Arthur E. Imperatore Sr., an entrepreneur who built a successful New York City commuter ferry system, died Nov. 18 at the age of 95.

Imperatore founded NY Waterway in 1986 in Weehawken, NJ with a single route across the Hudson River to Pier 78 in New York. Once derided as “Arthur’s Folly,” he built the operation into an integrated ferry and bus service that has carried close to 300 million passengers. The success of NY Waterway helped to inspire a rebirth of commuter ferry services in New York harbor. The service also prompted the redevelopment of former railroad and industrial land in Weehawken, Edgewater, and other cities and towns on the west side of the Hudson River.

Imperatore was born in West New York, New Jersey on July 8, 1925. He was the 9th of 10 children of Italian-American Eugene and Teresa Imperatore who owned a grocery store. During World war II, he served as a navigator on B-24 and B-29 bombers. After the war, he and his brothers started a trucking business using a surplus U.S. Army truck. The business became A-P-A Transport Corp., at one time, the nation’s fourth-largest interstate freight trucking company.

While Imperatore’s career spanned more than seven decades and included ventures from mining, real estate, trucking and ownership of a sports team, it was NY Waterway that he will be remembered for and was most proud of.

For hundreds of years, ferries were essential to getting around the harbor city of New York. With the advent of the bridge and tunnel building in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, ferries went into a slow decline. In 1967, the last cross-Hudson ferry (between Hoboken and Battery Park City) ceased operations, leaving only the Staten Island Ferry, operated by New York City, still in service.

In 1981, Imperatore purchased a 2.5-mile stretch of abandoned and dilapidated rail yards on the waterfront in Weehawken and West New York, NJ, planning to develop the land as a residential community. To attract residents, he needed to make it commutable to the city, which was hampered by congested bridges and tunnels. In 1986 Imperatore started the NY Waterway ferry service between Weehawken and Manhattan. As of November 2019, NY Waterway had a total fleet of 32 vessels operating from 18 terminals.

The commuter ferries operated by NY Waterway have demonstrated their value economically and in terms of the resilience they provide to the city’s transportation system.

On 9/11/01, NY Waterway ferries rescued 150,000 people trapped in Lower Manhattan by the attacks on the World Trade towers. In the months that followed, the ferry service provided by NY Waterways and others helped to replace the commuter train services shut down by the attacks.  

In 2003, the ferries proved their value again during a major power outage in the Northeast. Following the blackout, the city produced an emergency preparedness plan that recognized ferries as “an increasingly important component” of response and recovery.

On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 ditched in the Hudson River off Midtown Manhattan, after losing its engines due to hitting a flock of birds shortly after take-off. Often referred to as the “Miracle on the Hudson” all 155 passengers and crew survived. In addition to the skilled landing by the plane’s captain, “Sully” Sullenberger, one of the reasons that all survived was the arrival of NY Waterway Ferries within four minutes of the crash landing. The water temperature was just above freezing while the air temperature was 20 degrees F.  A swarm of NY Waterway ferries helped rescue the passengers and crew from the plane and the river.

NY Waterway ferries also help mitigate the disruption when flooding in the subways during Superstorm Sandy in 2012 took out the trans-Hudson PATH commuter trains.

Arthur Imperatore is survived by his wife, Dr. Mei-Ling Yee-Imperatore; his son, Arthur E. Imperatore, Jr.; his daughter, India Imperatore; his stepson and daughter-in-law Armand Pohan and Nancy O. Rieger; his step-children George (Elizabeth) Carr, Alexander (Renée) Carr, and Arielle Moylen; eight grandchildren; and two step-grandchildren.

Thanks to Roberta Weisbrod for contributing to this post.