The NYC Water Taxi is a taxi based service that offers tours to popular destinations all over New York City and transportation options for commuters. The service mainly runs along the East and Hudson Rivers. It offers tours like the Statue of Liberty to the 9/11 memorial, the water taxi will stop at the most well know attractions in New York City. The Water Taxi not only takes the riders to these destinations but gets tours together for these attractions. The water taxi also offers another option for commuting along the rivers. The taxi can also hold events for groups that book it in advance. This service is used by many every day in order to get from place to place. The prices for this service range from around $19-31 depending upon where you plan on going to. The service became active around 2002 and has been taking thousands of New Yorker’s daily to many destinations along the Hudson and East Rivers. The service offers around eleven terminals that pick up and drop off riders along these rivers as well. The company is only one of an actual affiliate company that is in charge of setting up tours for ferries, commuting and live events. This larger company is named Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises, who offer the same kind of services to other states like New Jersey.

Once given the assignment the group began searching online and gathering information on possible topics the group would like to work on for the  Online Documentation Project. Once the research was conducted, as a group we concluded that the topic will be New York Water Taxis. New York Water Taxi is an affiliate company of The Durst Organization Inc. A partnership venture between Douglas Durst and Tom Fox. New York Water Taxi has been a New York operation since 2002. New York Water Taxi provides transportation services primarily to areas along the New York Harbor and East River. These services include commuter transportation, sightseeing tours and private event charters. The New York City Water Taxis has a fleet of 10 eco-friendly vessels that accommodate 74 to 149 passengers per boat and are propelled by low-emission engines. Upon researching we have also determined that some of the boats featured on New York Water Taxis website are from its sister organization Circle Line Downtown. These boats include the, SHARK Speedboat Thrill Ride and the Zephyr private VIP yacht. New York Water Taxi allows groups to use its boats such as the Zephyr, for special events, business or intimate dinners. New York Water Taxi also conducts water taxi tours. These tours give visitors an up-close look at the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline. There are other sights such as Ground Zero and the Empire State Building that can be seen on special tours but it depends on the tour packages. In addition to offering tours, New York City Water Taxi normally works as a metro commuter service, operating only during rush hour in New York City.

The New York City Water Taxi, despite its debut in 2002, is relatively unpopular. The role of the Openlab project site is to properly inform and publicize the service provided by the New York City Water Taxi. As compared to other sites that may be complex and difficult to navigate, this tool hopes to make understanding New York City water taxis simple and easy to comprehend by organizing the appropriate information into coherent groups and tabs so that processing the information into understanding is a smooth process. The Openlab project tool also hopes to achieve easier navigation on the client’s end when traversing from pier-to-pier utilizing the services and boats provided by the New York Water Taxi. It is easily accessible from many search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and many others so the information is public; as well as ensuring it is openly accessible to public eyes and not a private project. The ultimate goal for this research tool to inform the common civilians of an underrated yet rewarding service for recreation and adventure so that they are able to further explore the the various regions of the great city of New York. It also aims to maintain the integrity of the service and publicize its usage.