Big Apple History . Building the Big Apple . Shipping in New York


	South Street Seaport

After the 1820's, New York businessmen and politicians could breathe a big sigh of relief. As De Witt Clinton had predicted, the Erie Canal had a major impact on New York's commercial world.

Before the canal, shipping goods between Lake Erie and New York City cost 100 dollars a ton and took more than three weeks. Afterward, the cost dropped to less than 10 dollars a ton and the trip took just seven days. The canal was so popular that, by the late 1820s, up to $15 million worth of goods -- such as flour, whiskey, and wheat -- were transported each year. In addition, about 1,000 people a day traveled the canal.

To help repay the construction costs -- a debt of $7.6 million -- the state charged tolls to use the canal. In the first year alone, almost a million dollars in tolls were collected.

Illustration: "South Street from Maiden Lane," by W.J. Bennett, c. 1828, courtesy of the Collection of the New-York Historical Society.