The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger (47 page)

11.
The original proposals for the Waterfront Commission came from the Dewey-appointed New York State Crime Commission and from the Port Authority. See State of New York,
Record of the Public Hearing Held by
Governor Thomas E. Dewey on the Recommendations of the New York State Crime Commission for Remedying Conditions on the Waterfront of the Port of New York
, June 8–9, 1953, and PNYA, “Comparison of Plans for Improvement of Waterfront Labor Conditions in the Port of New York,” January 29, 1953; A. H. Raskin, “C-Men on the Waterfront,”
NYT Magazine
, October 9, 1955, p. 15; letters from Lee K. Jaffe, director of public relations, PNYA, to Steve Allen, NBC Television, November 1, 1957, and from Daniel P. Noonan, director of Public Relations, Department of Marine and Aviation, to Steve Allen, October 31, 1957, Wagner Papers, Reel 40531, Frames 1920 and 1922. The film, a musical about a political campaign between rebels and old-line union leaders on the waterfront, was eventually shot on a privately owned pier.

12.
A pier inventory, compiled after some of the oldest had been demolished, can be found in New York City Planning Commission,
The Waterfront
(New York, 1971), p. 89; Cavanagh letter to Board of Inquiry; George Home, “City Action Seen on Port Program,”
NYT
, August 7, 1952; Austin J. Tobin, “Transportation in the New York Metropolitan Region during the Next Twenty-five Years” (New York, 1954), p. 7.

13.
A massive truck terminal in lower Manhattan, opened in 1932, was the main exception. See Doig,
Empire on the Hudson
, pp. 84–104 and 118–119.

14.
Wallace S. Sayre and Herbert Kaufman,
Governing New York City: Politics in the Metropolis
(New York, 1960), p. 341; cover letter in PNYA,
Marine Terminal Survey of the New Jersey Waterfront
(New York, 1949); Doig,
Empire on the Hudson
, pp. 259–260. A prominent article by Cullman published within nine months of the war’s end discussed the urgent need for improved port facilities and airports and noted the Port Authority’s success at carrying out large capital projects; the subheadline—written at a time when the agency had no responsibility whatsoever for ports or airports—was: “Now the Port Authority, with 25 years behind it, prepares for a new era of sea, land, and air traffic.” See “Our Port of Many Ports,”
NYT Magazine
, May 5, 1946, p. 12.

15.
John I. Griffin,
The Port of New York
(New York, 1959), p. 91; PNYA, “Proposal for Development”; Austin J. Tobin, statement to New York City Board of Estimate, July 19, 1948, Doig Files; PNYA,
Annual Report 1949
, p. 7; PNYA,
Marine Terminal Survey
, 5; Doig,
Empire on the Hudson
, pp. 353–354 and 538. As early as 1946, the city’s commissioner of marine and aviation was rejecting suggestions that the Port Authority should organize a port improvement campaign, commenting that “the Port Authority has nothing to do with the Port of New York, and has no authority in it.” See “Rejuvenated Port to Rise in Future,”
NYT
, November 23, 1946. The ILA’s role in opposition is noted in Joshua Freeman,
Working-Class New York
(New York, 2000), p. 161.

16.
PNYA, Weekly Report to Commissioners, April 5, 1952; “Betterments Set for Port Newark,”
NYT
, April 9, 1952; Charles Zerner, “Big Port Terminal Near Completion,”
NYT
, January 31, 1954; Edward P. Tastrom, “Newark Port to Start Operating New $6 Million Terminal Soon,”
JOC
, March 9, 1954; “Awaits Bid for Piers,”
Newark Evening News
, December 8, 1952; “Modernizing the Docks,”
New York World-Telegram
, December 9, 1952; “City’s Port Costs Show Blunder in Rejecting Authority’s Aid,”
Brooklyn Eagle
, December 17, 1952.

17.
McLean’s plans developed quickly enough that they became public within two or three months; see Raskin, “Union Head Backs ‘Sea-Land’ Trucks.” Tobin, “Transportation in the New York Metropolitan Area during the Next Twenty-five Years,” pp. 10–12.

18.
PNYA, Minutes of Committee on Port Planning, September 2, 1954, Meyner Papers, Box 43; PNYA, Minutes of the Commissioners, December 9, 1954, 232, Meyner Papers, Box 43; June 29, 1955, 216; October 26, 1955, 316 and 322, all in Meyner Papers, Box 44; PNYA,
Thirty-fifth Annual Report
, 1956, pp. 1–4.

19.
Press release, Office of the Governor, December 2, 1955; PNYA, Minutes of Committee on Port Planning, January 5, 1956, Meyner Papers, Box 44. The Port Authority’s previous view of Elizabeth’s potential was expressed at
Marine Terminal Survey
, p. 26, which discussed the potential for port development in Newark, Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, and North Bergen, but emphasized with italic type that the Elizabeth waterfront was best suited for
industrial
use.

