Historic Ferry Slip: The Water Crossing Before the Bridge
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
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Transcript
Begin at the water because Perth Amboy existed as a regional center before roads and bridges made the waterfront feel secondary.
The Raritan Bay and Arthur Kill gave the town access to New York Harbor.
A ferry connection to Staten Island began in 1709 and continued, in different forms, until 1963.
That is an extraordinary span.
For more than two and a half centuries, crossing by boat was part of ordinary regional movement.
Merchants, officials, workers and travelers used this waterfront.
In the early nineteenth century, city records describe warehouses, eating houses, rooming houses, shops, produce markets and docks clustered around the shore.
This was not a scenic promenade with commerce nearby.
The water was the business district.
The ferry slip also helps explain why Perth Amboy mattered politically in colonial New Jersey.
The town was a port close enough to New York to remain connected with the wider Atlantic economy, but it also served as one of East Jersey's administrative centers.
Government, trade and transportation reinforced each other.
Then fixed crossings and highways changed the geography.
The Outerbridge Crossing opened in 1928.
Automobile travel gradually made a ferry less essential.
Industrial land uses also changed the shoreline.
By the time ferry service ended in 1963, Perth Amboy was operating inside a completely different transportation system.
For locals, the bay is still part of civic identity.
For visitors, the important mental correction is to turn the map ninety degrees.
Modern people tend to see water as an edge.
Colonial and nineteenth-century people often saw water as a road.
Perth Amboy's first advantage was not being at the end of New Jersey.
It was being on a route.