Buffalo’s new $2,345,000 Port Terminal began operations today with the arrival of the first foreign ship of the season.
The German motorship Clemens Sartori docked at 8:30AM and began unloading a cargo of steel wire, window glass and shoes this afternoon.
Chairman Carl L. Biers of the Niagara Frontier Port Authority termed the arrival “a significant event in the history of the port.”
Designed to be a keystone in Buffalo’s bid for more St. Lawrence Seaway business, the new terminal in the former Ford Motor Co. assembly plant was described by Mr. Biers as “the best facility on the Great Lakes—one we are very proud of.”
The Port Authority chairman expressed confidence that the Clemens Sartori is “the first of a long line of ocean ships to enter the harbor.”
Officers, Crew Congratulated
Both the Port Authority and the Chamber of Commerce marked the event with ceremony.
At a luncheon aboard the ship, a Hamburg-Chicago Line vessel which moved through the Lake Erie ice early this morning from Port Colborne, Ont., without difficulty, Mr. Biers presented a plaque to the skipper, Capt. Adolf Schulz.
Congratulating the officers and crew on being the first foreign-flag ship to enter Buffalo Harbor this season, the plaque adds:
“May the fruits of navigation and international trade continue as constructive proof of the free co-operation and peaceful interests between the nations of the world.”
A Head Start for Lessee
Linwood B. Law, assistant secretary and manager of the Foreign Trade Department of the Chamber of Commerce, presented the traditional Chamber plaque, given each year to the captain of the first foreign ship into the harbor.
Flanking Capt. Schulz in his acceptance of the plaque were Chief Mate Rudolph Maass and Chief Engineer Ewald Behmel of the Clemens Sartori.
Arrival of the ship meant a head start for International Marine Terminals Inc., lessee of the Port Terminal under an agreement with the Port Authority, with cargo to be unloaded at the facility.
Ship Due Next Week
(In announcing David J. Stockard Jr.’s appointment to Marine Terminal Manager on Friday, The Buffalo Evening News inadvertently used a picture of Niagara Councilman Thomas Santa Lucia above Mr. Stockard’s name.)
The second foreign ship expected to call at Buffalo is the Liberian-flag tramp steamer Amphitrite, loaded with molasses. Several ships behind the Clemens Sartori in the Seaway parade, it is expected to arrive early next week.
The Lackawanna, a Bethlehem Steel Corp. ore boat, trapped for five days outside the harbor, was free Friday and reached the Bethlehem dock.
This resulted in the countermanding of orders for the Coast Guard’s icebreaker Mackinaw to come to Buffalo. It was routed back to Sheboygan, Wis.
As port activity picked up four other ships left Buffalo Harbor today. The Coast Guard identified them as the Elba, the Carmi A. Thompson, the Denmark and the Franquelin.
