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DOCK FACILITIES IN NEW YORK CITY; PRESENT FACILITIES, 
PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS AND ENLARGEMENTS. 
By WiLL1AM J. BARNEY, Eso., SEconD DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, DEPARTMENT OF 
DOcKS AND FERRIES. 
{Read at the eighteenth general meeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, held in 
New York, November 16 and 17, r9r1.] 
New York City, by the compelling force of the greatest natural harbor 
in the world, and by its water level connections with the West, has become 
the central gateway of the western world for European commerce. 
As a port, this is largely due not to consecutive planning, nor to con- 
tinuous port policy, nor to logical development of port facilities, but to the 
unequalled shore front and great depths of water nature has given. 
On the other hand, the port of New York is handicapped in that the 
city of New York is essentially the financial center of this country. The 
resident capitalists in ports like Liverpool, Antwerp, and Hamburg are most 
directly and vitally concerned in their own port’s development. Here they 
put their direct financial interest and energies into their mines, railroads, 
farms, and factories located elsewhere in the United States. Their New 
York offices are merely headquarters from which to direct these many 
industries. Therefore their ‘commanding position and financial prominence 
do not depend directly upon the immediate improvement and the proper 
expansion of the port of New York as distinguished from the city of New 
York. In fact, their interests often require the expenditure of money in the 
development of the city which might otherwise go to the improvement of 
the port. Fortunately, the present misuse of the natural advantages are 
not so fixed as to prevent a proper reorganization of the port for its logical 
development. Such reorganization and the proper correlation and direction 
of the future expansion of port facilities will depend for permanency, under 
our form of government, almost entirely upon public interest and support— 
especially of such representative bodies of scientific and directly interested 
men as are here assembled. 
Let us first consider the present conditions in the harbor. Recognition 
and remembrance of the four following broad divisions of freight handled 
in the port of New York are aids in considering the present facilities, their 
disadvantages and the proposed improvements and extensions. 
The first of these divisions includes the freight that enters and leaves 
