The New York skyline as per West Side Story’s first opening scene. No Twin Towers yet. The east River and one of the Bowater wharves is to the right and the Hudson River with a wharf at about 43 Street, quite close to the Cunard birth is to the left. The East River birth was near, about ¾ of a mile from the United Nations building near the Stuyvesant Building project. A special paper handling wharf was constructed on the east River closer to the Battery (the Manhattan skyline shown here) which replaced the other wharves in about 1968. Occasionally in the early 1960s a ship would go to Brooklyn, to the right of the picture but that area was pretty rough so not a popular place for a run ashore. (Run being the operative word). When you see this ahead of you you are in the harbour, having passed Staten Island and Brooklyn to get there so it was not the ‘first view of the new world’ it was made out to be in the tourist posters.

The Statue of Liberty is to the left and a little closer to Battery Point. Courtesy Tom Kearsey.