Lower New York Bay is a section of New York Bay south of the Narrows (the strait between Staten Island and Brooklyn ). The eastern end of the Bay is marked by two spits of land, Sandy Hook, New Jersey , and Rockaway, Queens . The waterway between the spits connects the Bay to the Atlantic Ocean at the New York Bight . Traversing the floor of the Bay southeasterly from the Narrows to the Bight and beyond is Hudson Canyon .
100-904: New York Harbor is a bay that covers all of the Upper Bay and an extremely small portion of the Lower Bay . It is at the mouth of the Hudson River where it empties into New York/New Jersey Bight near the East River tidal estuary , and then into the Atlantic Ocean on the East Coast of the United States . New York Harbor is also known as Upper New York Bay , which is enclosed by the New York City boroughs of Manhattan , Brooklyn , and Staten Island and
200-717: A tribal jurisdictional area in Caddo County, Oklahoma , that they share with the Caddo Nation and Wichita and Affiliated Tribes . The Unami and Munsee languages belong to the Eastern Algonquian language group and are largely mutually intelligible . Moravian missionary John Heckewelder wrote that Munsee and Unami "came out of one parent language." Only a few Delaware First Nation elders in Moraviantown, Ontario , fluently speak Munsee. William Penn , who first met
300-561: A ball through the other team's goal posts. Men could not carry and pass the ball, only use their feet, while the women could carry, pass, or kick. If the ball was picked up by a woman, she could not be tackled by the men, although men could attempt to dislodge the ball. Women were free to tackle the men. Another common activity was that of dance, and yet again, gender differences appear: men would dance and leap loudly, often with bear claw accessories, while women, wearing little thimbles or bells, would dance more modestly, stepping "one foot after
400-414: A canoe party of Lenape. A party of his sailors may have taken on fresh water at a spring called "the watering place" on Staten Island—a monument stands in a tiny park on the corner of Bay Street and Victory Boulevard at the approximate spot—but Verrazzano's descriptions of the geography of the area are a bit ambiguous. It is fairly firmly held by historians that his ship anchored at the approximate location of
500-648: A constant phenomenon, although there have been improvements in some areas of the harbor complex in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. A 2019 study of the harbor identifies water quality trends in nine regions of the harbor, using data collected during 1996 to 2017. The Lower New York Bay region has the highest quality, due to frequent exchange of water with the Atlantic Ocean. The poorest regions are those with limited exchange of water flows: Newtown Creek , Flushing Bay and Jamaica Bay . High levels of nutrient pollution (nitrogen and phosphorus) were observed throughout
600-466: A distance, they reminded Dutch settlers of fine European lace. The winter cloaks of the women were striking, fashioned from the iridescent body feathers of wild turkeys. One of the more common activities of leisure for the Lenni Lenape would be the game of pahsaheman : a football-like hybrid, split on gender lines. Over a hundred players were grouped into gendered teams (male and female) to try getting
700-757: A divided people during the 1770s, including in Killbuck's family. Killbuck resented his grandfather for allowing the Moravians to remain in the Ohio country. The Moravians believed in pacifism, and Killbuck believed that every convert to the Moravians deprived the Lenape of a warrior to stop further white settlement of their land. In the beginning of the American Revolutionary War , Killbuck and many Lenape claimed to be neutral. Other neighboring Indian communities, particularly
800-505: A garrison at Bergen , which allowed settlement west of the Hudson within the province of New Netherland . This land was purchased from the Lenape after the fact. New Amsterdam was founded in 1624 by the Dutch in what would later become New York City . Dutch settlers also founded a colony at present-day Lewes, Delaware , on June 3, 1631, and named it Zwaanendael (Swan Valley). The colony had
900-539: A man's maternal uncle (his mother's brother), and not his father, was usually considered to be his closest male relative, since his uncle belonged to his mother's clan and his father belonged to a different one. The maternal uncle played a more prominent role in the lives of his sister's children than did the father—for example likely being the one responsible for educating a young man in weapons craft, martial arts, hunting, and other life skills. Lenape practiced companion planting , in which women cultivated many varieties of
1000-601: A popular site for recreation sailing and kayaking . The harbor is traversed by the Staten Island Ferry , which runs between Whitehall Street at the southernmost tip of Manhattan near Battery Park ( South Ferry ) and St. George Ferry Terminal on Richmond Terrace in Staten Island near Richmond County Borough Hall and Richmond County Supreme Court. NY Waterway operates routes across the bay and through The Narrows to locations near Sandy Hook . The harbor supports
1100-772: A rate exceeding those of the other U.S. forces. Bright city lights made it easier for German U-boats to spot targets at night, but local officials resisted suggestions that they follow London 's lead and blackout the lights of coastal cities. However, some lights were darkened, including those of the amusement parks in Coney Island , Brooklyn , and the Coney Island Light , and Sandy Hook Lighthouse . The Harbor reached its peak activity in March 1943 during World War II, with 543 ships at anchor awaiting assignment to convoy or berthing (with as many as 426 seagoing vessel already at one of
