THE STARK BLACK AND WHITE film seems perfectly suited to its subject. A young, tough, and handsome Marlon Brando sits in the back of a car near a seedy pier in Hoboken, famously growling that he “coulda been a contendah.” Most people’s entire experience of the longshoreman’s life comes from On the Waterfront.
But there’s nothing of the derelict urban shoreline, the crumbling piers, or gangster veneer at Global Marine Terminal, 100 acres of spanking clean space and modern machinery that sees to the business of getting goods from here to there—by ship.
Chances are, that fresh pineapple you’re eating arrived on a container ship that offloaded its cargo at Global Marine, which abuts the Port Jersey Channel, separating Jersey City from Bayonne’s Cape Liberty Cruise Port, where Royal Caribbean Cruise ships tie up.
But while Royal Caribbean traffics in fun and games, Global Marine deals with cargo, contracting with ocean carriers from around the world to load and unload containers and deliver them by truck or rail to customers around the region. The containers are 20, 40, or 45 feet long and eight and a half or nine and a half feet high.
Everything you can imagine arrives in these containers—from South American fruit to electronics from Asia and spirits and wine from Europe. The goods eventually make their way to stores like Stop and Shop, Lowes, Target, and The Home Depot.
Seven vessels a week call at Global Marine, ranging in length from 750 to 965 feet. “Ships are getting larger over time,” says Dave Brady, Global’s vice president of operations, “but Global is in a good position because ships don’t have to pass under the Bayonne Bridge.” It’s also well-positioned to weather the current economic storm. “Ships can carry an enormous amount of goods in a relatively inexpensive manner,” he says. And aside from some containers that were lost in the North Atlantic in the antediluvian age, Brady says things run pretty smoothly.
The terminal employs about 500 people, when ships are in port. “Now we’re more diverse than ever,” Brady says. “We have women longshoremen, driving tractors, and operating machines in the yard.”
The industrial charm of these tractors, machines, cranes, containers, forklifts, and ships is captured in these pictures shot by Josh Dehonney on a Sunday morning, with light glinting off metal and massive shapes silhouetted against the sky.
Despite the modernization of the shipping business since On the Waterfront debuted in 1954, Dave Brady says, “There is still quite a bit of mystique.” JCM