We tried the new East River Ferry service this week and found some of the best views of the biggest projects in town.  Though many of the renderings in circulation for developments like Domino Sugar Factory and Hunters Point show views from the river-front perspective, it’s rare that you actually get to see the sites from that angle–until now. We decided to give the ferry service a test-run to check out the viability of getting from an office in downtown Manhattan, such as ours on Murray Street, to Brooklyn and Queens, then completed the loop by heading back the 34th Street terminal.

Taking the MTA bus meant a series of transfers and the subway was about five blocks away from the pier, so we opted to take the Downtown Alliance’s Downtown Connection, a free service that loops around the southern tip of the island and drops you right off at Wall Street a block from Pier 11. At the corner of Governeur Lane and Front Street the Korilla BBQ truck beckoned, but the long line of Wall Streeters discouraged us. The boat was waiting when we got there and left the dock in about ten minutes. Within about ten more minutes we were docking at Brooklyn Bridge Park and were on our way to four more stops before landing at 34th Street. There, the ferry service runs a free bus loop to Sixth Avenue which wasn’t there when we arrived, so we hopped on the M34, transferred and was back in the office in an hour and half from our starting point.