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#17328384006981200-410: A short life, as in 1632 a local band of Lenape killed the 32 Dutch settlers after a misunderstanding escalated over Lenape defacement of the insignia of the governing Dutch West India Company . The Lenape's quick adoption of trade goods, and their desire to trap furs to meet high European demand, resulted in over-harvesting the beaver population in the lower Hudson Valley. With the fur sources exhausted,
1300-584: A similar suit was brought against the International Longshoremen's Association local. In March 2006, the Port passenger facility was to be transferred to Dubai Ports World . There was considerable security controversy over the ownership by a foreign corporation, particularly Arabic, of a U.S. port operation, this in spite of the fact the current operator was the British-based P&O Ports , and
1400-491: A small "round crest, of about 2 inches in diameter". Deer hair, dyed a deep scarlet, as well as plumes of feathers, were favorite components of headdresses and breast ornaments for males. The Lenape also adorned themselves with various ornaments made of stone, shell, animal teeth, and claws. The women often wore headbands of dyed deer hair or wampum. They painted their skin skirts or decorated them with porcupine quills. These skirts were so elaborately appointed that, when seen from
1500-695: A small, 13-square-mile (34 km ) reserve in Chatham-Kent , Ontario. The Delaware of Six Nations shares the Glebe Farm 40B in Brantford, Ontario , and Six Nations Indian Reserve No. 40 , shared with six Haudenosaunee peoples in Ontario. The Stockbridge-Munsee Community has a 22,139-acre (89.59 km ) Indian reservation in Wisconsin, with 16,255 acres (65.78 km ) held in federal trust. The Delaware Nation has
1600-508: A staple for the diet of all classes of citizens both locally and regionally until the end of the 19th century, when the beds succumbed to pollution. Historically, it has played an extremely important role in the commerce of the New York metropolitan area . The Statue of Liberty National Monument recalls the immigrant experience during the late 19th and early 20th century. Since the 1950s, container ship traffic has been primarily routed through
1700-593: A very diverse population of marine species, allowing for recreational fishing, most commonly for striped bass and bluefish. The original population of the 16th century New York Harbor, the Lenape , used the waterways for fishing and travel. In 1524 Giovanni da Verrazzano anchored in what is now called the Narrows , the strait between Staten Island and Long Island that connects the Upper and Lower New York Bay , where he received
1800-850: A woman's power in the hierarchical structure. As in the case of the Iroquois and Susquehannocks , the animosity of differences and competitions spanned many generations, and in general tribes with each of the different language groups became traditional enemies in the areas they'd meet. On the other hand, The New American Book of Indians points out that competition, trade, and wary relations were far more common than outright warfare—but both larger societies had traditions of 'proving' (blooding) new (or young) warriors by ' counting coup ' on raids into another tribes territories. The two groups were sometimes bitter enemies since before recorded history, but intermarriage occurred — and both groups have an oral history suggesting they jointly came east together and displaced
1900-511: Is known as Sandy Hook Bay. Since before the time of the Lenape , the Native American inhabitants of the area, the Lower Bay has sustained a rich marine ecosystem with multiple fish species and molluscs , especially oyster , clam and mussel beds. In the 20th century, due to increased population and industrial pollution, the water quality of the bay and its ability to support marine life
2000-459: Is much healthier than it was 30 years ago." The Port of New York and New Jersey is the largest oil importing port and third largest container port in the nation. The commercial activity of the port of New York City, including the waterfronts of the five boroughs and nearby cities in New Jersey, since 1921 has been formalized under a single bi-state Port Authority of New York and New Jersey . Since
2100-637: Is still served by cruise lines , commuter ferries , and tourist excursion boats. Although most ferry service is private, the Staten Island Ferry is operated by the New York City Department of Transportation . Passenger ship facilities are New York Passenger Ship Terminal , the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal at Red Hook , and MOTBY at Bayonne . 40°40′06″N 74°02′44″W / 40.66833°N 74.04556°W / 40.66833; -74.04556 Lower New York Bay Roughly
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#17328384006982200-702: Is the responsibility of the bi-state Waterfront Commission . The commission was set up in 1953 (a year before the movie On the Waterfront ), to combat labor racketeering . It is held that the Gambino crime family controlled the New York waterfront and the Genovese crime family controlled the New Jersey side. In 1984 the Teamsters local was put under Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) trusteeship, and in 2005
2300-873: The Delaware Nation and Delaware Tribe of Indians in Oklahoma , the Stockbridge–Munsee Community in Wisconsin , and the Munsee-Delaware Nation , Moravian of the Thames First Nation , and Delaware of Six Nations in Ontario . The name Lenni Lenape originates from two autonyms, Lenni , which means "genuine, pure, real, original", and Lenape , meaning "real person" or "original person". Lënu may be translated as "man". Adam DePaul,
