Mary McTamaney

Debate goes on about the viability of a ferry across the Hudson between Newburgh and Beacon. There has been no ferry service in 2025. Beacon’s dock was damaged last year and never repaired. Ferries are port-to-port transit so each shore must have a sheltering ferry slip to accommodate a vessel to tuck in to shore, discharge and take on passengers, turn and repeat. The local ferryboat itself was not harmed by last year’s icy storms. That boat, The Captain Mark Summers – named, after his death, for the beloved pilot who steered people from shore-to-shore in the first years of revived transit across Newburgh Bay, is still intact and able to be put back in service. It just needs its landing places – and its riders.

Ridership is the argument against investing a bit and trying again. Without a ferry, people heading for the opposite shore drive across the bridge – or take a bus across the bridge. A tiny few are known to just walk or bike across the bridge and on down the long sidewalks from suburb to city.

Yes, the financial support that revived local ferry service back in 2005, after four decades without ferryboats, was funded by the “private-public partnership” of government agencies and transit companies. Metro North Railroad wanted to boost ridership. West shore residents wanted less hassle and assurance that they could find a parking place for the passenger trains that run (since 1958) only on the east shore. So, a blue-and-white ferryboat owned by New York Waterways made its debut crossing the wide Hudson as other ferries were already doing for communities farther south along the river and all around New York Harbor. Compared to driving over the bridge, the ferry was certainly quicker. It was far more fun and it built a warm camaraderie partly sparked by the vibrant personality of Newburgh’s Ferry Godmother, Aquanetta Wright, who showed up with a coffee pot before dawn the day of the inaugural voyage and welcomed commuters who rose early for their new workday adventure. Full of civic pride, Aquanetta and her partner, Ramona Torres, kept coming each day with smiles and greetings and hot coffee and a family of riders coalesced.

Of course, things change over time. COVID emptied the offices of New York City and the work-from-home movement took hold. There wasn’t the same rush during rush hours. Beacon started expanding parking on their side of the river. The fare to cross the river rose from $1 to $1.75 as initial subsidies ended. Then winter ice broke the east side dock and the decision by the ferry operators was “Never mind. Buses will get you to a train if you don’t have a car.”

Yet, a ferry is more than a ride to a train. It is a ride into the heart of our neighborhood – a joint neighborhood of riverfront towns. The Metropolitan Transit Authority who taxes us has forgotten that. Those managers never rode the NY Waterway ferry with NFA classes, as I did, to meet our sister cities as residents have done since the dawn of the 18th century. Those teens could imagine and plan how the waterfront gates to the cities once looked and how they could be reestablished. Current decision makers didn’t have memories of frosty nights when ferry passengers stomped and sang together to keep the chill away while looking up at the moon and stars. They don’t know any young worker who doesn’t have a car but got to a part-time job by running down to the ferry. They never met the families for whom a ferry ride was an affordable mini-vacation. They don’t know that the members of the Beacon Historical Society, until the end of service this year, made an annual pilgrimage on the ferry to Newburgh so they could tell and collect stories about the days of river crossings. They don’t know and can’t envision the landing locations where early residents accessed the mills of the Quassaick and the Fishkill Creeks. In these coming anniversary years of the Revolution, they don’t know where George Washington stepped onto a ferry to go visit the army supply depots across the way – riding the horse kept for him on the opposite shore. These moments in time can’t be conjured from a bridge high above the river.

Since it is obvious that working commuters can’t support the total costs of a ferry boat to cross the bay between Newburgh and Beacon, what can? How can our river towns reestablish our water paths to each other? Our very first road, our big water road, The Hudson, beckons.