Staten Island Ferry Runs in Snow

Rain or Snow, Staten Island Ferry is Open

Surviving the Blizzard of 2016

Like most New Yorkers I did not leave the comfort of my couch on Saturday, January 23. I had groceries, books and hours of DVR’d television to catch up on and no reason to venture outside. Watching through my living room window as thirty inches of snow fell was just fine with me.

On the next day though I had to go to Manhattan. And here’s why living in St. George made it so much easier.

I usually drive if I go into Manhattan on a Sunday morning…no traffic. But the city was still in the early stages of digging out so I went with mass transit.

The beauty of living in St. George…you’re always within walking distance of the ferry terminal and Staten Island’s main way to Manhattan. I live less than a mile away on Richmond Terrace, and that morning it was going to be a bit more of a challenging walk than usual but since it is a major road to the ferry terminal it is constantly plowed…good for drivers and pedestrians.

I got lucky. By the time I’d walked to the next bus stop the S 44 pulled up, but had it not I still would have made it to the ferry. Unlike a lot of the subway systems, the Staten Island Ferry runs in snow. I got to where I was going because I live in St. George and can walk to where I need to be.

I heard horror stories from subway-reliant people I met that Sunday…3 hours to get in from Queens! Two and a-half hours from Brooklyn! Me: an hour from the time I got on the boat to my destination in midtown, the same as it always takes (it helped the underground subway trains were running). And it would have been even less time if I was going somewhere downtown.

Short of a cataclysm like Superstorm Sandy the Staten Island ferry pretty much always runs. Let Gateway Arms put you into a great St. George home so you can get where you need to go.