the
New York harbor.
For 53 years Cole has been
sailing from one side of the harbor
to the other. When people
ask him if he ever tires of beating
the same track year in and
year out across the Hudson he
sighs and says, "Yes, very." When
he retires he thinks he will have
had enough of water and boats
and has turned down an invitation
from, a friend to take a motorboat
cruiae down the Inland Wa- -
terway to Florida.
The life of a ferry boat pilot is
a comparatively quiet one. There
are few mishaps, other than an
occasional bruised bow, although
once in a while some passenger
may take it into his head to jump
into the harbor. Life topside,
however, is primarily clean, quiet,
relatively unexciting.
Below decks it's a different
story. All of the Lackawanna's
vessels, with the exception of one,
are coal burners. Although life for
the crew down below isn't exciting
either, it's a warm one. Temperatures
in the engine room
hover almost constantly between
110 and 120 degrees even though
blowers give a certain amount of
air conditioning. la this humid
atmosphere the engineer, oiler,
and fireman spend their working
hours fueling and pampering the
1,400 horsepower engines which
propel the ferries. While the captain
and wheelsman can enjoy
the breezes and view from their
pilot house, the crew below decks
spend their hours completely cut
off from the outside world except
for the clanging bells which tell
them to increase, decrease, stop
or reverse the throbbing engines.
and excitement which bis oceangoing
brothers encounter, there
there is excitement upon occasion.
Captain Roy O. Wanvigr of New
City, New York, can recall that
three passengers have jumped
overboard during his 32 years of
service. The first customer to
jump overboard had been having
a disagreement with a fellow passenger.
Upon being threatened
with bodily harm he thought discretion
the better part of valor
and promptly jumped over the
rail. The other two riders who
took to the water were intent
upon staying there permanently,
but quick rescue work thwarted
their intentions.
Captain Wanvigr before becoming:
a ferry captain acted as
quartermaster and mate on ocean
vessels, got his master's license
while serving on a Standard Oil
tanker. He likes his present job;
doesn't get tired, he aaya, of going
from one side of the river to
the other all day long, and thinks
he is a bit better off than some
of his seafaring friends because
he can get home to his family
every night.
Life on the ferries is routine,
but according to Captain Herman
Ahrens "when the weather is
nice, time just fliee by and you
don't mind it a. bit." He's been.
steering- the boats since 1927 and
when he retires he would like to
spend his time cruising around
the upper reache* of the Hudson
in a power boat.
As a rule the public causes the
captain and the crew little trouble
except for the over anxious commuter
who attempts to tell tea
skipper how to operate his boat.
This unusually amiable relationship
may seem a bit odd, particularly
in view of the fact that tha
•boats carry millions of passengers
each year. But then, where else
can the commuter get a eea voyage
included in the price of a.
commutation ticket. Even though
ferries are slow by modern
standards, many, no doubt, take
pleasure in the thought that they
don't at least have to speed
through fume-filled tunnels on
their way to work each day.
A ferry starts on its trip across the harbor.
A Piece. of Your Mind
By KARL PLATZEK
Psychologist
LL of us deviate from tb*
A so-called normal in some
ways. We are taller or shorter
than the average, "we weigh more
or less, we have greater or leaser
formal education. We feel more
deeply or more shallowly, have
anxiety about things or less. We
have more physical energy or we
tire more readily; we are more
liberal in our views or more conservative.
Within these wide area* of differences,
however, we manage to
keep up with life pretty well. A*
problems arise, we may face them
with, enthusiasm or with distaste
and dread, but we face them. We
may solve them easily or with
difficulty, yet we solve them. The
job we have to do may get done
right away or later on, but sooner
or later we do it
This is a practical concept of
adjustment to life. None of us has
made a perfect adjustment to nil
life, as the idea of adjustment L*
commonly misunderstood. Indeed.
it would be a very dull individual
who did not have within him hia
dissatisfactions, his rebellions, hi*
hopes and ambitions, and his unsolved
problems. But within that
very wide area, from 85 to 90 per
cent of us lead fairly useful lives,
achieve some measure of success,
feel reasonably happy, bring up
pretty good children, and have our
own. social group within which we
are accepted.
Wouldn't it be a duU world if
all of us did conform, to the average?
If we all thought pretty
much alike, acted alike, had the
same taste in food and tobacco,
reacted in the same way, and voted
for the same candidate, much of
the zest would be gone from life.
Yet in many waya, we are accepting
just that idea. In our
schools, for example, we have gons
overboard on the idea that simple
age is the great criterion. Regardless
of stage of physical or mental
ability, it ia accepted that a child
miwt be five years old to be admitted
to kindergarten, fourteen
years old to be graduated from
grammar school, and eighteen
years old before he is mature
enough to leave high echool. Parents
who protest that their children
are old enough to enter
school be-fore five years of age
are solemnly warned of the dire
consequences that would eneu»
should he be exposed to school influences
at an earlier age. Tht
perils of skipping a grade even
though tha child is bored and
restive at the slowness of hia
work are taken as equivalent to
an attack of smallpox. There is
no evidence whatsoever that children
come out of school under this
system of forced conformance to
an age average any better adjusted
or better equipped to faca
life than did those of an earlier
generation, who started school
when they were four year;* old
and moat frequently were out of
high school by the time they wer«
sixteen.
It is long past time that we
stopped letting the statistical concept
of normality and adjustment
worry us. As individuals, w«
and our children can differ very
widely from our neighbors in attitudes
and behavior, and still b»
as normal ae normal should be.
Fort Nonsense
One of many interesting buildings
and sites to be seen in Morriatown
is Fort Nonsense, located
on Western avenue, on a hill ba^
hind the courthouse. The fort wai
so named because it waa appar*
ently built for no other purpos*
•than to keep the soldiers of thf
continental Army occupied during
the winter. The old earthwork*
have been reconstructed.
Pag* 3