April 21, 2006
What Containerization Did Posted by Joshua Zeitz at 11:20 AM EST John Steele Gordon’s post about shipping containers brings to mind some of the important implications that this innovation had for New York City—his and my some-time home, and the location of American Heritage’s editorial offices. At its height in 1944, the Brooklyn Navy Yard employed 71,000 workers who were involved in every aspect of transporting, packing and moving millions of tons of cargo each month. By 1965 less than 7,000 workers remained. The introduction of commercial jet carriers after World War II made cargo ships increasingly outmoded, and Brooklyn’s antiquated docks and rail lines were inadequate for new methods of shipping, like containerization. Once a mainstay of New York’s urban economy, the city’s waterfront subculture disappeared almost overnight. Its decline was one chapter in the story of postwar New York’s economic shake-up. In 1946, 41 percent of Gotham’s labor force worked at blue-collar jobs. By 1970 that figure declined to 29 percent, nearly matched by the 27 percent of New York workers who held secretarial and clerical jobs. In effect, the introduction of shipping containers were one important component of a longer string of innovations and changes—including the shift of federal resources from the rust belt to the Sunbelt; the postwar suburban boom and the construction of a national highway system; and the shift from an industrial to a service economy—that transformed places like New York. As with all great changes, much was gained and much was lost. The city’s vibrant waterfront economy, with its intense cosmopolitanism and rich blend of peoples and goods from across the globe, is now a thing of the past. New York remains a polyglot city, of course, but losing the dock culture meant losing a part of what made the city special.
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