2400-562: The East River , which, despite its name, is actually a tidal strait . It provides the main passage for the waters of the Hudson River as it empties through the Narrows. The channel of the Hudson as it passes through the harbor is called the Anchorage Channel and is approximately 50 feet deep in the midpoint of the harbor. A project to replace two water mains between Brooklyn and Staten Island, which will eventually allow for dredging of
2500-598: The French and Indian War . The Moravians' insistence on Christian Lenape's abandoning traditional warfare practices alienated mission populations from other Lenape and Native American groups, who revered warriors. The Lenape initially sided with France , since they hoped to prevent further European colonial encroachment in their settlements. Their chiefs Teedyuscung in the east and Tamaqua near present-day Pittsburgh shifted to building alliances with British colonial authorities. Lenape leader Killbuck ( also Bemino) assisted
2600-666: The Hudson County, New Jersey municipalities of Jersey City and Bayonne . The name may also refer to the entirety of New York Bay including Lower New York Bay . The harbor is fed by the waters of the Hudson River (historically called the North River as it passes Manhattan ), as well as the Gowanus Canal . It is connected to Lower New York Bay by the Narrows , to Newark Bay by the Kill Van Kull , and to Long Island Sound by
2700-740: The Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands , who live in the United States and Canada . The Lenape's historical territory includes present-day northeastern Delaware , all of New Jersey , the eastern Pennsylvania regions of the Lehigh Valley and Northeastern Pennsylvania , and New York Bay , western Long Island , and the lower Hudson Valley in New York state . Today they are based in Oklahoma , Wisconsin , and Ontario . During
2800-673: The Lightship Ambrose , which was superseded by the Ambrose Light . The bay contains popular beaches at Brighton Beach and Coney Island in Brooklyn . There are also beaches on Staten Island. Just outside the bay, facing the Atlantic, are the beaches of Sandy Hook and the Rockaways. Several lighthouses were built to aid navigation in and around Lower New York Bay, located both on land and in
2900-780: The Lower Hudson Valley in New York to the lower Catskills and a sliver of the upper edge of the North Branch Susquehanna River . On the west side, the Lenape lived in several small towns along the rivers and streams that fed the waterways, and likely shared the hunting territory of the Schuylkill River watershed with the rival Iroquoian Susquehannock . Today, the Munsee-Delaware Nation has its own Indian reserve , Munsee-Delaware Nation 1, in southwest Ontario. The Delaware Nation at Moraviantown has
3000-527: The Northeastern Woodlands . Although never politically unified, the confederation of the Lenape roughly encompassed the area around and between the Delaware and lower Hudson rivers, and included the western part of Long Island in present-day New York. Some of their place names, such as Manhattan ("the island of many hills" ), Raritan, and Tappan were adopted by Dutch and English colonists to identify
3100-471: The Three Sisters : maize, beans, and squash. Men hunted, fished, and otherwise harvested seafood . In the 17th century, the Lenape practiced slash and burn agriculture. They used fire to manage land. Controlled use of fire extended farmlands' productivity. According to Dutch settler Isaac de Rasieres, who observed the Lenape in 1628, the Lenape planted their primary crop, maize , in March. Over time,
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3200-517: The United States Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1878) discovered a new, deeper channel through the Narrows into New York Harbor. Previously, the passage was complex and shallow enough that loaded ships would wait outside the harbor until high tide, to avoid running into the huge sandbar, which was interrupted in a number of places by channels of fairly shallow depth: 21 feet (6.4 m) at low tide and 33 feet (10 m) at high tide. Because of
3300-620: The War Board labor ruling and ended on April 20, 1919 after new terms had been offered by both public and private port employers. After the United States entered World War II , the German navy's Operation Drumbeat set the top U-boat aces loose against the merchant fleet in U.S. territorial waters in January 1942, starting the Second happy time . The U-boat captains were able to silhouette target ships against
3400-857: The Wyandot , the Mingo , the Shawnee , and the Wolf Clan of the Lenape , favored the British. They believed that by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 , restricting Anglo-American settlement to east of the Appalachian Mountains, the British would help them preserve a Native American territory . As the Revolutionary War intensified, the Lenape in present-day Ohio were deeply divided over which side, if any, to take in
3500-436: The mound builders culture. In addition, both tribes practiced adopting young captives from warfare into their tribes and assimilating them as full tribal members. Iroquoians adopting Lenape (or other peoples) were known to be part of their religious beliefs, the adopted one taking the place in the clan of one killed in warfare. Early European observers may have misinterpreted matrilineal Lenape cultural practices. For example,
3600-650: The 1950s, the New York and Brooklyn commercial port has been almost completely eclipsed by the container ship facility at nearby Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal in Newark Bay , which is the largest such port on the Eastern Seaboard . The port has diminished in importance to passenger travel, but the Port Authority operates all three major airports, La Guardia (built 1939) and JFK/Idlewild (built 1948) in New York, and Newark (built 1928) in New Jersey. The harbor
