The Isthmian Steamship Company was a shipping company founded by US Steel in 1910. The company was named after the newly completed Panama Canal at the Isthmus of Panama.  In the 1930s the company was split off from US Steel.   In 1956  the company was sold to sold to States Marine Lines, which lasted to the early 1970s.

Image source: New York State Archives

In 1950  the Isthmian Lines set up a new cargo center at the Erie Basin Terminal, according to the Isthmianlines.com website,  primarily to beat the nefarious "truck loader racket."

By the end of the year their intercoastal vessel Steel Inventor began loading at Erie Basin, and Steel Scientist  became the first vessel in Hawaiian service to depart from Erie Basin.  By early the next year the Isthmian lines also moved their “Far East and India cargo” to Erie Basin.