The Island lost a link to history when Charlie Kahlman died in October. A certified historian, he was an N.P.S. Ranger who had been guiding visitors through the National Monument since 2007, and previously at Grant’s Tomb and Castle Clinton. Charlie was in charge of, and a major force in developing, the living history and historic weapons programs. He had an M.A. from Hofstra and did graduate work at Kings College in London. He was 63 and, by the way, an unrepentant foodie.
Lost History Link
Posted in Events, History, Online-Offshore
Support NYCDOT Bike Share on Gov Island!
Tell NYCDOT that you love biking on Governors Island! The City’s new bike share program is being launched in Summer 2012 and NYCDOT wants to know where you want a bike share station. Support bike share locations on Governors Island and by the Manhattan and Brooklyn Ferries so that everyone can ride bikes to, from and around the Island. Click HERE to tell them that you want a bike share on Governors Island, click HERE to tell them you want a bike share by the Manhattan ferry and HERE for the Brooklyn Ferry! Click HERE to watch a video we worked on to learn more about the bike share program.
Posted in In The News, The Island's Future
WATER: Hooking up to Redhook
Legend has it that Dutch dairymaids carried their milk across the quarter-mile from Red Hook to Governors Island on foot at low tide – thus the name Buttermilk Channel. The channel is deeper now, much deeper. The challenge today is to pipe water across, a good example of how much unseen work is involved in remaking the Island.
The only supply of drinkable water these days comes by tank truck to the Harbor School and Water Taxi Beach and in bottles for office coolers.
The Coast Guard’s old pipng through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel still feeds the Island’s fire hydrants and other non-drinkable needs, but state regulations make it impractical to use it for water to drink. Trust planners aim to replace it with a new pipe from Red Hook to the Island in the next two years. They are working now with the Department of Environmental Protection to figure out the best point on the Brooklyn waterfront – the most practical and least expensive – for connecting with the city water system.
Then comes boring a tunnel well below the channel but not so far down as bedrock. Engineers have made test borings. The tunnel has to be big enough to insert a pipe measuring about 24 inches, designed to handle as much water as will be needed when the Island is fully developed. When the water is flowing through the new pipe, the old system will be shut off and the new flow will be circulated to Island outlets by one of two pump stations. Existing piping on the island will be replaced section-by-section, first around the historic district to the Harbor School.
Posted in Online-Offshore, The Island's Future
IN-DOCKtrination at the Harbor School
Forty teenagers reported to the Battery Maritime Building at 8 o’clock in the morning on Monday, August 1, to start their IN-DOCKtrination for four years at the Harbor School. Paperwork completed, they boarded the Coursen and ferried to the Island for six hours of exposure on what lies ahead.
The agenda for Monday was a quick window on what the school does – an hour of drills and exercise, a 15-minute talk about leadership, two hours of hands-on boat building, another two hours for an NPS-guided tour of the Island and a scavenger hunt and finally, at 1530 hours (note the 24-hour timekeeping), debriefing and departure.
Known officially as the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School, it aims to have each student graduate with three things: an acceptance letter to a four-year college, a technical credential in a field related to marine activity, and “demonstrable environmental stewardship skills and ethic.”
The IN-DOCK agenda lasted eight days over two weeks with a total of 60 students participating. On the first Tuesday it got serious about boat safety and kayaking. Wednesday they maneuvered a maritime obstacle course (on dry land). Thursday the same, with a Coast Guard instructor. And on both Thursday nights they camped overnight in tents on Colonel’s Row, arranged by Outward Bound NYC.
In the second week they concentrated on breeches buoys for three days – rigging, practicing and completing. (For the benefit of landlubbers, breeches bouys are lifebuoys strung from a rope and used to rescue the crew of a wrecked boat.) This exercise hones skills and, importantly, introduces landlocked kids to the nature and peril of open water.
On the final day, they trooped off to Fort Schulyer in the Bronx for a visit to SUNY Maritime – the maritime academy of the State University of New York.
IN-DOCK was one of three innovations this year. The school now has a fully staffed college office, funded by the Robin Hood Foundation, and six new Career and Technical Education programs related to marine science and marine technology.
If you want to see the school for yourself, there’s an open house on Wednesday, September 28. The ferry leaves Manhattan at 3:15. RSVP to Silvia Imonode at simonode@nyharborshcool.org or 212-458-0800 ext. 2116.
Posted in Events, Online-Offshore
C’mon and hear…
Irving Berlin’s Alexander, of ragtime band fame, had nothing on the jazz age crews Michael Arenella has been bringing to the Island twice every summer. For the past six years, “Michael Arenella’s Dreamland Orchestra” has brought his own brand of jazz age music to a 50-by-50 foot wooden dance floor laid out in Nolan Park.
“Claude Debussy and Bix Beiderbecke would have really dug each other,” says the 33-year-old trombonist, whose first public performances were on L train platforms in Brooklyn and Manhattan. His venues these days have ranged from the finish line of the New York City Marathon to a Rockefeller family wedding at their Kykuit estate.
For authenticity, Arenella transcribes the music from original recordings rather than using later stock arrangements. His 12-piece orchestra plays period instruments in period dress while Arenella croons into a period microphone. Period headware is on sale — straw boaters for men and clinging cloches for women.
