The Governors Island Alliance is now seeking to hire a spring intern to assist managing the public outreach programs for the Island, planning this season’s programs and assisting in GIA advocacy efforts. Click ‘more’ to learn how to apply and get involved in GIA’s advocacy and programs on the Island!
Big Years Ahead: GIA Needs Your Help
While the Island lies quiet for the winter, big changes are afoot. Phase I of the Park and Public Space Master Plan and critical infrastructure improvements GIA has long advocated are about to become a reality with a groundbreaking next spring. GIA has been critical in moving these plans forward, with advocacy and building a constituency for the Island. But it is your support that makes our work possible. Generous contributions from people like you have enabled us to be a voice for the Island.
It has been a great year, but there are better years ahead. It’s up to us to make it happen. Historic buildings need on-going stabilization and long-term tenants. The public programs that draw hundreds of thousands to the Island must be subsidized.
In hard economic times, funding for parks and historic preservation are often first to be cut. Competition for support is fierce.
It is more important than ever that we maintain the momentum that has made Governors Island into a new favorite playground for New York City, and to ensure its boundless potential. Click HERE to make a tax-deductible donation to GIA.
Posted in Online-Offshore
G.I.A. Inc.
The Governors Island Alliance has laid plans to become an independent organization, wholly separate from the Regional Plan Association, which created it and has nurtured it from the beginning.
Technically, the Alliance has been a corporation since 2002, when it launched a flotilla in the harbor to draw attention to the Island, and needed corporate status for insurance coverage against possible mishaps. (There were none.)
This creation of the original three incorporators – Albert Butzel, John Doswell and Rob Pirani – has now been reinvented with a newly reconstituted board of directors, new officers and a plan to break away from the R.P.A. Meanwhile, the two organizations continue to work together, R.P.A. in key roles as the Alliance’s fiscal agent and provider of staff support, not least the services of Rob Pirani as executive director.
Donna Milrod of Deutsche Bank, will still chair the Alliance’s board. There will be an executive committee and an advisory committee that includes representatives of like minded non-profits, such as New Yorkers for Parks, as well as Island partners FIGMENT and the New York Harbor School. Board members will have three-year terms, staggered so that the terms of roughly one-third will expire every year. High on the to-do list is an application to the Internal Revenue Service for 501(c)3 status, to allow fund-raising as a non-profit. Click here for a list of all 27 board members.
Posted in Events, In The News, Online-Offshore
For Old Seawall A New Facelift
The section of the Island’s seawall that takes the most pounding from the often stormy waters of New York harbor was originally a retaining wall, built as a boundary for the Lexington Avenue tunnel debris landfill that doubled the size of the Island. Now rounding out its first century, it’s about to get a economically and ecologically minded facelift.
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Posted in Online-Offshore, The Island's Future
The 2012 Summer Will be Different
There will be something different at every turn next summer – some closings, some new openings. It all relates to the improvements that are going to transform the Island from “special” to “spectacular.”
In short, the Island will be a construction site, beginning in Spring. To maximize the time available to get trees planted, buildings razed, waterpipe laid and all the rest, the work week will expand to five days. This means it will be closed to the public on Fridays.
Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
See the Island on YouTube
The Island is featured in a new installment of the “Tourist in Your Own Town” series produced by the NY Landmarks Conservancy. Click here for a tour guided by conservancy president Peg Breen (who’s also a G.I.A. board member).
Posted in Media, Online-Offshore
Helicopter Noise Spoils Governors Island
Helicopter tour flights are disrupting the tranquility of Governors Island. Tourist flights regularly cut across the island, creating noisy intrusions that interrupt conversations, drown out concerts and performances and prevent visitors from enjoying the park experience, Rob Pirani, RPA’s vice president for environmental programs and executive director of the Governors Island Alliance, told a New York City Council panel. We hope city and congressional representatives can work with tour operators to reduce the impact of flights with steps such as staggering or limiting flights, increasing altitude and ensuring that flights stay over water. Read Pirani’s testimony and see a DNAinfo story on the helicopter flights.
Posted in In The News
A Park Begins to Blossom
Amazing things happen when the Island shuts down for the winter. Not least, construction of the park will start in the ball fields where Prince Harry has been playing polo for two years, transforming them into three distinct spaces: Liggett Terrace, Hammock Grove and the Play Lawn.
In turn, this means new scheduling when the Island re-opens to the public next May 26. To allow maximum time for earthmovers, tree planters and everything else involved in this massive conversion, the Island will be closed on Fridays for the next two seasons… BUT for the first time some sections will be open Saturday nights in June. Continue reading
Posted in In The News, Online-Offshore, The Island's Future
‘Sound’ Art for the Island
Susan Philipz, a prize-winning artist who creates ‘sculptural’ sound, has been selected to develop a permanent piece on the Island under the city’s Percent for Art program. She is best known for sound projections of her unaccompanied renditions of popular songs into public spaces.
Philipz had an earlier installation at Picnic Point in 2009, emanating from loudspeakers at Lima Pier. The piece she will now create for the Island will be located outdoors at a spot yet to be designated in the new park area.
The artist is a native of Scotland, living now in Berlin. She won Britain’s Turner Prize last year, an annual award for contemporary art by a British artist under 50. Her earlier works have been presented at the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan and other venues in this country and around the world.
New York’s 1982 Percent for Art law requires that one percent of the budget for eligible city-funded construction projects be spent on artwork for city parks and other facilities. She was selected by a panel under the Percent for Art program: three art professionals, a representative of The Trust (president Leslie Koch), a representative of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and representatives of the Manhattan Borough President’s Office, City Council Member Margaret Chin and Community Board 1.
Posted in In The News, Online-Offshore, The Island's Future
The Governor’s Summer Guests
Rain, heat and Irene conspired to slow the flow of visitors this year. Some 448,000 seekers sought the Island’s special outdoors this summer, only slightly more than last year’s 443,000 because…
The two hottest days of the July heat wave fell on a Friday and Saturday, July 22-23. In rainy August there was a 6-inch downpour on a Sunday, August 14. Hurricane Irene forced the Island to shut down completely for a late August weekend (August 27-28) that was to include a Dave Matthews concert that would have drawn tens of thousands. The Trust had hoped to see the total climb above one-half million, but it was not to be.
In the Alliance’s annual survey, about 60 percent of this summer’s visitors were first-timers. More than 60 percent came from Manhattan and Brooklyn and more that 25 percent from beyond the five boroughs. Word of mouth is the Island’s best advertising. It’s how many people find out about the Island. Bike riding was the most popular activity followed by waterfront walks and picnicking.
Posted in In The News, Online-Offshore