I'

T is a matter of frequent remark that in some respects New York is one of the most backwards of ports. One particular in which New York is regarded as notoriously backward is in the utilization of labor-saving machinery for the handling of general cargoes. All other great ports of the world--particularly the most modern ones-pride themselves on the advanced character of their mechanical equipment for the transshipment of general cargoes, to and from piers, and into and out of warehouses, and, into and out of vessels. Not only is this so, but New York takes a sort of negative pride in its "freedom" from machinery on the piers and in the warehouses in handling cargoes of ships arriving and departing. As New York pays the highest rates for labor employed in loading and unloading ships that are paid anywhere in the world for such service, the cost of transshipping cargoes here helps to make of New York a dear or expensive port, when in fact it could and should be one of the cheapest ports in the world.

A Port of New York Authority Matter We now have in being our Port of New York Authority, whose jurisdiction extends to all parts of the Port of New York, and where, soon, its activities will be more concretely in evidence than hitherto they have been. Unquestionably this commission has given much thought to the freight handling machinery facilities the Port of New York should enjoy, but does not. It will, unquestionably, be aligned on the side of modern progress, and disposed to lend a willing ear to all suggestions of greater efficiency and economy in the handling of freight within the port.

A Study a Dozen Years Ago There is a great deal of truth in the charges made against New York in respect to its backwardness in the adoption, more generally, of labor-saving machinery on the piers; but this is not altogether due to indifference, nor to a lack of knowledge of the arguments that have sufficed to induce users of wharves in other parts of the world to install them with machinery for doing the kind of work that is done by hand at New York in connection with the loading and unloading of ships. This is a subject that was pretty thoroughly investigated by two thoroughly competent engineers a dozen years ago, the findings of these experts having been published as a document of the Department of Docks of the City of New York, and bearing date of Dec. 23, 1912. Facilities affecting freight handling have changed very little since then in the Port of New York. The engineers who made the study and who prepared the report were the late B. F. Cresson, Jr., at that time first deputy Commissioner of Docks, and by Charles

W. Staniford, at that time Chief Engineer of the Department of Docks. The report is not a long one, but it is very copiously illustrated with views of freight handling machinery in use in the Port of New York, as of a dozen or more years ago, and it serves to show how little informed the people of New York then were or now are regarding either the extent or the character of such machinery in different parts of this great port. The very bigness of the Port of New York, and the remoteness of various points in it from a general center, such as the City Hall, New York City, helps to submerge, as it were, the extent and type of such machinery.

It will be well to consider for a moment some of the things said by Messrs. Cresson and Staniford, so that through them we may learn how it is that New York gets along without the modern machinery so conspicuous in the equipment of more modern ports.

"The criticism," they say, "has been made that New York Harbor lacks modern methods of loading and discharging vessels. European engineers have pointed with pride to their great traveling cranes and derricks, rolling towers, etc., installed along the quays and pier sides at European ports, a notable case being the "Kuhwaerder" dock at Hamburg where one hundred and thirty-four great traveling cranes frown upon the harbor's shipping like the great guns of a fortress. European engineers have also criticized American methods of handling freight. To what extent this criticism is justified by the facts, is a question upon which shipping men differ and many authorities lean to the opinion that American methods are no more expensive than those in vogue in Europe, when consideration is given to the cost, maintenance and depreciation of plant, difference in rate of pay of labor, the number of working hours of the dock laborer and the difference in railroad rolling stock. Many authorities state that cargo is handled as rapidly in America, if not more so, than in Europe, particularly when sorting is required, which is nearly always the case with American freight, be it transatlantic, coastwise, railroad or general."

Still A Report Deserving Study

This report places before freight handling machinery men, if they will study it, the arguments that seem sufficient to prevent users of piers at the port of New York equipping them with labor-saving machinery for the handling of general cargoes, why it is that they are satisfied with the more simple methods in vogue at this port, and the degree of efficiency achieved thereby in the loading and unloading of ships. It will pay them to study with great care all that is said in this

report, which is brought together in compact form, and the arguments in favor of present methods were so strong as to satisfy these expert engineers that they were better adapted to New York's requirements than the more expensive machinery so much the vogue in European ports.