3700-407: The 750 piers or docks). Eleven hundred warehouses with nearly 1.5 square miles (3.9 km) of enclosed space served freight along with 575 tugboats and 39 active shipyards , the largest being Brooklyn Navy Yard . With a large inventory of heavy equipment, this made New York Harbor the busiest in the world. Deterrence and investigation of criminal activity, especially relating to organized crime,
3800-537: The British against the French and their Indian allies. In 1761, Killbuck led a British supply train from Fort Pitt to Fort Sandusky . In 1763, Bill Hickman, a Lenape, warned English colonists in the Juniata River region of present-day Pennsylvania of an impending attack. After the end of the French and Indian War, European settlers continued to attack the Lenape, often to such an extent that, as historian Amy Schutt writes,
3900-698: The Confederation until 1753, shortly before the outbreak of the French and Indian War (a part of the Seven Years' War in Europe). The historical record of the mid-17th century suggests that most Lenape polities each consisted of several hundred people but it is conceivable that some had been considerably larger prior to close contact, given the wars between the Susquehannocks and the Iroquois, both of whom were armed by
4000-414: The Delaware Tribe of Indians received grant money to fund The Lenape Talking Dictionary , preserving and digitizing the Southern Unami dialect. At the time of European settlement in North America , a Lenape would have identified primarily with their immediate family and clan, friends, and village unit and, after that, with surrounding and familiar village units followed by more distant neighbors who spoke
4100-415: The Dutch and Swedes, were surprised at the Lenape's skill in fashioning clothing from natural materials. In hot weather men and women wore only loin cloth and skirt respectively, while they used beaver pelts or bear skins to serve as winter mantles. Additionally, both sexes might wear buckskin leggings and moccasins in cold weather. Women would wear their hair long, usually below the hip, while men kept only
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4200-411: The Dutch arrival, they began to exchange wampum for beaver furs provided by Iroquoian -speaking Susquehannock and other Minquas. They exchanged these furs for Dutch and, from the late 1630s, also Swedish imports. Relations between some Lenape and Minqua polities briefly turned sour in the late 1620s and early 1630s, but were relatively peaceful most of the time. The early European settlers, especially
4300-563: The Dutch fur traders, while the Lenape were at odds with the Dutch and so lost that particular arms race. In 1648, the Axion band of Lenape were the largest tribe on the Delaware River, with 200 warriors. Epidemics of newly introduced European infectious diseases , such as smallpox , measles, cholera, influenza, and dysentery, reduced the populations of Lenape. They and other Native peoples had no natural immunity . Recurrent violent conflicts with Europeans also devastated Lenape people. In 1682, William Penn and Quaker colonists created
4400-405: The Dutch shifted their operations to present-day upstate New York . The Lenape who produced wampum in the vicinity of Manhattan Island temporarily forestalled the negative effects of the decline in trade. During the resulting Beaver Wars in the first half of the 17th century, European colonists were careful to keep firearms from the coastally located Lenape, while rival Iroquoian peoples in
4500-551: The English colony of Pennsylvania beginning at the lower Delaware River . A peace treaty was negotiated between the newly arriving colonists and Lenape at what is now known as Penn Treaty Park . In the decades immediately following, some 20,000 new colonists arrived in the region, putting pressure on Lenape settlements and hunting grounds. Penn expected his authority and that of the colonial Province of Pennsylvania government to take precedence. William Penn died in 1718. His heirs, John and Thomas Penn, and their agents were ruling
4600-462: The Kill Van Kull to Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal , where it is consolidated for easier automated transfer to land conveyance. As a consequence, the waterfront industries of the Harbor experienced a decline leading to diverse plans for revitalization, though important maritime uses remain at Red Hook , Port Jersey , MOTBY , Constable Hook , and parts of the Staten Island shore. Liberty State Park opened in 1976. In recent years, it has become
4700-479: The Lenape adapted to European methods of hunting and farming with metal tools. The men limited their agricultural labor to clearing the field and breaking the soil. They primarily hunted and fished during the rest of the year: from September to January and from June to July, they mainly hunted deer, but from the month of January to the spring planting in May, they hunted anything from bears and beavers to raccoons and foxes. Dutch settler David de Vries , who stayed in
4800-399: The Lenape for agricultural products, mainly maize, in exchange for iron tools. The Lenape also arranged contacts between the Minquas or Susquehannocks and the Dutch West India Company and Swedish South Company to promote the fur trade . The Lenape were major producers of labor intensive wampum , or shell beads, which they traditionally used for ritual purposes and as ornaments. After
