This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is our American stories, and we love telling you stories about our history,

because we think it's one of the most

important things we can share. Because of this, we love people who love history. Today, one of our

regular contributors tells us about the history of New York City in a way you've probably never heard.

Yeah. never heard. Manhattan, Manahatta, the Algonquins Island of Hills is 12.5 miles long and 2. half miles wide at its broadest point.

Every day, 1.5 million people ride its buses and 3.5 million its subways.

Each fare was 275 when my wife and I left the city for New Hampshire.

But 59,000 commuters now ride free on the Staten Island ferry.

Vince Sweeney, a Staten Island historian, defines a ferry as a function rather than a boat,

water-borne transportation regularly crossing some body of navigable water for the convenience of persons, vehicles, and animals.

The first Staten Island ferry of which we know for the convenience of persons, vehicles, and animals.

The first Staten Island ferry of which we know started in 1708.

It ran between William Street in Manhattan and the watering place, now Tompkinsville,

on the east shore of Staten Island.

Oarsman powered the first ferries.

Later someone devised a horse-driven treadmill to propel the boats. In 1810, Cornelius Vanderbilt, a handsome, profane Staten

Islander, borrowed $100 from his mother to run a ferry from Stapleton, another East Shore town,

and the foot of Whitehall Street.

Seven years later, he launched the first steam ferry, the Nautilus, and charged an extortionate

25-cent fare, children have price. By contrast, the nickel fare was sacrosaned for most of the

20th century, rising to 25 cents and then 50 cents only under pressure of the city's fiscal crises.

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