"For the handling of commodities in bulk," say this report, "New York harbor is probably better equipped than European ports. Great installations of the most modern and effective types of machinery for handling coal, grain, etc., in bulk will be found in the various railroad terminals, at the power plants of the electric lighting companies and manufacturing establishments. It is interesting to note further that the catalogues of American manufacturers of machinery show illustrations of many American hoists and conveying machinery which have been installed by them in European countries."

Here is something else the report says that should be borne in mind:

"A trip along the immense waterfront of the North River, East River, Long Island Sound, the Staten Island and New Jersey shore, will show the observer that many types of freight-handling machinery or apparatus used in the old world are in use in New York harbor. There is, however, a notable difference in location or the placing of these mechanical devices. Where cranes, derricks, elevators, coal pockets, either movable or stationary, are found, they are not installed at great expense in what may be termed batteries extending along the water front or adjacent thereto where their greater reach and capacity are required for a definite function, as, for example-handling heavy bulk at railroad terminals, power plants, manufactories, coal plants, machine shops, etc."

Assorting and Distributing Machinery Needed It is pointed out that conditions at European ports are different from what they are here, in certain respects; that cranes and derricks, over there, do what ship's winches and dock winches, with the block and tackle, do over here; and it is shown too, the extent to which the conformation of the waterways that form the port of New York lend themselves to the loading and unloading of large quantities of freight from and to lighters, barges and other harbor craft. There is both in Europe and in this country, the report points out, a lack of machinery to overcome the cost of assorting and distributing cargo over pier deck or quay area, the expense of which is a large factor in transshipments. The report very briefly but clearly points out the manner in which freight is handled under the different classifications of marine shipping, such as transatlantic for package freight, as distinct from the bulk cargo carrier, or "tramp"; the West Indian and South American service, coastwise service; river, harbor and Sound lines for passengers and freight; as well as the general harbor transportation business, including all types of lighters, barges, canal boats, railroad car-floats, floating grain elevators, coal loaders, etc.

What New York Has Should Be Studied No attempt to persuade wharf users at the port of New York more generally to use freight handling machinery, as, for example, in the movement of general cargoes into and out of ships and onto and off piers and quays, or bulkheads, will be successful unless there is a thorough knowledge and appreciation of what seem, at the present time, to be "satisfactory” conditions, lacking such machinery, at this port. The equivalent of structural steel bridges, or skeletons of them, extending along the upper edge of the sheds on

our more modern piers afford opportunity for pulleys and blocks at any point required for the facilities of the loading of ships the power for which is obtained from winches on the ships and on the piers. Note the following observation in the report of Messrs. Cresson and Staniford:

"Foreign engineers and others who have at first commented upon the inadequate methods of handling cargoes in New York harbor, when our methods have been drawn to their attention have usually expressed surprise, and later great interest in the excellence of methods employed here. It is significant also that in constructing piers in this country by some of the foreign steamship lines, they have equipped these piers with cargo hoists and portable winches in preference to installing dock cranes, such as have been provided them by the port authorities at their terminals in Europe.'

Unpalatable as such statements as these must be to freight handling machinery men, they must be carefully considered, and facts and arguments marshalled to show wherein and the extent to which freight handling machinery can and should be used at this port in place of the simpler mechanical devices already referred to and in place of hand labor. The peculiarities of construction of our coastwise and nearby foreign-going ships, with their numerous decks, and their numerous hatches as well as their side ports, and the manner in which hand trucks and electric trucks are used in the between decks as well as upon the piers, are pointed out in this report.

In The Transshipment of Railroad Freight In the matter of railroad freight, which comes to New York in carfloats, and is hand-trucked from the cars on the different floats to the bulkheads, sometimes for distances of seven hundred feet, there is room for great labor-saving cost through the substitution of some more efficient, (probably some effective machinery) labor-saving devices. At the great marine terminals, such as at Bush's and others like it, the absence of freight handling machinery for general cargo is fully explained, and it is shown that those in control of these terminals have for years been looking for mechanical methods of handling freight that will prove as efficient, as flexible and as economical as the portable electric winches on the docks, and the ships' winches, with their block and tackle and whips which handle the freight in slings and nets.

