SD: Ferries

Before the Brooklyn Bridge and the metro connected New Yorkers from various boroughs, the ferry system was a convenient and infinitely useful tool of transit. The Fulton ferry got it's name from Robert Fulton who established the Fulton Ferry Company in 1814. Today, a neighborhood in Brooklyn is named after the place where the ferry docked.

Whitman mentions the importance of ferries in his daily life, he tells us that he himself identifies the Fulton ferry as an important characteristic of those days: "Indeed, I have always had a passion for ferries; to me they afford inimitable, streaming, never-failing, living poems."

The ferry inspired and captivated Whitman, it connected him  to rivers, nature and the city. Whitman could have taken the ferry to the Battery to have a drink with some b'hoys or to Long Island to spend some time by the sea. In those days ferries and steam boat were also important ways of transporting goods around New York City, up the Hudson or down the Mississippi. In the 19th century they have had an undeniablyvast impact on society and industrialization.