Perth Amboy evening news., 1921-06-10
DEVELOPING THE WATER FRONT

Dredging a channel in Jamaica bay for the
development of that section as a port was
started Monday of this week. New York made
quite a time over the event. Mayor Hylan was
present when the dredger started work and
made a speech predicting great things for the
future Of Jamaica bay. Other city %oficials
spoke along similar lines. The machinery was
started by the fourteen-year-old daughter of
Dock Commissioner Murray Hubert.
The Jamaica bay development consists of
opening a new stretch of water front providing
accommodation for twenty-five miles of piers,
and deepening and extending the channel so
that ocean liners can pass. At the same time,
thousands of acres of meadows and swamp
lands, now practically valueless, will be opened
for the construction of factories.
Wednesday morning, without any brass band
or other ceremonial accompaniment" as the
Newark News put it, the actual task OF con-
verting Newark bay and the city-owned mead
ows into a port for the largest ocean-going
steamers got under way. According TO the
Newark News, the work that was thus begun
will cost the city of Newark $s72,459.35, and
will give to Newark a thirty-one-foot channel
zoo feet wide, from Port Newark to the XIII
Won Kull; will widen the inland channel by
200 feet, and will provide a series of docks and
bulkheads south of the inland channel on land
that is now in It's original marshy state.
And what is all this to Perth Amboy and the
rest of the Raritan bay section?
1t means that sections Of the port of New
York not nearly so favorable for shipping as
Raritan bay are forging ahead carrying out vast
development projects while here as far as har-
49, Sn,yaJnnp,apf To pOnparnad. we continue TO
sleep the sleep of the past 200 years. So often
is heard the argumen that when shipping
wants to come to Perth Amboy it will be time
enough to spend millions of dollars developing
the harbor. For the present. 1t is claimed. there
is ample room to care for all the vessels else
where,
This narrow, short-sighted argument is hard
ly worth noticing. If there is ample room
elsewhere for ships, why are millions OF dollars
being spent to make a port of Jamaica bay.
located, as 1t is, away down on Long Island rf
from all the great trans-continental trunk
lines? Why does Newark find it advantageous
to spend millions Of dollars of its own money
developing a port out OF the shallow land
locked Newark bay If there is no demand for
space?
There are no vessels lying outside Jamaica
bay waiting for the first opportunity to enter
harbor to dock at the new piers which are
to be built there. Jamaica bay boosters did not
wait until steamships owners and shippers came
to them begging that a place be provided for
them to dock their vessels. The Jamaica pay
people have vision enough to see the greatly
increased commerce of the future and they are
to get their share Of 1t. They see
an already over-crowded port and they are pre-
paring to make the most of 1t.
Raritan bay offers a much better port Tor all
kinds of shipping than Jamaica bay. Rarltan
is far superior to Newark bay for accom-
ocean liners. Here we have, open
fairway leading direct to the open sea not
twenty miles away; here we have ample dock
ing space and k line railroads directly on
the shore. Our channels. aready deep enough to
accommodate ordinary shipping and the smaller
ocean liners, needs only to have a few high
snots taken out of it and the bend off Wards
point broadened in order to accommodate any
thing that floats.
Perth Amboy needs some big men with d
vision to take hold of this one great project
and start something doing. We have made Won
derful progress as it is, but the progress we
have made would be as nothing compared to
the metropolis of the future If our harbor and
waterfront were taken hold of and developed
in the right way.