The Manhattan Cruise Terminal, formerly known as the New York Passenger Ship Terminal or Port Authority Passenger Ship Terminal is a ship terminal for ocean-going

passenger ship A passenger ship is a merchant ship whose primary function is to carry passengers on the sea. The category does not include cargo vessels which have accommodations for limited numbers of passengers, such as the ubiquitous twelve-passenger freig ...

s in

Hell's Kitchen Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the eas ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

History

The New York Passenger Ship Terminal originally consisted of Piers 88, 90, 92 and 94 on the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

between West 46th and West

54th Street 54th Street is a two-mile-long (3.2 km), one-way street traveling west to east across Midtown Manhattan. Notable places, west to east Twelfth Avenue *The route begins at Twelfth Avenue (New York Route 9A). Opposite the intersection is the New ...

. Piers 88-92 are each 1,100 feet (340 m) long and 400 feet (120 m) apart. They were first completed in 1935 to replace the

Chelsea Piers Chelsea Piers is a series of piers in Chelsea, on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located to the west of the West Side Highway ( Eleventh Avenue) and Hudson River Park and to the east of the Hudson River, they were originally a pa ...

as the city's luxury liner terminal. The new terminal was built to handle bigger ships that had outgrown the Chelsea Piers. The plan was to lengthen a number of existing 800-foot piers, but the

US Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

, who controlled the waterfront dimension, would not allow the extension of the pierhead line farther into the river, so the city was forced to extend the pier by cutting away at the land. The city earlier did this for the

; however in Chelsea only landfill was taken away. At the Passenger Terminal, actual Manhattan schist was taken away. The results of this can also be seen in the West Side Highway's diversion eastward from West 57th to 42nd Street. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the pier was in the news when the SS ''Normandie'' caught fire and subsequently capsized at its Pier 88 berth. The NYPST piers were renovated in 1970 and in 2004 underwent another $200 million renovation to accommodate newer and larger cruise ships. The renovation plans included the decommissioning of Pier 92 and for the remaining piers to handle three large ships at a time.

Norwegian Cruise Line Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), also known in short as Norwegian, is an American cruise line founded in 1966, incorporated in Bermuda and headquartered in Miami. It is the fourth-largest cruise line in the world by passengers, controlling about 8.6 ...

's ship the ''

Norwegian Breakaway ''Norwegian Breakaway'' is a cruise ship of Norwegian Cruise Line. It, along with , are the first two ships in "Project Breakaway" ordered by Norwegian Cruise Line. They were named through a public contest - a contestant submitted the name ''No ...

'' sails year-round out of the New York Passenger Ship Terminal. In 2011 the city committed $4 million to renovate and upgrade the cruise terminal to accommodate the ship. For decades, the terminal was the only ocean-going passenger terminal in

New York Harbor New York Harbor is at the mouth of the Hudson River where it empties into New York Bay near the East River tidal estuary, and then into the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of the United States. It is one of the largest natural harbors in t ...

. Many major passenger ships have docked there, including the RMS ''Queen Mary 2'' and ''Freedom of the Seas''. With an upsurge in cruise ship traffic and the terminal's ability to comfortably handle only three large ships at a time, two new terminals have opened in the harbor — the Cape Liberty Cruise Port opened in 2004 in

Bayonne, New Jersey Bayonne ( ) is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. Located in the Gateway Region, Bayonne is situated on a peninsula located between Newark Bay to the west, the Kill Van Kull to the south, and New York Bay to the east. As of ...

(used by

Royal Caribbean Cruise Line Royal Caribbean International (RCI), also formerly known as Royal Caribbean Cruise Line (RCCL), is a cruise line brand founded in 1968 in Norway and organised as a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Group since 1997. Based in Miami, Flori ...

Celebrity Cruises Celebrity Cruises is a cruise line headquartered in Miami, Florida and a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Group. Celebrity Cruises was founded in 1988 by the Greece-based Chandris Group, and merged with Royal Caribbean Cruise Line in 19 ...

and Azamara Cruises), and the

Brooklyn Cruise Terminal The Brooklyn Cruise Terminal is a cruise terminal in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. The terminal is and sits on Buttermilk Channel, a tidal strait separating Brooklyn from Governors Island. It is located on land owned by ...

(used by the '' Queen Mary 2'' and other ships of the

Carnival Corporation Carnival is a Catholic Church, Catholic Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgy, liturgical season of Lent. The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide (o ...

cruise brands) opened in 2006 in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. In response to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, the docked at Pier 90 to assist area medical facilities in caring for patients who do not have the virus.

Description

The current ship terminal now consists only of North River piers 88 and 90. With the opening of new piers elsewhere in the city, piers 92 and 94 were sold and are now used for exhibition space. Pier 86, once used by United States Lines, is now home to the , which is now part of the

Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum The ''Intrepid'' Sea, Air & Space Museum is an American military and maritime history museum in New York City with a collection of museum ships. It is located at Pier 86 at 46th Street, along the Hudson River, in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhoo ...

. In 2003, the terminal handled 900,000 passengers, and in 2016, it handled 1.02 million.

References

{{reflist

External links

Official website
Water transportation in New York City Piers in New York City Port of New York and New Jersey Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan Hudson River Park West Side Highway 1935 establishments in New York City Passenger ship terminals