DOCK FACILITIES IN NEW YORK CITY. 43 
shops, theatres and railroad terminals, the latter to its wholesale and retail 
houses, factories and adjacent railroad piers. 
There is one large Trans-Atlantic passenger and packet freight instal- 
lation in the port of New York; the Chelsea Section between 12th Street 
and 23d Street. It was built by the city and then leased at low rentals to 
the ocean lines. These piers are from 800 to 825 feet in length and 125 
feet in width, with 250-foot slips of sufficient depth for steamers of 40 feet 
draught. Aside from six other piers at various locations, these seven full 
piers and two half piers are the only double decked docks in the port of the 
city of New York. ‘The lower decks are used for the handling of cargo; the 
upper decks are large passenger terminals. 
At the time the Chelsea Section was built, piers 825 feet in length were 
regarded as fully adequate to accommodate any steamers that might be 
built in the future. Now the port authorities are confronted with the 
problem of the Olympic and Titanic some 882 feet in length, with promise 
of steamers still longer to come. ‘This enormous stride in the length of 
steamships is doubtless due, aside from the progress in naval architecture, 
to the removal of channel restrictions through the Government’s dredging 
and maintaining the 40-foot Ambrose Channel to the sea. 
Unfortunately this Trans-Atlantic improvement is located at the nar- 
rowest point in the lower fairway of the Hudson River. ‘Therefore, after 
careful consideration, the Secretary of War has refused any permanent 
extension to the pierhead lines; but has granted to the city a temporary 
two years permit to lengthen two of these piers for the present accommo- 
dation of the Olympic and Titanic. Consequently the port authorities in 
the near future must provide piers of 1,000 to 1,100 feet in length in some 
other location. 
Above the Chelsea section as far as 60th Street, of the 36 piers, 6 only 
are used by steamships and 14 for open wharfage, dumping facilities and 
other miscellaneous forms of river traffic. The 14 other piers are occupied 
by the railroads. South of 23d Street, aside from the Chelsea piers, 18 piers 
only are now occupied by steamship lines in the coastwise service; 3 small 
piers and 2 large ones are open for general wharfage and the remaining 27 
piers are occupied by the railroad companies. ‘Therefore of 95 piers on the 
North River below 6oth Street, 41 piers, or nearly one-half, are occupied by 
the railroad companies or the “City-Railroad”’ freight. 
_ Excepting the New York Central, the great transcontinental railroads 
reaching this port terminate on the Jersey shore. In the morning freight 
cars on car floats are towed over from the Jersey, side to the various piers 
of the different railroads in. Manhattan. The car floats are moored in the 