4900-469: The Lenape historical territory, which spanned what is now eastern Pennsylvania , New Jersey , Lower New York Bay , and eastern Delaware . The tribe's common name Delaware comes from the French language . English colonists named the Delaware River for the first governor of the Province of Virginia , Lord De La Warr . The British colonists began to call the Lenape the Delaware Indians because of where they lived. Swedish colonists also settled in
5000-414: The Lenape in 1682, said the Unami used the following words: "mother" was anna , "brother" was isseemus and "friend" was netap . He instructed his fellow English colonists: "If one asks them for anything they have not, they will answer, mattá ne hattá , which to translate is, 'not I have,' instead of 'I have not'." The Lenape languages were once exclusively spoken languages. In 2002,
5100-401: The Lenape people that lived there. The Lenape had a culture in which the clan and family controlled property. Europeans often tried to contract for land with the tribal chiefs, confusing their culture with that of neighboring tribes such as the Iroquois . As a further complication in communication and understanding, kinship terms commonly used by European settlers had very different meanings to
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#17328384006985200-444: The Lenape: "fathers" did not have the same direct parental control as in Europe, "brothers" could be a symbol of equality but could also be interpreted as one's parallel cousins, "cousins" were interpreted as only cross-cousins, etc. All of these added complexities in kinship terms made agreements with Europeans all the more difficult. The Lenape would petition for grievances on the basis that not all their families had been recognized in
5300-425: The Pennsylvania government that is commonly known as the Walking Purchase". In the end, all Lenape who still lived on the Delaware were driven off the remnants of their homeland under threats of violence. Some Lenape polities eventually retaliated by attacking Pennsylvania settlements. When they resisted European colonial expansion at the height of the French and Indian War , British colonial authorities investigated
5400-518: The Storykeeper of the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania , calls the name "an anglicized grammatical error that basically translates as the 'original people people.'" While acknowledging that some Lenape do identify as Lenni Lenape or Delaware, DePaul says "the best word to use when referring to us is simply 'Lenape.'" When first encountered by European settlers, the Lenape were a loose association of closely related peoples who spoke similar languages and shared familial bonds in an area known as Lenapehoking ,
5500-405: The Turtle or Wolf clans. His children would not belong to the Turkey Clan, but to the mother's clan. As such, a person's mother's brothers (the person's matrilineal uncles) played a large role in his or her life as they shared the same clan lineage. Within a marriage itself, men and women had relatively separate and equal rights, each controlling their own property and debts, showing further signs of
5600-409: The United States. The freight was ferried across by the competing railroads with small fleets of towboats , barges, and 323 car floats , specially designed barges with rails so cars could be rolled on. New York subsidized this service which undercut rival ports. Major road improvements allowing for trucking and containerization diminished the need. The harbor saw major federal investment at the end of
5700-421: The area from 1634 to 1644, described a Lenape hunt in the valley of the Achinigeu-hach (or Ackingsah-sack, the Hackensack River ), in which 100 or more men stood in a line many paces from each other, beating thigh bones on their palms to drive animals to the river, where they could be killed easily. Other methods of hunting included lassoing and drowning deer, as well as forming a circle around prey and setting
5800-403: The area of present-day Washington Valley in Morris County, New Jersey . Led by Reverend John Brainerd, colonists forcefully relocated 200 people to Indian Mills, then known as Brotherton , an industrial town with gristills and sawmills, that was the first Native American reservation in New Jersey . Reverend John Brainerd abandoned the reservation in 1777. In 1758, the Treaty of Easton
5900-465: The area, and Swedish sources called the Lenape the Renappi . The historical Lenape country, Lenapehoking ( Lënapehòkink ), was a large territory that encompassed the Delaware and Lehigh Valley regions of eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey from the north bank of the Lehigh River along the west bank of the Delaware River into Delaware and the Delaware Bay . Their lands also extended west from western Long Island and New York Bay , across
6000-436: The area. Beginning in the 18th century, the Moravian Church established missions in Lenape settlements. The Moravians required the Christian converts to share Moravian pacifism and live in a structured and European-style mission village. Moravian pacifism and unwillingness to take loyalty oaths caused conflicts with British colonial authorities, who were seeking aid against the French and their Native American allies in
6100-455: The bay itself. The earliest, at Sandy Hook, was built in colonial times. In New Jersey : In New York : Within Lower New York Bay: There are two small artificial islands in Lower New York Bay, both located a mile offshore from South Beach, Staten Island . In the early 20th century, both islands were used as a quarantine station, housing immigrants found to have been carrying contagious diseases when they landed at Ellis Island . At
