Governors Island Alliance

Henry Hudson set out from Holland 400 years ago to find an easterly passage to Asia. Instead he found America - and New York. Governors Island is one of the possible legacy sites for the quadricentennial celebration in 2009.
    Hudson explored today's Hudson River up as far as Albany before realizing that it was not a shortcut to the Pacific. He did, however, establish the Dutch presence in the New World, trading furs, beads and wampum with the natives. Fifteen years later, in 1624, the Dutch West India Company established a settlement on Governors Island, before moving to the larger Island of Manhattan.
    Next year is also an anniversary for "Fulton's Folly" - Robert Fulton's wrongly scorned steamboat. He built his first commercial boat - the North River Steamboat, later known as the Clermont - in a Manhattan shipyard, launched it on the Hudson in 2007, and two years later, in 1809, presented the city with an improved version, the Car of Neptune, that was put into service as a ferry between the city and Albany. Fulton is buried in the Trinity Church graveyard.
    While neither Hudson 400 years ago, nor Fulton 200 years ago, landed on Governors Island, Wilbur Wright did 100 years ago, during the Hudson-Fulton celebrations in 1909. With a canoe strapped to his plane as a pontoon, Wright flew from the Island across the harbor around the Statue of Liberty and back again. It was the world's first flight over water. Months later he returned to claim a $10,000 prize by flying five miles up the west side of Manhattan to Grant's Tomb.

Governors Island has a rich and interesting history. View a timeline of Governors Island's history on GIPEC's website here.

The monument with the big propeller on the south side of Liggett Hall (Building 400) honors the pioneers who soloed in the earliest years of aviation - the Early Birds - not least but not specifically the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss - and the less known Ruth Law, who flew from Chicago to the Island in 1915 and was first to do a loop-the-loop. The monument, dedicated in 1954, is a bronze cast of the propeller from Wilbur Wright's first military flight in 1909, mounted on a large marble base.

Status as an Early Bird required documentary evidence of solo flight in heavier-than-air or lighter-than-air craft before December 17, 1916, the thirteenth anniversary of the Wrights' first sustained flight at Kitty Hawk. Many of the 600-odd men and women who qualified in those pre-World War years built their own planes and taught themselves to fly, as did the Wrights and Curtiss. Notwithstanding the Wrights' hold on first place, Curtiss held America's first pilot's license. The Wrights were Nos. 2 and 3.

Governors Island, headquarters of the First Army at the time, became a base for early aviation because it was open and flat, and its approaches were free of obstructions. Wilbur Wright was the first to use it, for a flight around the Statue of Liberty in September 1909 - a historic first flight over water - and a month later a flight to Grant's Tomb in upper Manhattan and back. In the years that followed there were flights between the Island and Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and St. Louis as well as Curtiss's own history-making flight from Albany. The field was also the first training ground for the U.S. military's air squadrons.

Governors Island is New York's birthplace: the first European settlement when the Dutch established New Amsterdam in 1624. In 1776, Patriot cannons on the island helped General Washington preserve his battered army. After the revolution, the island was given at no cost to the Federal Government to provide for the defense of our fledgling nation. Star-shaped Fort Jay was completed by 1807 and Castle Williams, a massive, three-tiered masonry fort completed in 1811. These two forts helped New York escape the fiery fate of Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812. During its 200-year history as an important military base, Ulysses Grant, Confederate prisoners, Wilbur Wright, World War I doughboys, Samuel Morse, Soviet President Gorbachev and even Rocky Graziano all had their moment on the island. Generations of Army and Coast Guard kids were born and raised on the island: a self-contained small town thriving in the shadow of skyscrapers. This history is palpable when one walks in the 93-acre National Landmark and City Historic District. Lined with hundred-year-old shade trees and surrounded by spectacular views of Lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, the historic district features 19th century Federal and Victorian-style buildings and green, manicured grounds.

In January 2003, the Federal Government announced the transfer of the 172-acre island to the City and State of New York and the National Park Service, concluding two centuries of restricted military use on the island. Twenty-two acres, including the two forts, constitute New York's newest National Park, Governors Island National Monument. The other 150 acres are owned by the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation (GIPEC). Working with GIPEC, the Park Service and our elected officials, the Alliance seeks to ensure that parks and open spaces and historic preservation are primary goals in the final plans and proposals - and that there is funding to make these plans happen. Download an aerial view of Governors Island (PDF 1 MB)

Record numbers of visitors are coming out to the Island this summer, as many as 5,000 on an average weekend. The largest one-day crowd so far - more than 3,500 -- turned out for the Richie Havens concert on July 21. http://www.governorsislandalliance.com/pdf/OnlineOffshorevol2_6.pdf