The Staten Island Ferry through the years always has had a mix of boat types in service — old and new. The current fleet consists of the following boats and boat types:

Sgt. Michael Ollis Class

The Sgt. Michael Ollis class of boats is the newest class of boats — inaugurated in February 2022 — and one of the best classes ever. They seat 4,500 passengers and have lots of nooks and crannies and outside seating areas.

The names of the individual boats are:

The Sgt. Michael Ollis

Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis was a U.S. Army soldier from Staten Island who posthumously received the Distinguished Service Cross for sacrificing his life to save a Polish Army officer in Afghanistan in 2013.

Ollis shielded a fellow soldier from a suicide bomber, taking the brunt of the explosion, which resulted in his death. His actions have been honored with various awards, a weapons training center at Fort Drum, and a place in the 10th Mountain Division’s Warrior Legend Hall of Fame.

The Sandy Ground

Sandy Ground is an area on the southwestern end of Staten Island that had one of the oldest communities in the United States founded by free blacks (or freedmen) prior to the Civil War.

After slavery in New York was abolished in 1827, freedmen settled in the area known since colonial times as Sandy Ground — because the ground was sandy and infertile. They weren’t there to farm — the early settlers were skilled in the oyster trade, and the southern part of Staten Island was a national hot bed for it.

The 1st documented land purchase by an African American — Captain John Jackson — occurred on February 23, 1828, just months after the abolition of slavery in New York.

Sandy Ground was originally called Harrisville, soon being changed to Little Africa, before the name was changed back to its original name — Sandy Ground.

The Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social activism. She founded the Catholic Worker Movement. She was born in Brooklyn Heights in 1897, moved with her family to San Francisco and then Chicago (as her dad got jobs as a sportswriter in those cities), went to college in Chicago, moved to NYC upon leaving college, became close friends with Eugene O’Neil and other writers, moved to Europe for a while, got married, got divorced, had an abortion, wrote the book The Eleventh Virgin (1924), sold its movie rights, then moved back to NYC and bought a beach cottage on Staten Island in 1925 to serve as a writing retreat.

Day then had an affair with a fellow named Forster Batterham, gave birth to a daughter in 1926, and converted to Catholicism. She then moved to Los Angeles to write film dialogue for Pathé Motion Pictures, returned to Staten Island and wrote a Gardening column for the Staten Island Advance, and in 1932 started the Catholic Worker Movement. She has a long wikipedia page.

She died at age 83 in 1980 and is buried in the Cemetery of the Resurrection on Staten Island just a few blocks from the beachside cottage where she first became interested in Catholicism. And she now has a Staten Island Ferry named after her.

Guy Molinari Class

The Guy Molinari class of boats rescued Staten Islanders from the Barberi class and and the Alice Austin class boats that were both operating when the Molinari class came in. The Molinari class boats had lots of nooks and crannies and plenty of outside seating areas. They seat 4,427 passengers each.

A cop I talked to when these boats first came in said he didn’t like them because they were harder to patrol than the Barberi class — on the Barberi class, because it was built off a barge design — you could stand in one spot and view everything going on on an entire floor of the boat, while the Molinari-class boats had all those nooks and crannies.

From a passenger perspective, the one thing that had been annoying about these boats for the first 10 years were the noxious fumes their chimneys put out — as these boats burned marine diesel fuel. At some point that was replaced by ultra-low sulfur diesel, reducing the noxious fumes. It is now being transitioned to renewable diesel.

The individual boat names of the Molinari class are:

The Guy V. Molinari

Guy Molinari was a prominent Republican lawyer and politician from Staten Island who served as a U.S. Representative, a New York State Assemblyman, and the Borough President of Staten Island. Known as a powerful Staten Island political figure, he served in Congress from 1981 to 1989 and as borough president from 1990 to 2001. He was a Korean War veteran who also fought to close the Fresh Kills Landfill. 

The Spirit of America

The Spirit of America was named to honor the spirit and unity of America after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The keel of the boat was built with steel from The World Trade Center Towers.

The Senator John J. Marchi

Marchi was a famed Republican Party politician and attorney from Staten Island who represented and fought hard for Staten Island for over 50 years. He was first elected as a NY State senator on November 6, 1956. Marchi wrote state laws to help New York City recover from its fiscal crisis and near bankruptcy in the 1970s.

Marchi had been a long advocate for the secession of Staten Island from the rest of New York City. He wrote a law which backed a secession referendum in 1993. While the referendum passed, the legislature never allowed Staten Island to become its own city.

Marchi fought hard to close the Fresh Kills landfill. He ran for NYC Mayor twice — he won a surprise upset over Mayor John V. Lindsay in the 1969 Republican primary, then ran in the general election against Lindsay, who was still the Liberal Party nominee, and lost to Lindsay (shades of Curtis Sliwa vs Andrew Cuomo and Mamdani).

Andrew Barberi Class

In order to save money in the early 1980’s, the design of a barge was repurposed for design of this Ferry boat class. They sit 6,000 passengers — a real barge.

Many Staten Islanders loved the boats when they first came in, in 1983, because of that 6,000-seat capacity. Back in the 1980’s the Staten Island Ferry was always Standing Room Only during the morning and evening rush hours. The older boats from the 1960’s only sat 3,500 — so the Barberi class was a welcome relief.

The class is named for the infamous Andrew Barberi, which crashed into the Staten Island docks killing 11 passengers and maiming many others (people lost legs, etc) back in 1993, when the captain, who was on medications, fell asleep.

The “Andy B” as some Staten Islanders called it, was fixed up and pressed back into service for 20 years — it was the death boat — before finally being retired. The SI Newhouse still operates.

There is one boat still operating in this class:

The Samuel I. Newhouse

Samuel I. Newhouse Sr. (1895–1979) built a large media empire starting with the Staten Island Advance and later expanding to include newspapers, magazines, and radio — the Advance Media empire that includes Conde Nast.

Note that his son, Samuel I. Newhouse Jr. (1927–2017) — whom the Ferry boat is Not named after — led the family’s magazine division, Condé Nast, and is credited with transforming it into a powerhouse by reviving magazines like The New Yorker and Vanity Fair.

Since the boat doesn’t have a Sr. or a Jr. in its name — maybe you can consider it named after both of them (although officially it is named after the father).

Alice Austin Class

God help you if you get stuck riding one of these boats. The fear is that millions of tourists most certainly have, and their experience of riding the Staten Island Ferry is not nearly as rich as everyone else who has ever ridden the boat. In fact they are probably thinking ‘what the heck is the big deal?’

These are small boats with no outside sitting area and hardly any open windows. They seat 1,280 people. They were meant to save NYC money by running smaller boats during the wee hours of the morning when there aren’t as many people riding the ferry. So they run on off hours — but sometimes they do run as early as late evening (11pm and afterwards) and on weekends.

Advice: if you are a tourist and you see this boat — turn around and go back into the Manhattan terminal and wait for the next boat.

There are two boats in this class:

The Alice Austin

Alice Austen was a pioneering American photographer who used her camera to document her social life, New York City street scenes, and immigrant communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

She is notable for being one of the first female photographers to work outside of a studio and for creating a collection of photographs that included intimate portrayals of relationships between Victorian women, and is recognized as a significant figure in Lesbian history.

The John A. Noble

John A. Noble (1913–1983) was a renowned maritime artist known for creating drawings, paintings, and lithographs of ships and harbors, particularly around New York City. He lived in St. George, Staten Island, and his work often featured the familiar sights of New York Harbor.