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#17328384006986200-431: The brush on fire. They also harvested vast quantities of fish and shellfish from the bays of the area, and, in southern New Jersey, harvested clams year-round. One technique used while fishing was to add ground chestnuts to stream water to make fish dizzy and easier to catch. The success of these methods allowed the tribe to maintain a larger population than other, nomadic hunter-gatherer peoples in North America at
6300-447: The causes of Lenape resentment. The British asked Sir William Johnson , Superintendent of Indian Affairs, to lead the investigation. Johnson had become wealthy as a trader and acquired thousands of acres of land in the Mohawk River region from the Iroquois Mohawk of New York. In 1757, an organization known as the New Jersey Association for Helping the Indians wrote a constitution to expel native Munsee Lenape from their settlements in
6400-508: The century when Congress passed the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 . Over $ 1.2 million of initial funding was appropriated for the dredging of 40-foot-deep (12.2 m) channels at Bay Ridge , Red Hook , and Sandy Hook . The Statue of Liberty ( Liberty Enlightening the World ) stands on Liberty Island in the harbor, while the nearby main port of entry at Ellis Island processed 12 million arrivals from 1892 to 1954. The Statue of Liberty National Monument , encompassing both islands, recalls
6500-403: The channel to nearly 100 feet (30 m), was begun in April 2012. The harbor contains several islands including Governors Island , near the mouth of the East River, as well Ellis Island , Liberty Island , and Robbins Reef which are supported by a large underwater reef on the New Jersey side of the harbor. The reef was historically one of the largest oyster beds in the world and provided
6600-427: The colony, and had abandoned many of William Penn 's practices. In an attempt to raise money, they contemplated ways to sell Lenape land to colonial settlers, which culminated in the Walking Purchase . In the mid-1730s, colonial administrators produced a draft of a land deed dating to the 1680s. William Penn had approached several leaders of Lenape polities in the lower Delaware to discuss land sales further north. Since
6700-505: The completion in 1825 of the Erie Canal New York became the most important transshipping port between Europe and the interior of the United States, as well as coastwise destinations. By about 1840, more passengers and a greater tonnage of cargo came through the port of New York than all other major harbors in the country combined and by 1900 it was one of the great international ports. The Morris Canal carried anthracite and freight from Pennsylvania through New Jersey to its terminus at
6800-414: The dead since the wars outnumbered those killed during the war. In April 1763, Teedyuscung was killed during the burning of his home. His son Captain Bull responded by attacking settlers, sponsored by the Susquehanna Company, in the present-day Wyoming Valley region of Pennsylvania.. Many Lenape joined in Pontiac's War and were among the Native Americans who besieged present-day Pittsburgh. During
6900-423: The difficulty of the navigation required, since 1694, New York had required all ships to be guided into the harbor by an experienced pilot. The new channel Gedney discovered was 2 feet (0.61 m) deeper, enough of an added margin that fully laden ships could come into the harbor even at slack tide. Gedney's Channel, as it came to be called, was also shorter than the previous channel, another benefit appreciated by
7000-581: The early 1770s, missionaries, including David Zeisberger and John Heckewelder , arrived in the Ohio Country near the Lenape villages. The Moravian Church sent these men to convert the Indigenous peoples to Christianity. The missionaries established several missions, including Gnadenhutten , Lichtenau , and Schoenbrunn . The missionaries pressured Indigenous people to abandon their traditional customs , beliefs, and ways of life, and to replace them with European and Christian ways. Many Lenape did adopt Christianity, but others refused to do so. The Lenape became
7100-426: The end of the 17th century, each of which historically had twelve sub-clans: The Lenape have a matrilineal clan system and historically were matrilocal . Children belong to their mother's clan, from which they gain social status and identity. The mother's eldest brother was more significant as a mentor to the male children than was their father, who was generally of another clan. Hereditary leadership passed through
7200-580: The fact that Orient Overseas Investment Limited , a company dominated by a Chinese Communist official, has the operating contract for Howland Hook Marine Terminal . An additional concern is the U.S. Customs "green lane" program, in which trusted shippers have fewer containers inspected, providing easier access for contraband material. The water quality in New York Harbor has been affected by centuries of shipping activity, industrial development and urbanization . Water pollution from these sources has been
7300-502: The glow of city lights, and attacked with relative impunity, in spite of U.S. naval concentrations within the Harbor. Casualties included the tankers Coimbria off Sandy Hook and Norness off Long Island. New York Harbor, as the major convoy embarkation point for the U.S., was effectively a staging area in the Battle of the Atlantic , with the U.S. Merchant Marine losses of 1 of 26 mariners,
7400-459: The green isles which rise from its bosom, like guardian centinels of the fair city, the setting sun stretched his horizontal beams farther and farther at each moment, as if to point out to us some new glory in the landscape. In 1824 the first American drydock was completed on the East River. Because of its location and depth, the Port grew rapidly with the introduction of steamships ; and then with
