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service under the new ownership. "People who have been briefed on his plan," said

The New York Times, "said that passengers might not even notice the changeover because Wachtel [described as owner of

BillyBey and a partner in a Manhattan law firm] does not intend to change the logo."

An oldtime New York cabbie would tell you that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. And the Avenues of Manhattan may be among the last straight lines in the region. The convolut- ed, twisty-turny careers of modern com- muter ferry operators - charges, allega- tions, complaints, misfortunes and all - echo conditions a century ago that pro- duced municipal takeovers. The concept came up again, before the appearance of

BillyBey.

Still Waters Run Deep

The shape of things to come was pretty clear, when New York Water Taxi began running in September 2002. High-wake or low, dozens of vessels crisscrossing the lower Hudson and upper Bay churn the waters, as dictated by laws of physics. If

Waterway took the heat, it was partly because they had the most boats. They control more today, and others have jumped into the pool. New York Water

Taxi has revised its estimate upward, to "fifteen boats by 2006," according to the company's new Director of Marine Oper- ations, Tom Paldino.

Some are predicting that the strained lines of tugboat tows, damage to the shoreline and moored craft, are the inevitable byproducts of highspeed trans- portation. The remedies, some say, have less to do with assigning blame, or design- ing even more efficient vessels, than the construction of resources that mitigate the effects of turbulent water. Some of the potential solutions appear to be opposed by environmental regulations.

Into the midst of such turbulence, oceanographic and social, stepped Tom

Fox with the Water Taxi. "How do I say our boats are low-wake?" he asked, early- on. "How do I substantiate it? How is it defined?" He came upon the Rich Passage regulations from the Seattle area, where ferry wakes had incited community action. Certain standards were set. "Our boats exceed those standards," said Mr.

Fox. "People see us as someone who cares."

Tom Fox says he was one of the first

Urban Rangers. "That's when I fell in love with the harbor, and got the idea of con- necting parks by water - it only took 30 years." About 20 of those were spent actu- ally building the parks, "including the

Brooklyn Bridge Park, and the Hudson

River Park." He left the latter to pursue other interests - including the rudiments of the Water Taxi - the Park's administra- tion turning mostly to "people who are neither waterfront people nor park builders."

The idea that people like looking at boats, modern and historic, was built into the original Hudson River Park design,

Tom Fox told us. "We kept a midtown maritime district. I purposely did not san- itize the waterfront." Supporting that original view, Mr. Fox now serves on the 30 • MarineNews • March, 2005

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