20.
Newark share derived from data in PNYA,
Annual Report 1955
, p. 9, and PANYNJ,
Foreign Trade 1976.

21.
Chris McNickle,
To Be Mayor of New York: Ethnic Politics in the City
(New York, 1993), pp. 97–107; proposed 1954 capital budget, Wagner Papers, Reel 7709, Frame 1372; John J. Bennett, chairman, City Planning Commission, to Henry L. Epstein, deputy mayor, March 11, 1954, Wagner Papers, Reel 7709, Frame 1179; New York Department of Marine and Aviation, press release, August 24, 1955, Wagner Papers, Reel 40531, Frame 1220; Jensen,
Strife on the Waterfront
, p. 147; Wagner letter to City Planning Commission in Wagner Papers, Reel 40507, Frame 843.

22.
Cullman to Lukens, December 9, 1955; Lukens to file, December 12, 1955, in Doig Files.

23.
O’Connor address to New York Symposium on Increasing Port Efficiency, November 28, 1956, Wagner Papers, Reel 40531, Frame 1554; Department of Marine and Aviation, “Rebuilding New York City’s Water-front,” September 5, 1956, Wagner Papers, Reel 40531, Frames 1603–1639.

24.
The New York Council on Port Promotion and Development, established by the city, estimated in 1963 that handling general cargo cost $10 per ton in New York versus $5 per ton in Baltimore. Wagner Papers, Reel 40532, Frame 866; “Statement of Vincent A. G. O’Connor, Commissioner of Marine & Aviation, regarding Operation of Grace Line Terminal at Marine & Aviation Piers 57 and 58, North River,” Wagner Papers, Reel 40531, Frame 1268; O’Connor address to convention of ILA, July 11, 1955, Wagner Papers, Reel 40531, Frame 1314. Individual longshore gangs had established priority hiring rights on individual piers as “regular” and “regular extra” gangs, and the shift of a carrier from one pier to another could lead to violent disputes over priority status at the new location.

25.
Department of City Planning, Newsletter, November 1956, Wagner Papers, Reel 40507, Frame 1596; oral history interviews with Robert F. Wagner, May 21, 1988, Julius C. C. Edelstein, April 5, 1991, and Thomas Russell Jones, June 10, 1993, in LaGuardia and Wagner Archive, LaGuardia Community College, Queens, NY; McNickle,
To Be Mayor of New York
, p. 121; Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association, “Lower Manhattan” (1958), 6.

26.
Press release, September 4, 1957, Wagner Papers, Reel 40531, Frame 1945; press release, September 11, 1957, Wagner Papers, Reel 40531, Frame 1957; O’Connor statement at Board of Estimate capital budget hearing, November 18, 1958, Wagner Papers, Reel 40532, Frame 1149; interview with Guy F. Tozzoli, New York, January 13, 2004; letter from Howard S. Cullman and Donald V. Lowe to Mayor Wagner and the Board of Estimate, September 18, 1957, Wagner Papers, Reel 40531, Frame 1448; “Statement by Vincent A. G. O’Connor, Commissioner of Marine and Aviation, regarding Port of New York Authority’s Attack on Lease with Holland-America Line for $18,723,000 Terminal, New Pier 40, to Be Built at the Foot of West Houston Street, Manhattan,” September 19, 1957, Wagner Papers, Reel 40531, Frame 1936.

27.
James Felt, chairman, City Planning Commission, to O’Connor, September 23, 1959, Wagner Papers, Reel 40508, Frame 691; City of New York Department of City Planning, “Redevelopment of Lower Manhattan East River Piers,” September 1959, Wagner Papers, Reel 4058, Frame 693; Moses to Felt, September 29, 1959, Wagner Papers, Reel 40508, Frame 688; O’Connor to Board of Estimate, November 25, 1959, Wagner Papers, Reel 40531, Frame 2179. Moses, still a powerful figure in the city and the region during this period, appears to have had no interest in freight transportation. The port, maritime affairs, and freight transportation in general receive no mention in Robert A. Caro’s authoritative biography,
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
(New York, 1974), and Moses’s own memoir says nothing about shipping beyond the observation that, in the late 1940s, “[o]ur magnificent port was literally dying.” See Moses’s
Public Works: A Dangerous Trade
(New York, 1970), p. 894. According to Guy Tozzoli, who knew Moses for many years, Moses was very interested in autos and passenger transportation, but had no interest in port-related matters or in the freight-handling problems of New York businesses. Author’s interview, New York, January 13, 2004.

28.
Condit,
The Port of New York
, 2:346.

29.
U.S. Department of Commerce,
Annual Report of the Federal Maritime Board and Maritime Administration
, 1957 (Washington, DC, 1957), p. 12; PNYA, Minutes of the Commissioners, February 14, 1957, p. 98, Meyner Papers, Box 44; PNYA, Weekly Report to the Commissioners, November 15, 1965, Doig Files; “Full-Scale Container Ship Proves Itself,” 6; U.S. National Academy of Sciences,
Roll-On, Roll-Off Sea Transportation
(Washington, DC, 1957), p. 9; “Propeller Club Annual Convention,”
Marine Engineering/Log (November
1958), pp. 64–65.