7500-423: The kind more beautiful than the harbour of New York. Various and lovely are the objects which meet the eye on every side, but the naming them would only be to give a list of words, without conveying the faintest idea of the scene. I doubt if ever the pencil of Turner could do it justice, bright and glorious as it rose upon us. We seemed to enter the harbour of New York upon waves of liquid gold, and as we darted past
7600-445: The land in question did not belong to their polities, the talks did not lead to an agreement. But colonial administrators prepared the draft that resurfaced in the 1730s. The Penns and their supporters presented this draft as a legitimate deed, but Lenape leaders in the lower Delaware refused to accept it. According to historian Steven C. Harper , what followed was a "convoluted sequence of deception, fraud, and extortion orchestrated by
7700-463: The land, the houses, and the families, the clan fathers provided the meat, cleared the fields, built the houses, and protected the clan. Upon reaching adulthood, a Lenape male would marry outside of his clan . The practice effectively prevented inbreeding, even among individuals whose kinship was obscure or unknown. This means that a male from the Turkey Clan was expected to marry a female from either
7800-579: The last decades of the 18th century, European settlers and the effects of the American Revolutionary War displaced most Lenape from their homelands and pushed them north and west. In the 1860s, under the Indian removal policy, the U.S. federal government relocated most Lenape remaining in the Eastern United States to the Indian Territory and surrounding regions. Lenape people currently belong to
7900-459: The maternal line, and women elders could remove leaders of whom they disapproved. Agricultural land was managed by women and allotted according to the subsistence needs of their extended families. Newlywed couples would live with the bride's family, where her mother and sisters could also assist her with her growing family. By 1682, when William Penn arrived to his American commonwealth, the Lenape had been so reduced by disease, famine, and war that
8000-454: The modern Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge 's approach viaduct in Brooklyn. He also observed what he believed to be a large freshwater lake to the north (apparently Upper New York Bay). He apparently did not travel north to observe the existence of the Hudson River. In 1609 Henry Hudson entered the Harbor and explored a stretch of the river that now bears his name. His journey prompted others to explore
8100-566: The mouth of the Hudson in Jersey City . Portions in the harbor are now part of Liberty State Park . In 1870, the city established the Department of Docks to systematize waterfront development, with George B. McClellan as the first engineer in chief. By the turn of the 20th century numerous railroad terminals lined the western banks of the North River (Hudson River) in Hudson County, New Jersey , transporting passengers and freight from all over
8200-588: The north and west such as the Susquehannocks and Confederation of the Iroquois became comparatively well-armed. They defeated the Lenape, and some scholars believe that the Lenape may have become tributaries to the Susquehannock. After the warfare, the Lenape referred to the Susquehannock as "uncles". The Iroquois Confederacy added the Lenape to the Covenant Chain in 1676 and the Lenape were tributary to
8300-451: The northeastern portion of the Bay from the Narrows to Sandy Hook is known as the Lower Bay (named in relation to the neighboring Upper [New York] Bay); roughly the western portion of the Bay (including the portion at the mouth of New Jersey's Raritan River ) is called Raritan Bay ; and roughly the southeastern portion of the Bay (that is, the portion south and the portion southwest from Sandy Hook)
8400-422: The nuts of Aesculus glabra in the pocket for rheumatism , and an infusion of ground nuts mixed with sweet oil or mutton tallow for earaches. They also grind the nuts and use them to poison fish in streams. They also apply a poultice of pulverized nuts with sweet oil for earache. The first recorded European contact with people presumed to have been the Lenape was in 1524. The explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano
8500-675: The other slightly forwards then backwards, yet so as to advance gradually". A number of linear measures were used. Small units of measure were the distance from the thumb and first finger, and the distance from first finger to pit of elbow. Travel distance was measured in the distance one could comfortably travel from sun-up to sun-down. Lenape herbalists , who have been primarily women, use their extensive knowledge of plant life to help heal their community's ailments, sometimes through ceremony. The Lenape found uses in trees like black walnut which were used to cure ringworm and with persimmons which were used to cure ear problems. The Lenape carry
8600-543: The period of massive immigration to the United States at the turn of the 20th century While many stayed in the region, others spread across America, with more than 10 million leaving from the nearby Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal . After the war, the 1919 New York City Harbor Strike by the Marine Workers Union shut down the port for weeks. It started on January 9 and was paused on January 13 for arbitration. The strike resumed March 4 after workers rejected
8700-484: The region and engage in trade with the local population. The first permanent European settlement was started on Governors Island in 1624, and in Brooklyn eight years after that; soon these were connected by ferry operation. The colonial Dutch Director-General of New Netherland , Peter Stuyvesant , ordered construction of the first wharf on the Manhattan bank of the lower East River sheltered from winds and ice, which
