A ferry informative exhibition is coming to the Brooklyn Historical Society this weekend.
“Full Steam Ahead: 200 Years of Ferries in Brooklyn” opens on May 10, showcasing the borough’s tradition of maritime commuting and commemorating the bicentennial of Brooklyn’s first steam-powered ferry. Historians say the boats were a big part of Kings County’s buoyancy.
“The ferry played a major role in transforming Brooklyn from a sleepy agricultural town into the third largest city in the country,” said Julie Golia, the exhibition’s curator and the director of public history for the society. “The ferry really made growth possible.”
Robert Fulton launched his steam ferry in 1814, with a dock near present-day Fulton Landing. At the time, people traveled between Brooklyn and Manhattan mostly using row- and sail-boats, which made the trip difficult, and dangerous during bad weather. And far from being regular commuters, the people doing the crossing were often farmers.
“Brooklyn was more like the country then,” said Golia.
Fulton died a year after the ferry bearing his name launched, but by then a new form of inter-borough travel was solidly afloat. Ferry docks started cropping up all over Brooklyn’s waterfront, stretching from Williamsburg to Red Hook, and becoming an early form of mass transit.
The steam-powered people-movers remained popular even after the Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883, enabling Brooklynites to travel to Manhattan without the risk of getting wet. The boats remained dominant until the subway arrived in the early 1900s.
“The subway was the mass transit system that really killed the ferries,” said Golia.
But things are coming full circle, as government initiatives look to take advantage of idle berths and new ferry lines have begun to carry people along the city’s vast shore. There are currently ferry stops in Sunset Park, Red Hook, Brooklyn Heights, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint.
“It’s a ferry renaissance,” said Golia. However, she added, most people today see the ferries as recreational and do not rely on them for a commute.
The Brooklyn Historical Society’s exhibition will include paintings of the old ferry fleets, examples of tickets and business records, and letters written by angry early straphangers.
Golia likes that the concerns of Brooklyn’s first class of commuters mimic the concerns we have about subways today.
“They were worried about overcrowding, the fares, and safety,” Golia said. “This could be any one of my friends or family members complaining after their trip home.”
