It’s a Crowded Place With Some of the City’s Trickiest Traffic
New York Times · LC · trust 25/100
A fatal accident has drawn attention to New York Harbor, a popular destination where not everyone necessarily knows the rules — or follows them.
A fatal accident has drawn attention to New York Harbor, a popular destination where not everyone necessarily knows the rules — or follows them.
Boats navigate New York Harbor. Credit... Dave Sanders for The New York Times
Share full article 11 By Corey Kilgannon and Miles G. Cohen
Jet Skis and booze cruises veer uncomfortably close to oil tankers and loaded barges. Ferries steaming past the Statue of Liberty send out rolling wakes that rock little sailboats and charter vessels that seem more suited for placid lakes.
New York Harbor, one of the busiest cargo ports in the country, has long been a crowded, chaotic waterway. Now, the tragic fate of a mother and her infant daughter, who died after an overloaded charter boat capsized near the Statue of Liberty, has put a spotlight on safety in the waters south of Manhattan.
Some mariners describe the harbor as something of a wild west, where there’s no guarantee that the practices and regulations designed to keep the waterway safe and orderly will be observed.
“It’s become a free-for-all,” said Roland Rexha, secretary-treasurer of the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association, an international union.
“You have everything from bootleg mariners to jet skis and people in canoes out there cutting in front of the Staten Island Ferry,” Mr. Rexha said. “And they just don’t realize that the ferry is not a car that can just stop on a dime.”
“It really is a zoo,” said Mike Zlotowicz, 45, a charter boat owner. “It’s a dizzying array of commercial and private traffic.”
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