“Our music was the rock and roll of its day, or punk of its day,” says Arenella, “rebellious, reckless and, in the eyes of the older generations, dangerous.” Have you heard Toot, Toot, Tootsie Good-bye lately? Dangerous stuff.
Posted in Events, Online-Offshore
IRENE SCENE
Worried about Irene damage to the Island? There wasn’t a lot. A tree or two were toppled and some branches were broken. Morning-after photo by National Park Service staff.
Posted in Events, In The News, Online-Offshore
The Island: A Work in Progress
The Trust for Governors Island’s new capital spending authority commits close to $77 million for the Island’s continuing transformation in the next 12 months, of which $25.5 million demolishes buildings and other obstructions to smooth the way for the park.
The capital budget reflects the Mayor’s decision to make Governors Island one of his legacies. In addition to the $ 77 million appropriated this year, the Office of Management and Budget’s Capital Commitment Plan forecasts appropriations of $250 million of new money in the next three fiscal years.
Relax in this new gazebo… or rock in old Fort Jay
The budget for operations this year is $11.5 million. Continuing the trend established over the past five years – less money to handle more open space, bigger attractions, more visitors, a longer season – that’s about $1.2 million less than last year and 60 percent of what it was in 2006. The city covers the bulk of this. The National Park Service pays $170,000 for services the Trust provides to the National Monument and the Trust for Governors Island receives almost $400,000 from ticketed concerts and other special events.
Both budgets have been approved by the City Council for fiscal 2012, which began July 1. They are welcome affirmation of the value of having the Island controlled from one location – City Hall – instead of split between state and city authorities who didn’t necessarily see eye-to-eye.
Capital commitments this year also include almost $10 million to shore up the century-old sea wall, $8 million for the ferry docks on the Battery Maritime Building in Manhattan and $13.8 million – including $4 million federal funds – for the Soissons dock on the Island. Less visible, but no less essential, another $11.5 million is earmarked to upgrade electrical and water infrastructure, including work on the water pipeline from Brooklyn, and $4.5 million to repair the historic roofs of Nolan Park.
The biggest single operating expense is $3.1 million for moving crowds, cars and commerce back and forth on the ferry. Other items in the operating budget include about $5 million for unglamorous but necessary maintenance and repairs, utilities and personnel.
In a letter to Mayor Bloomberg when he submitted his budget proposals Donna Milrod, who chairs the G.I.A. board, and Robert Pirani, executive director, expressed “deep appreciation” for his commitment. “Construction of the parks and public spaces, replacement of outdated infrastructure and stabilization of priceless historic buildings are all critical to attracting the tenants and private sector resources that will complete the revitalization of the Island,” they wrote.
Posted in In The News, Online-Offshore, The Island's Future
New School on the Island?
Governors Island is one of the three choices of land that the city is offering as the site for a new school for the applied sciences – such as engineering, physics, computer science, chemistry and environmental science. The two others are city-owned space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and on Roosevelt Island.
The official Request for Proposals seeks plans “to build or expand a state-of-the arts campus.” The city offer includes access to city land and investment of up to $100 million in city support, subject to a substantially larger match by the winner.
When the city first sought expressions of interest last spring, it received 18 responses from 27 institutions, many of which have come out to the Island to inspect the possibilities. Some institutions had banded together, such as Columbia and the City University. Another grouping combined N.Y.U., C.U.N.Y, Carnegie Mellon, the University of Toronto and I.B.M. Stanford University has a billion-dollar plan for 2,200 grad students and 100 professors on Roosevelt Island.
Responses to the RFP are due in late October, with a final selection promised by the end of the year. The opening of the first phase of the project is anticipated for 2015.
P.S. Mayor Bloomberg majored in electrical engineering at Johns Hopkins.
Posted in Events, In The News, Online-Offshore, The Island's Future
America’s Cup Winners In Harbor School Regatta
There will be a grand display of sails and sailing in the Harbor School Regatta on October 6 – four of the huge America’s Cup 12-meter boats, racing around the Island to benefit the school’s College Scholarship Fund.
Winners Weatherly (1962) and Intrepid (1967 and 1970) will match skills against two boats that were edged out in the trials before the main event, Nefertiti and Ted Turner’s American Eagle. They represent the classic wooden models that were standard before new-fangled fabrics and crazy keels took over a half-century ago.
Two dozen J24′s from the Manhattan Sailing Club will be out there, too. We can’t imagine what will happen when they are all tacking through Buttermilk Channel at the same time, but anyone can watch from a spectator boat for $100. This includes a “Post-Regatta Bash” on Water Taxi Beach.
To sponsor a boat and sail in the regatta, contact regatta@cwandco.com. To buy tickets (prices go up September 15) click here.
Posted in Uncategorized
TGI adds CFO
Willa Padgett has been named chief financial officer for the Trust for Governors Island, a new post. She has had a career in public service, focused on budget planning and management for city agencies and non-profits. She was an assistant director of the city’s Office of Management and Budget, and worked most recently for the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation.
Posted in In The News, Online-Offshore, The Island's Future