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PHOTOS: Staten Island Shipyard Builds New Citywide Ferry Landings

By Nicholas Rizzi | May 19, 2016 3:27pm
 Mayship Repair in Mariners Harbor will build the 13 landings for the citywide ferry service.
Staten Island Shipyard Builds New Citywide Ferry Landings
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MARINERS HARBOR — Landings that riders will use to board the Citywide Ferry Service next year have been unveiled at the Staten Island shipyard where they're being built.

Mayship Repair, at 3075 Richmond Terrace, won a city bid in 2015 to build the 13 barges that the boats will use as docks when the service starts in June 2017.

The new barges will head to Soundview, Astoria, East 62nd Street, Roosevelt Island, Long Island City, Stuyvesant Cove, Grand Street, Red Hook, Bay Ridge and Rockaway after construction is finished.

"When they bid, they bid from all over the place: all over the state, all over the country," said Mohamed Adam, president of Mayship.

"We're the only company that does ship building [in the city]."

The company started constructing the barges in December and each one takes about 25 workers up to three months to complete, Adam said.

First workers laser cut steel into pieces, weld them together and eventually create 28 different sections that they put together to create the 11 foot tall, 35 foot wide and 90 foot long landings, Adam said.

So far, Mayship has finished four of the barges — including ones set to dock in Bay Ridge and the Rockaway. 

After they're finished, workers attach the barges to a giant crane and move them to a dry dock with air balloons underneath, wait for a high tide to roll in then guide them to their final destination. The whole process generally takes half a day, workers said.

In March, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the first routes of the ferry service — in Rockaway, South Brooklyn and Astoria — would launch in June 2017 with the Soundview and Lower East Side ones starting in 2018.

The routes will include existing stops in the East River, as well as new ones in Bay Ridge, Far Rockaway, the Brooklyn Army Terminal, Red Hook, Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 6, Governors Island, Grand Street, East 62nd Street, East 90th Street, Stuyvesant Cove, Long Island City, Astoria, Roosevelt Island and Soundview.

Two other routes — from Coney Island and Stapleton — are in the planning stages, the city's Economic Development Corporation previously said.

Aside from the Citywide Ferry barge, Adam said the company has plenty of experience making landings and previously made docks in Hoboken and Jersey City.

"We build a lot of them," said Adam, who started the company 40 years ago in the borough. "Every location has different requirements to build, depending on what the location needs, what kind of ferry is going to be landing there."

Adam said that, aside fro the barges, about 60 workers on the site keep busy with other projects year-round, including building and repairing ships.