On The Irish Waterfront, Fisher - C+

                                               The subtitle is 'The Crusader, the Movie, and the Soul of the Port of New York'.  However, before the author gets to the post-WW2 exposes and 'On The Waterfront', he sets forth some very interesting background.  In the late 19th century, the port's dockworkers and just about anyone who did business in and around the port was Irish.  The west side piers stayed Irish, but Hoboken, Jersey City and Brooklyn saw an influx of new immigrants, particularly Italians. By the time of WW2, the piers were diversified but the power structure - the shippers, the union leadership, the politicians and most importantly, the shipper's most prestigious ally, the Church - were still just about all Irish.  The arrival of millions of Irish in NYC was what had led to the ascendancy to wealth and power of the Roman Catholic church, and the church hierarchy had no qualms about accepting the treasure of the shippers and supporting their anti-labor stance. It's somewhat humorous that half of the thieving felons in this story are referred to as 'daily communicants'. However, the most fascinating bit of history about the Port is that the region's planners were never able to establish a freight tunnel under  the Hudson or a train bridge over it, because neither the two states nor the railroads could agree.  Rather, a system evolved of off-loading goods in NJ, ferrying them across the Hudson, and unloading them in NY. Prior to the rise of the trucking industry and the construction of the George Washington Bridge, there was so much volume crossing the river that it supported massive stevedoring operations in NJ, Manhattan and Brooklyn. Sadly, the cross harbor freight tunnel, an infrastructure idea proposed in 1893, has still not been acted on.  After WW2, the shape-up system which thoughtful outsiders viewed as the root cause of a failed social order - alcoholism, the flourishing loan-shark trade, the kickbacks and broken families came under attack from a series of exposes in the  NY Sun by Malcolm Johnson and a west side Jesuit, Pete Corridan. Johnson would win a Pulitzer and Corridan would be immortalized as Father Pete Barry in 'On The Waterfront'.  It took until late 1952 for the opening of hearings by the New York State Crime Commission (NYSCC), better known as the Waterfront Commission, to pull back the shroud of secrecy that hid all of the waterfront's evil deeds and doers.  The commission's report led to  the strengthening of the bi-state Port Authority and the adoption of meaningful reforms.  But the docks never really changed; there was still violence, theft, mob activity, kickbacks, no-show jobs and a less than admirable International Longshoreman's Association.  It was just not as bad as it used to be. The movie, however, was a huge hit that won 8 Oscars and is taught in every film course in America. "Labor reformers, journalists, Irish Americans one generation or a few miles removed from the waterfront and reviewers from the heartland of America adored this movie. Those most directly affected took a different view..."  Most dockworkers consider it an unrealistic joke. In the end though, it all became academic. The first container ship arrived in NY harbor in 1956 and the goods were trucked off the pier with minimal stevedoring help.  A generation later, the piers were collapsing into the Hudson, and today Chelsea, Brooklyn and Hoboken are the desirable wealthy domain of the modern metropolitan global elite.