30.
PNYA, “Report on Port Authority Operation of Port Newark & Newark Airport, January 1, 1960-December 31, 1960”; Chinitz,
Freight and the Metropolis
, p. 156.

31.
Elizabeth officiais protested that the Port Authority was violating a 1951 agreement that it would not condemn land in Elizabeth without the city’s consent. See PNYA, Weekly Report to the Commissioners, March 31, 1956; letter, Austin J. Tobin to Elizabeth mayor Nicholas LaCorte, May 21, 1956; New Jersey governor Robert B. Meyner to Elizabeth city attorney Jacob Pfeferstein, June 4, 1956; Memo, Francis A. Mulhearn, PNYA legal department to Tobin, June 29, 1956, all in Doig Files. On the differing reactions to the container, see PNYA, Minutes of Committee on Construction, March 26, 1958, Meyner Papers, Box 44; O’Connor address on Marine and Aviation Day, May 23, 1961, Wagner Papers, Reel 40532, Frame 325; “Creation of a Container Port,”
Via
—
Port of New York, Special Issue: Transatlantic Transport Preview
(1965), p. 31; Anthony J. Tozzoli and John S. Wilson, “The Elizabeth, N.J. Port Authority Marine Terminal,”
Civil Engineering
, January 1969, pp. 34–39.

32.
New York Department of Marine and Aviation, press release, January 23, 1961, Wagner Papers, Reel 40532, Frame 357; Remarks by Mayor Robert F. Wagner, August 30, 1962, Wagner Papers, Reel 40532, Frame 457; Walter Hamshar, “Face-Lift for the Waterfront,”
New York Herald Tribune
, November 2, 1963; “NY Port Development Scored,”
JOC
, December 23, 1963; New York City Planning Commission, “The Port of New York: Proposals for Development” (1964), pp. 8, 13, and plate 2; Minutes of New York City Council on Port Development and Promotion, November 18, 1963, Wagner Papers, Reel 40532, Frame 728; “Report on Recommendations by the Steering Committee to the Committee for Alleviating Truck Congestion and Delay at the Waterfront of the City of New York,” October 7, 1965, Wagner Papers, Reel 40532, Frame 978.

33.
King to Tobin, November 8, 1965; PNYA, Minutes of the Commissioners, November 10, 1965; PNYA, press release, November 15, 1965; PNYA, Minutes of the Commissioners, September 8, 1966; PNYA, transcript of “New Jersey Observations,” WNDT-TV, November 15, 1965, all in Doig files; “One Dispute at a Time,”
NYT
, July 12, 1966.

34.
PNYA,
Annual Report
, 1996, p. 14; First National City Bank, “The Port of New York: Challenge and Opportunity,” June 1967, pp. 27, 30;
Longshore News
, October-November 1966, p. 4,

35.
Edward C. Burks, “Jersey Facilities Set Port Agency Pace,”
NYT
, May 11, 1975; Edith Evans Asbury, “Port Agency Scored on Jersey Project,”
NYT
, July 17, 1966; PANYNJ,
Foreign Trade 1976
, p. 12.

36.
Brown to Lindsay, May 12, 1966, in Mayor John V. Lindsay Papers, NYMA, Reel 45087, Frame 1560; PNYA, “The 1970 Outlook for Deep Sea Container Services (New York, 1967),” p. 2; PNYA,
Container Shipping: Full Ahead
(New York, 1967); “Containers Widen Their World,”
Business Week, January 7
, 1967; George Home, “Container Revolution, Hailed by Many, Feared,”
NYT
, September 22, 1968; memo, Halberg to Brown, May 11, 1966, Lindsay Papers, Reel 45087, Frame 1561.

37.
Halberg to Deputy Mayor Robert W. Sweet, September 29, 1967, in Lindsay Papers, Department of Marine and Aviation, Reel 45087, Frame 1653;
Longshore News
, April 1967, p. 4, November 1967, p. 4, October 1968, p. 1, and October 1969, p. 1; Werner Bamberger, “A 90-Second Depot for Containerships Studied,”
NYT
, December 1, 1966; Paul F. Van Wicklen, “Elizabeth: The Port of New York’s Prototype for the Container Era” (manuscript prepared for
Ports and Terminals
, April 28, 1969); memo, Patrick F. Crossman, commissioner of economic development, to Lindsay, April 2, 1970, in Lindsay Papers, Confidential Subject Files, Reel 45208, Frame 707; Lindsay to Tobin, June 29, 1970, in Lindsay Papers, Confidential Subject Files, Reel 45208, Frame 668. The proposed vertical terminal for two thousand containers was developed by a New York company called Speed-Park Inc.; see R. D. Fielder, “Container Storage and Handling,”
Fairplay
, January 5, 1967, p. 31.