The Rivers and The River Islands

Welfare Island—Randall's Island—
Ward's Island—Riker's Island, North
Brother Island, and South Brother
Island

Boat trips around Manhattan: Yacht Tourist leaves Battery Landing 10:30 a.m. and
2:30 p.m. daily, May to October; round trip $1.50. Yachts Marilda, Marilda II, and
Manhattan leave foot of W. 42d St. 10 a.m., 2 p.m., and 7:30 p.m. daily, April 6
to November 1; round trip $2.00.

Of the three waterways surrounding Manhattan, only the Hudson River
is a true river. It drains water from the Adirondack Mountains, 300 miles
to the north, and the fertile Mohawk Valley; and it drains wheat, automo-
biles, flour, and many other hinterland products from the Great Lakes
ports by way of the New York State Barge Canal. It was this inland trade
route that gave New York an early advantage over such ports as Boston
and Philadelphia.

The wooded hills through which the Hudson flows make it one of the
most beautiful rivers in America, and the sheer Palisades, forming a
twenty-one mile western wall near its mouth, make it one of the most
spectacular. Where it comes abreast of the northern tip of Manhattan
Island, the Hudson is 4,400 feet wide. The Manhattan shore is lined with
ribbon parks from Inwood Hill to Seventy-second Street; and from Fifty-
ninth Street to the Battery the water front is edged with steamship piers
and ferry slips. On the New Jersey side, the narrow shore front at the base
of the Palisades is taken up, for the most part, by industrial plants, many
of which have their own docking facilities. Fleets of ferries ply between
Manhattan and the railroad terminals in Weehawken (opposite Forty-
second Street), Hoboken (opposite Twenty-third Street), and Jersey City
(opposite the lower end of Manhattan). The river narrows to 2,770 feet
at Fourteenth Street, but this width increases to 3,670 feet at the Battery.

Almost all the larger transatlantic liners that enter the harbor and many