Ferries from Hunters Point South

Hunters Point South is the Long Island City landing on NYC Ferry's East River route, and its numbers explain the towers around it: 221 active sailings, with Manhattan three minutes away.

Where the boats go

• East 34th Street — about 3 minutes, 58 sailings.
• North Williamsburg — about 9 minutes, 41 sailings.
• Greenpoint — about 8 minutes, 12 sailings.

All NYC Ferry. The East River route launched on 1 May 2017 and runs from East 34th Street down to Pier 11 by way of DUMBO.

What the ferry did to the neighbourhood

Hunters Point South was rezoned and built out with residential towers on former industrial waterfront. The landing put Midtown three minutes away from buildings that are not near a convenient subway line, and the development followed.

It is one of the clearest cases in New York of a transport link creating demand rather than serving it.

⚠ Fifty-eight sailings on one leg, twelve on another

East 34th Street takes nearly five times what Greenpoint does from this pier. The Manhattan leg behaves like a shuttle; the Greenpoint leg does not, and turning up for it without checking is how people end up waiting forty minutes at a windy pier.

The park

Hunter's Point South Park runs along the waterfront beside the landing — 11 acres, about 45,000 m², built in two phases of roughly 5.5 acres each. It holds the best straight-on view of the Midtown skyline available from public ground anywhere in the city.

It was designed to flood: the lower level takes storm surge rather than resisting it, which is why it survived where conventional waterfront did not.

Fares

Separate from the subway, no transfer. On a three-minute crossing that is a lot per minute — and still quicker than the 7 train and a walk.