Boston has long been called the “Hub”. A nickname that in 1858 Oliver Wendell Holmes contrived when he referred to the Massachusetts State House Building, with its golden dome, as the “Hub of the Solar System”. Just in case anyone (re: out-of-stater) had any doubts, when the now defunct Filenes built their main store at the corner of Washington and Summer Streets, a bronze marker was installed commemorating the nickname.By George Lauriat, Editor-in-Chief, AJOTLocals often refer to The City of Boston, as the “Hub” not for the reason that Oliver Wendell Holmes had in mind, but rather for the historic, commercial dominance the city had in trade and transportation in the Northeast. In the New England corner of the Northeast, the Port of Boston really is the HUB. There are secondary niche ports like Portland, Maine (a major oil port); or Portsmouth, New Hampshire (big in scrap metal); Providence, Rhode Island (autos); even Fall River and New Bedford (fish) in Massachusetts not to mention the Connecticut ports of Bridgeport, New Haven and New London. You can even add in the Port of Albany in Northern New York State as a niche competitor with its access to the Hudson River, and rail directly into Massachusetts and the nearby Great Lakes. But the Port of Boston’s Conley Terminal run by Massport, a quasi-state agency, is the only major container terminal in the region. Annually the port handles between 170,000-200,000 teus, which dwarfs any other New England port. For this reason, at least in shipping terms, the Port of Boston is a “Hub”. However, one man’s hub is another man’s spoke in the world of box shipping. The Neighborhood In the North American Northeast the Port of Boston is a spoke to a number of other much larger “HUBs”: The Port of New York/New Jersey lies 230 miles to the southeast and handles 5.29 million teus; the Port of Montreal, Quebec is only 315 miles northwest and handles 1.33 million teus; while the Port of Halifax in Nova Scotia is 660 miles northeast across the Gulf of Maine and posted 435,461 teus. To this impressive port collection, it’s easy to add the Port of Norfolk, Virginia and even Baltimore, Maryland as they too compete to snag freight destined for the Northeast marketplace. So what is the interest of all these ports in the Northeast of North America? For starters, the Northeast with cities like New York, Hartford and Boston, is one of the great regions for affluent consumers. and high priced consumer goods are the grist to the ocean carriers’ mill. In addition, the region is relatively small, so a box “in” can be turned rapidly to a box “out”. This formula is still very true for trans-Atlantic services. But with the growth of Asian trade, the region lies far from the San Pedro ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, and the Panama Canal all-water option was limited (although that is changing) and the Suez Canal service has been hampered at times by political uncertainty and traffic jams. It’s always been difficult to put a real teu number (although 400,000 teus plus is a number bandied about) on the region’s freight. For one reason, the geography itself is somewhat debated. Frequently, Connecticut is divided up with the western half of Conn. considered part of the greater-New York/New Jersey market, while the eastern half is considered New England plus. This mythical division also happens to be very close to the change from Red Sox to Yankee (occasionally Mets) rooting interests. However, upstate New York with the City of Albany tends to be part of New England and is actually closer to Massachusetts and Vermont than New York City (125 miles to 34 miles) and historically has been connected by rail freight service to Boston. The two Canadian ports Montreal and Halifax are also part of the greater New England marketplace. For many years, the Port of Montreal, handled more trans-Atlantic cargo than any other Northeast port, while the Port of Halifax with its 50 foot water depth, connected through feeder ship services, was defacto, the