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South Ferry Plaza
The South Ferry Plaza, also called A Lighthouse At The Tip Of The Island, was a supertall skyscraper proposed in 1987 to rise right next to the East River on Manhattan Island in New York City. The building would have sat on top of the South Ferry terminal and tower 1,084 ft (330 m) above street level, with 60 stories of office space. It was designed by architect Fox & Fowle Architects and Leslie E. Robertson Associates. The architects designed the building for office use and the skyscraper incorporated recycled marble and steel with glass in its structure. The architectural plan had a glass dome that was supposed to be lit at night, which also contained an observation deck and three restaurants located inside the dome. In addition, the project called for the renovation of the South Ferry Terminal, including the train station so it can accommodate 100,000 people. The project would have doubled the size of Battery Park if it had proceeded, since the building included a plaza that was planned to tie in with Battery Park via a new promenade at the tip of Manhattan. The project was canceled in 1991 because of a lack of funding.
1. See also
List of tallest buildings in New York City
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23 m
South Ferry (Manhattan)
South Ferry is at the southern tip of Manhattan in New York City and is the embarkation point for ferries to Staten Island (Staten Island Ferry, through the Staten Island Ferry Whitehall Terminal) and Governors Island. Battery Park, abutting South Ferry on the west, has docking areas for ferries to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. Its name is derived from the more southerly route of service of the historical South Ferry Company in comparison to the Fulton Ferry.
58 m
Staten Island Ferry Whitehall Terminal
The Whitehall Terminal is a ferry terminal in the South Ferry section of Lower Manhattan, New York City, at the corner of South Street and Whitehall Street. It is used by the Staten Island Ferry, which connects the island boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island. The Whitehall Terminal is one of the ferry's two terminals, the other being St. George Terminal on Staten Island.
The Whitehall Terminal opened in 1903 as a terminal for municipal ferry operations. It was originally designed nearly identically to the Battery Maritime Building; a connector between the two terminals was planned but never built. The Whitehall Terminal was renovated from 1953 to 1956 at a cost of $3 million, but it had deteriorated by the 1980s. It was gutted by a fire in 1991. The terminal was completely rebuilt and reopened in February 2005 as a major integrated transportation hub.
87 m
South Ferry station (IRT elevated)
The South Ferry station was an elevated station at the southern terminal of the IRT Second, Third, Sixth and Ninth Avenue Lines. It was located next to Battery Park at the lower tip of Manhattan, New York City. Two tracks came from the combined Second and Third Avenue Lines, and two from the Sixth and Ninth Avenue Lines, making four tracks at the terminal, with platforms on the outside and between each pair of tracks (no platform in the center).
The station was right above access to various ferries at South Ferry, at both the Battery Maritime Building and the Whitehall Terminal. The next stop on the Second and Third Avenue Lines was Hanover Square. The next stop on the Sixth and Ninth Avenue Lines was Battery Place.
The first elevated station at South Ferry was opened April 5, 1877 by the New York Elevated Railroad. It had one island platform between two tracks and was operated as an extension of the company's Ninth Avenue Line. The tracks were later continued straight into the company's Third Avenue Line, which opened August 26, 1878. The four-track station, opened March 1879, was built to provide an adequate terminal for both lines. It was located on a very short branch line, at right angles to the old station, facing toward the ferry terminals. Later the Second and Sixth Avenue Lines also used the terminal. A fire at the station in 1919 damaged the Whitehall Street Terminal.
Ridership on the Els began to decline as subway stations were replacing them. The Sixth Avenue Line was eliminated from the station in 1938, the Ninth Avenue Line in 1940, and the Second Avenue Line in 1942. When the Third Avenue Line was eliminated in 1950, the station was permanently closed. The station site is currently occupied by the South Ferry subway station.
94 m
Battery Maritime Building
The Battery Maritime Building is a building at South Ferry on the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City. Located at 10 South Street, near the intersection with Whitehall Street, it contains an operational ferry terminal at ground level, as well as a hotel and event space on the upper stories. The ground story contains three ferry slips that are used for excursion trips and ferries to Governors Island, as well as commuter trips to Port Liberté, Jersey City. The upper stories contain the Cipriani South Street event space, operated by Cipriani S.A., and a 47-room hotel called Casa Cipriani.
The Beaux-Arts building was built from 1906 to 1909 and designed by the firm Walker and Morris as the easternmost section of the partially completed Whitehall Street Ferry Terminal. What is now the Battery Maritime Building was designed to serve ferries traveling to Brooklyn. The structure uses a variety of architectural metals and originally contained a large waiting area on the second floor. The Battery Maritime Building is the only Exposition Universelle-style ferry building still operating in Manhattan. The similarly-designed westernmost section of the Whitehall Street Ferry Terminal, serving ferries to Staten Island, was rebuilt as the Staten Island Ferry Whitehall Terminal; the center section was never built.
The terminal was used by Brooklyn ferry routes until the mid-20th century and subsequently fell into disrepair. The building was used as a Governors Island ferry terminal starting in 1956, while the upper floors were used by various city agencies, including the Department of Marine and Aviation beginning in 1959. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building as a city landmark in 1967 and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. The underused structure was proposed to be converted into a cultural center during the 1980s as part of the failed South Ferry Plaza development. The exterior was restored by Jan Hird Pokorny Architects between 2001 and 2005. Plans to convert the interior into a hotel and event space were approved in 2009, but the conversion encountered numerous delays, with the event space opening in 2019.