That Messrs. Cresson and Staniford mean to be fair in their statements and conclusions there can be no doubt. Notwithstanding all that they say commendatory of the more simple methods of handling freight on our piers and in our sheds, they say this:

"There can be no question that the time has come for a more extended use of economical means of cargo handling. The loss in money due to delays, caused by the congestion on piers, bulkheads, etc., with present methods, is enormous. A reduction in cost of handling after reaching the pier of only two cents a ton would result in an annual saving of half a million dollars on the foreign commerce alone."

Machinery In Use In New York Harbor Compressed within four or five pages the report from which I have extensively quoted contains statements from officials in charge of marine terminals interviewed on the spot by these experts, including the Bush Terminal, New York Dock, Old Dominion S. S. Co., Mallory and Clyde Lines, the railroad piers on both sides of the Hudson River, and such concerns as the Corn Products Co. and Midland Linseed Oil Co.

The illustrations, which are profuse, show travelling cranes installed at the Greenville terminal of the Pennsylvania railroad; the traveling direct unloader, with movable booms, independent hoists, trolley and A. C. electric motors on the West Shore dock at Weehawken; the 20-ton gantry crane on the D. L. & W. pier at Hoboken; the 30-ton locomotive crane in use for freight handling on the Erie Railroad pier at Weehaken; locomotive crane for freight handling on another Erie pier at Weehawken; stationary crane with trolley fall at the Pennsylvania yard at Hoboken; locomotive cranes at Hoboken pier No. 4, D. L. & W., at Brooklyn Rapid Transit Co.'s pier at the foot of 65th Street, Brooklyn, and at the Tidewater Pager Mills Co.'s pier at the foot of 30th Street, South Brooklyn; the traveling coal hoister and cable railway at Constable Hook; traveling locomotive crane of the B. & O. Railroad at St. George, Staten Island; lifting tower and belt conveyors of the J. B. King Co. in Richmond Borough; coal hoists, coal unloaders, and ash conveyors in the service of the Interborough Rapid Transit Co., the recital of which does not mention even half of those vividly presented through striking photographs.

But what has been said should not discouragerather it should encourage-manufacturers of freight handling machinery. To find that the Port of New York is much better and much more extensively

equipped with labor-saving machinery for handling cargoes should reinforce, and not combat, their arguments as to the greater utility of machinery for the handling of general cargoes. But they should carefully study the data accumulated through years of investigation into freight handling machinery by the concerns quoted, and carefully weigh the reasons given for its non-use at their terminals, so as to present convincing arguments in favor of such machinery precisely where it is not, but should be, in use in this port, notably on piers where general cargoes are handled.

Essential Importance of Port of New York

This is something that should also be borne in mind: The Port of New York is essential to modern requirements in the handling of waterborne freight-the world cannot get along, without the greatest inconvenience and loss, without the Port of New York. It can pile expense upon expense, its charges may be high, exorbitant, even extortionate-nevertheless the world must pay for what New York furnishes in the way of port facilities, because it must utilize them. It is up to precisely such people as freight handling machinery makers, therefore, possessing the instrumentalities for reducing the expenses of handling freight in the Port of New York, to persist in their praiseworthy endeavors to commit the port, more generally and much more extensively, as recommended by Messrs.

Cresson and Staniford, to the adoption of labor-saving machinery, in order thus to reduce the expense. New York can be, and therefore it should be, one of the cheapest ports in all the world for the transshipment and general handling of freight. One of the greatest factors in accomplishing this is freight handling machinery. Its general use is bound to come. But, manifestly, it will not come of itself; it must be skilfully accelerated. Freight handling machinery makers must make their influence felt, their knowledge and experience in the use of freight handling machinery must be capitalized for the benefit of New York's waterborne commerce and, especially, in behalf of the ultimate consumer-that most patient of burden bearers!

