Staten Island · Richmond County
Kill Van Kull Waterfront
NYC Parks
- Location
- Richmond Terrace, along the Kill Van Kull, North Shore
- Size
- Various waterfront access points acres
- Hours
- Always accessible
- Type
- NYC Parks
Kill Van Kull Waterfront provides shoreline views of the tidal strait between Staten Island and Bayonne, New Jersey, one of the busiest commercial shipping channels in the world where massive container ships pass within yards of the shore.
The Kill Van Kull carries some of the largest container ships in the world between the open harbor and the port facilities at Howland Hook and Port Elizabeth. The ships, up to 1,200 feet long, pass so close to shore that their hull plates are visible to spectators.
The Bayonne Bridge, which crosses the Kill Van Kull, was raised in 2019 to accommodate the larger 'New Panamax' container ships that began transiting the expanded Panama Canal. The bridge raising was one of the largest infrastructure projects in the region.
The North Shore waterfront along the Kill Van Kull has historically been an industrial working waterfront, but recent development has begun to open public access points where residents and visitors can watch the spectacle of global commerce from the shore.
Kill Van Kull Waterfront provides front-row seats to the theater of global trade, where container ships carrying goods from every continent pass within touching distance of the Staten Island shore.