8800-478: The same dialect, and finally, with those in the surrounding area who spoke mutually comprehensible languages, including the Nanticoke people who lived to their south and west in present western Delaware and eastern Maryland . Among many Algonquian peoples along the East Coast , the Lenape were considered the grandfathers from whom other Algonquian -speaking peoples originated. The Lenape had three clans at
8900-468: The ship owners and the merchants they sold to. Gedney received the praise of the city, as well as an expensive silver service . In her 1832 book Domestic Manners of the Americans , Fanny Trollope wrote of her impressions upon entering New York Harbor for the first time: I have never seen the bay of Naples , I can therefore make no comparison, but my imagination is incapable of conceiving any thing of
9000-598: The start of World War II the United States Merchant Marine used both islands as a training station (which opened in 1938); the Quonset huts built during this period still stand on Swinburne Island. The other major use for the two islands during World War II were as anchorages for antisubmarine nets that fenced off New York Bay from the Atlantic Ocean to keep enemy submarines out. Both islands are now part of Gateway National Recreation Area . Fort Lafayette
9100-412: The sub-clan mothers had reluctantly resolved to consolidate their families into the main clan family. This is why William Penn and all those after him believed that the Lenape clans had always only had three divisions (Turtle, Turkey, and Wolf) when, in fact, they had over thirty on the eve of European contact. Members of each clan were found throughout Lenape territory, and while clan mothers controlled
9200-447: The time, could support. Scholars have estimated that at the time of European settlement, around much of the current New York City area alone, there may have been about 15,000 Lenape in approximately 80 settlement sites. In 1524, Lenape in canoes met Giovanni da Verrazzano , the first European explorer to enter New York Harbor . European settlers and traders from the 17th-century colonies of New Netherland and New Sweden traded with
9300-459: The transaction (not that they wanted to "share" the land). After the Dutch arrival and brief establishment of Fort Nassau (along the bank of the Delaware River in present day Gloucester City, New Jersey ) in the 1620s, the Lenape were successful in restricting Dutch settlement until the 1660s to no further than Pavonia in present-day Jersey City along the Hudson. The Dutch finally established
9400-479: The various harbor regions, although there has been a general lowering trend in total nitrogen, and some other indicator parameters show improvements. The implementation of the Clean Water Act and related pollution control laws, along with cleanup programs and conservation measures throughout the region, have begun to yield some improvements since the 1970s. The study authors state that "the New York Harbor ecosystem
9500-566: The war. When the war began, Killbuck found the Lenape caught between the British and their Indian allies in the West and the Americans in the East. The Lenape were living in numerous villages around their main village of Coshocton , between the western frontier strongholds of the British and the Patriots. The Americans had Fort Pitt (present-day Pittsburgh) and the British, along with Indian allies, controlled
9600-649: Was completed late in 1648 and called Schreyers Hook Dock (near what is now Pearl and Broad Streets). This prepared New York as a leading port for the British colonies and then within the newly independent United States . In 1686, the British colonial officials gave the municipality control over the waterfront. In 1835, Lieutenant Thomas Gedney of the Survey of the Coast (renamed the United States Coast Survey in 1836 and
9700-408: Was greeted by local Lenape who came by canoe, after his ship entered what is now called Lower New York Bay . At the time of sustained European contact in the 17th through the 19th centuries, the Lenape were a powerful Native American nation who inhabited a region on the mid-Atlantic coast spanning the latitudes of southern Massachusetts to the southern extent of Delaware in what anthropologists call
9800-719: Was on a small island in the Narrows, just off the Brooklyn shore. That island was removed during construction of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge . Coney Island , originally separated from the southern shore of Brooklyn by a narrow strait, has since been connected to the main part of Long Island by landfill, and is now a peninsula despite its name. 40°31′00″N 74°02′59″W / 40.51667°N 74.04972°W / 40.51667; -74.04972 Lenape The Lenape ( English: / l ə ˈ n ɑː p i / , /- p eɪ / , / ˈ l ɛ n ə p i / ; Lenape languages : [lənaːpe] ), also called
9900-530: Was severely diminished. The water quality of the bay began to improve with the passage of the 1972 Clean Water Act . The main shipping channel through Lower New York Bay is the Ambrose Channel , 2,000 feet (600 meters) wide and dredged to a depth of 40 feet (12 meters). The channel is navigable by ships with up to a 37-foot draft at low tide. The entrance to the Ambrose Channel was marked for many years by
10000-403: Was signed between the Lenape and European colonists. In it, the Lenape were required to move westward out of present-day New York and New Jersey, progressing into Pennsylvania and then to present-day Ohio and beyond. Through the 18th century, many Lenape moved west into the relatively depopulated upper Ohio River basin, but they also sporadically launched violent raids on settlers far outside
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