Arthur Imperatore Sr.

Arthur Edward Imperatore Sr. (born July 8, 1925 in West New York, New Jersey) is an Italian-American businessman from New Jersey. He is best known as being the founder and president of the NY Waterway, a ferry service.[1][2][3][4]

Arthur Imperatore Sr.
Born (1925-07-08) July 8, 1925
West New York, New Jersey, USA
NationalityAmerican
OccupationBusinessman
Known forFounder of NY Waterway ferry service and A-P-A Trucking, former owner of the Colorado Rockies hockey team

Career

In 1947 he started a local trucking business with his brothers Eugene, Arnold, George and Harold using a surplus US Army truck, which eventually became A-P-A Transport Corp., the nation's fourth largest interstate freight trucking company (closed 2002).[5]

He purchased the Colorado Rockies from Denver-based oilman Jack Vickers on July 12, 1978, with the intention of keeping the franchise in Denver before moving it east to the new arena at the Meadowlands Sports Complex which was under construction and expected to be completed by 1980.[6] His imposition of the team's eventual transfer alienated many fans.[7] Before he could complete the move to northern New Jersey, Imperatore sold the Rockies to Buffalo-based cable television magnate Peter Gilbert in a transaction that was unanimously approved by the NHL Board of Governors on February 10, 1981.[8]

In 1981 Imperatore purchased a 2.5-mile (4.0 km) length of waterfront in Weehawken and West New York from the bankrupt Penn Central railroad for $7.5 million. In 1986 he started the NY Waterway ferry service between Weehawken and Manhattan.[9]

In 1989 he started an upscale restaurant, Arthur's Landing, in Weehwaken along the Hudson River. It was closed in 2009, and another restaurant opened in the space by 2013.

Imperatore has been a resident of Fort Lee, New Jersey, living in a home that had been built by gangster Albert Anastasia and was later owned by comedian Buddy Hackett.[10]

Honors

The Arthur E. Imperatore School of Sciences and Arts of Stevens Institute of Technology, in Hoboken, New Jersey, is named in his honor.[11]

Imperatore received the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans#Horatio Alger Award in 1982.

Imperatore entered the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans in 1988, his only year on the list.[12]

Imperatore was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2017.

See also
  • List of Italian American business people
  • Odonyms in Hudson County, New Jersey

References
  1. Stonington, Joel "A New Ferry Terminal, the Same Fretful Commute", The New York Times, March 18, 2009. Accessed February 8, 2010.
  2. Bagli, Charles V. Bagli. "Settlement Is Reached in Ferry Case", The New York Times, July 18, 2006. Accessed February 8, 2010.
  3. Bagli, Charles V.; and Flynn, Kevin. "Harbor Master: A Fleet and How It Grew; Ferry Operator's Dominance Draws Rivals' Anger", The New York Times, July 22, 2003. Accessed February 8, 2010.
  4. Ruffino, Elissa . "Ferry King Arthur Imperatore Sr. Joins the National Italian American Foundation Board of Directors", Press Release, March 20, 2003, National Italian-American Foundation, found at National Italian-American Foundation website Archived July 16, 2011, at the Wayback Machine and Italian Voice, April 3, 2002, found at Highbeam website. Accessed February 8, 2010.
  5. David Rounds, "Perfecting a Piece of the World: Arthur Imperatore and the Blue-Collar Aristocrats of A-P-A" Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1993
  6. Goldaper, Sam. "Jerseyan Reaches Pact to Buy Rockies," The New York Times, Thursday, July 13, 1978. Retrieved April 10, 2020
  7. Elliott, Helene. "Avalanche Wiping Out Memory Of Rocky Hockey," Los Angeles Times, Sunday, November 12, 1995. Retrieved April 10, 2020
  8. "The National Hockey League Board of Governors Tuesday unanimously..." UPI.
  9. Carroll, Timothy J. (2009-10-11). "20 years crossing the Hudson". The Jersey City Reporter. Hoboken: Hudson Reporter. pp. 7 & 16. Retrieved 2010-01-09.
  10. Chaban, Matt A. V. "A Gangster's Paradise With Views, Thick Walls and a Slaughter Room", The New York Times, November 2, 2015. Accessed December 8, 2015. "For those wanting to live like a Mafia don — and willing to live with a few ghosts — Guernsey's will auction off the old Anastasia estate on Dec. 8, with a minimum price of $5.5 million....When he moved to Hollywood, the home passed to Arthur Imperatore Sr., the trucking and ferry tycoon who turned a single delivery truck into a billion-dollar empire and the derelict Weehawken docks into a wonderland of apartments."
  11. Jennemann, Tom. "Stevens presents master plan School unveils strategy for future development at meeting", Hudson Reporter, June 3, 2001. Accessed February 8, 2010.
  12. Peter W. Bernstein, "All the Money in the World: How the Forbes 400 Make – and Spend – Their Fortunes", Vintage Books, 2007, page 343
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