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CRUISE LINKS (with Gary Bembridge)

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Queen Mary 2 Docks at New N.Y. Terminal

 
The world's largest ocean liner, the Queen Mary 2, docked early Saturday at Brooklyn's Red Hook section instead of its previous berth on Manhattan's West Side as the city opened a new cruise ship facility.

The city hopes the $52 million Brooklyn Cruise Terminal will bolster a luxury cruise industry that has lost business in recent years to a rival port in Bayonne, N.J.

New York also is renovating its longtime Hudson River cruise pier on Manhattan's West Side, but Brooklyn is now the designated port for the QM2, the Queen Elizabeth 2 and several other ships also owned by Carnival Cruises Inc.

Red Hook is an old maritime neighborhood that has fallen into economic decline; Pier 12, where the QM2 docked, is a one-time coffee wharf.

Unlike the Hudson River pier, a quick cab ride away from mid-Manhattan hotels, the nearly 2,200 passengers on the 1,132-foot Queen Mary 2 faced lengthy trips through the streets of Brooklyn and across the East River into Manhattan.

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