In the dying days of Van Beuren Productions, this lovely short was put together with excellent pan footage of the New York City skyline and various bridges, shot at thoughtful angles.
Perhaps the most surprising thing is the candid footage of slums along the waterfront in an era of hobo villages. Alois Havrilla's narration victimises the residents but the Depression took its toll on people who wanted to work.
A neat time capsule of the period.

Unexpectedly, this film shows the grim side of industry with shacks that people live in and also scoffs at wealthy waterfront homes as pretentious. Great shots of a variety of vessels and the fish market.

This is a great little doc which perfectly preserves
and delivers the mood, knowledge, and "feel" of
the waterfront in 1937.
This documentary is written and structured to report the current status of the NYC waterfront as it is.
About one minute is spent showing sections populated
by homeless persons, and you'll be surprised how direct the announcer is in describing how society
feels toward them.
That one minute alone testifies to the honesty,
clarity and above all historical value that
this little film naturally manifests.

I downloaded the 280MB MPEG2 and got it with
excellent picture/sound.
This one will be in my archives for life.

Pre World War II film about Manhattan's Waterfront. Tries to be realistic. It not only showing the impressive things, but the negative-such as the the poor who graviatate in the area. I find this over all production somewhat too heavy.

Curious doc about the landmarks littering Manhattan's shorelines. We see the usual, tugboats, large ships, the stockyards, the fish market and the Brooklyn Bridge. But then the film sort of turns dark and explores the seedier side, with many images of the homeless and some derilct shelters built. Kind of makes you wonder what the whole purpose of this is. Definitely not a travelogue, a little too fluffy to be a social statement..