Special Study of Port's Needs Required New York, it should be remembered, is the greatest port in the world, in the value of its commerce, and in the number and tonnage of its ships. Its area is enormous. The diversity of its interests is the effect of these conditions. What it would be comparatively inexpensive to do in a newly started or as yet only partly developed port, would be tremendously costly to New York. An example is worth noting: when the Department of Docks was established, fifty years ago, the engineering judgment of that day caused those in control of Manhattan's waterfront to adopt a policy of divorcing the waterfront from the adjacent upland. Not only a wide street intervened between the piers and the usable upland, but this gap was increased by the establishment of a marginal way of even greater width, so that the combined street and marginal way effectively prevent direct transshipment between ships and warehouses, as is so general in other parts of the world, and so promotive of economy and efficiency. There has been no development worth speaking of on the nearest commercially available upland facing these wharves; on the contrary, the tumble-down, dilapidated and archaic condition of that upland is notori ous. But, to attempt to alter it, it is shown, would be so costly an undertaking as to appall everyone who seriously looks into its possibilities. Having begun wrong on Manhattan's waterfront, seemingly Manhattan is doomed to continue wrong, in a great fundamental of port coordination. When we realize that the most costly and valuable waterfront in the entire Port of New York has had a perverted development, we are able to realize, perhaps dimly, how difficult it is to raise the Manhattan section of the Port of New York to the position among the other ports of the world where it will be in step with such important progressive economic changes as the substitution of less costly and more efficient mechanical methods for hand methods now in vogue in the transshipment of general freight.

It should also be borne in mind that there will, probably during the next decade, be a complete change in the piers below Gansevoort Street, on the North River side of Manhattan, where it is planned, progressively, to substitute 18 modern piers with wide slips, for the 32 narrow piers and narrow slips now in use. Here is where freight handling machinery, if of greater efficiency and economy than hand labor, should be demonstrated.

Port Newark's Splendid Development Latterly the New Jersey side of the Port of New York's development has received greater attention. than ever before, as witness the splendid results achieved by the City of Newark at its Port Newark. Jersey City Getting In Line

Having allowed the control of its Hudson River

waterfront to pass out of its possession, where five miles of the most valuable wharfage in the entire port is denied to marine commerce, Jersey City is undertaking large improvements on the shores of Newark Bay and Hackensack River, on the west side of the city. The channel of the Hackensack from its mouth where it empties into Newark Bay for a considerable distance northward is being deepened in a manner to accommodate the vessels that desire to reach the great industrial plants already located and to be located there. Here is a fine opportunity to bring to the attention of those in charge of and the immediate beneficiaries of this development the superior value of mechanical over manual power for handling general freight, and special freight. Properly undertaken it is likely that success will crown such efforts. What is

needed most in the Port of New York is a concrete demonstration of the superiority of mechanical over manual labor in freight handling, and this is one of the most effective ways of accomplishing it.

Hoboken and Weehawken

Vast wharf construction recently was planned at Weehawken, notably by the Cunard Line and the Luckenbachs, but the high cost of such construction at the present time has prevented it. But when that section of the port is improved it will offer a fine opportunity for demonstrations of the greater efficiency of freight handling machinery, and its greater economy,

too.

Bayonne Is Only Marking Time

Bayonne has long been looked upon as one of the most attractive locations in the Port of New York for marine terminal development upon a large scale, like that of the Bush Terminal, at Brooklyn, but on a larger and more efficient scale because lighterage is largely eliminated, or will be, at Bayonne, and, too, there are opportunities for transferring direct from ship to car and vice versa. Here, then, will be another opportunity for a demonstration of the superior advantages of freight handling machinery.

Jamaica Bay

Then there is Jamaica Bay, the original plan of its development into a great sub-port involving an expenditure of over seventy million dollars. Here on the great wharves, or quays, it is planned to construct in the near future, will be still another place within the Port of New York where demonstrations of the efficiency and economy of freight handling machinery may be made.

Bronx

No one knows when the natural facilities for the handling of ships and their freight and passengers on the east side of the Bronx will be availed of, in the ever-growing needs of the Port of New York. already far-seeing capitalists, one being no less a personage than Robert Dollar, have here acquired acres of land for marine terminal development, but the undertaking of which has not yet started. It is a place, however, for freight handling machinery men to keep their weather eyes lifting toward.

Flushing Bay

Not yet, but perhaps soon, Flushing Bay, one of the most commodious sub-harbors of the Port of New York, and directly across the East River from the Bronx, will be developed, and one of the big features of its development will be the construction of a series of a score or more of wharves, plans for which long ago were prepared by our dock department. This location, of course, will offer a field for the salesmanship of makers of freight handling machinery.