Go To Governors Island!
Governors Island is a car-free, New York City paradise and now it's open to residents weekends from June thru Sept 2nd.To get there, enjoy a short free ferry ride from lower Manhattan or use new service provided by New York Water Taxi. Bring your bike, enjoy a picnic, absorb awesome city harbor views, take historical tours, and experience Folk festivals all July long. Find all the wonderful details on the Governors Island Alliance website who along with Trorb Productions brings you this short video of opening day 2007.
can't wait to go! interesting lecture series on Saturdays too:
CUNY Climate Change Science Lecture Series and Exhibition on Governors Island
CUNY is proud to present its second annual science lecture series and science exhibition on Governors Island. The exhibition will be open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays, starting June 2nd and ending September 2st. The lecture series will be given each Saturday afternoon starting on June 2nd, and continue to September 2nd located in Pershing Hall, beginning at 12:30 pm (see lecture series list below). Both are free and open to the public. These events are part of a nation wide effort led by Focus the Nation (http://focusthenation.org/), which will coordinate faculty and students at U.S. colleges, universities, and high schools to engage in a nationwide discussion centered around the theme of “Stabilizing the Climate in the 21st Century.”
I got the chance to visit Governors Island during Open House NY last year. You can really feel the history in that place--brick buildings, brick walkways--plus, it was nice just being somewhere with so many trees. I can't wait to go back with my bike!
Governors Island was a small town, abandoned by New York and the US Government in 1996. Despite a recent NY Times article that said that the southern part of the island was comprised of "tacky barracks", there were no barracks there, tacky or not. Instead, the lower two-thirds of the island held the infrastructure of that small town, with housing for six or seven thousand people, an elementary school, several houses of worship, swimming pool, bowling alley, commissary, post exchange, movie theater, several restaurants,and more. All gone, given to demolition by neglect/abandonment. Some of the housing wasn't 20 years old.
You wonder what Manhattanites would think if they knew that several hundred apartment units in the borough of Manhattan were deliberately abandoned.
I have written to governmental agencies and to the press about Governors Island for 11 years, with no response from anyone. I have written about how no one needed to develop a "plan". The island was as it should be - a place that could have continued to offer residential housing while linking itself to the Borough of Manhattan in a way that it had not over three centuries.
Oh well, 2/3 of the island is gone. Since so few people have ever been on the island, not many are there to witness what the federal, state and local governments have taken.
IN 1977 I JOIN THE COAST GUARD AT THE AGE OF 17.I HAD RECEIVED ORDERS TO GUNNERS MATE SCHOOL.I FOUND OUT THE SCHOOL WAS ON GOVERNORS ISLAND NY.BEING A CONTRY BOY FROM NORTH CAROLINA I SIAD NO WAY.JUNE 1979 I GOT ANOTHER SET OF ORDERS,WHERE ELSE GI NY.I ARRIVED AT PENN STATION AND I CAN REMEMBER WALKING TO A STREET CORNER AND ALL THE CARS LOOKED ALIKE(YELLOW).SOME HOW I MADE IT TO BATTERY PARK.I ASK A MAN AT THE SAT ISL TURM HOW DO I GET TO GOV ISL. I BOARDED THE LITTLE WHITE FERRY AND TO THE ROCK I WENT.I SPENT 16 WEEKS THERE AND I HATED TO LEAVE.WE HAD EVERY THING THERE YOU WOULD EVER NEED.AT THE END OF THE SCHOOL DAY WE WOULD EAT TAKE SHOWER AND HIT THE BIG CITY.MY BEST FRIEND AND HIS WIFE ALSO WENT TO SCHOOL ON THE ROCK.WE HEARD THAT TH CG WAS SHUTTING DOWN THE SCHOOLS AND CLOSING DOWN THE WHOLE ISLAND.I THOUGHT FOR YEARS THAT THE ISLAND WAS TO NICE OF A PLACE JUST TO LET IT CRUMBLE APART. I PULLED UP THIS WEB SITE BY CHANCE AND I HAVE TO SAY, IT'S GREAT THAT THE ROCK IS A LIVE ONCE AGAIN.THE COAST GUARD MAY HAVE SHUT HER DOWN BUT THE MEMORIES OF THE YOUNG MAN FROM CAROLINA ENJOYING THE BIG CITY CAN NEVER BE TAKEING AWAY.IT WAS 28 YEARS AGO SINCE I WAS ON GOV ISL AND AFTER LOOKING AT THE VIDEO IT LOOKS LIKE SHE'S BEEN GIVEN A NEW LIFE.THANKS RICK SLATE