New York, NY —
What to do with Governors Island has been a running question for a decade, ever since the Coast Guard stopped using the 192-acre island off the tip of Manhattan. So far, efforts to develop the island have never gotten off the ground. Now a design competition is under way to turn much of the island into new public parkland in the hope of attracting visitors – and businesses. WNYC’s Siddhartha Mitter reports.
REPORTER: In the middle of New York harbor there is a ghost town.
KOCH: The only other creatures out here are some seagulls, once in a while you have to avoid stepping on crab shells that the seagulls have dropped on the sidewalk here.
REPORTER: While the northern half of Governors Island is a nineteenth century historic site, the southern half is an abandoned army town sitting on landfill. The Coast Guard was here until 1997. With long rows of drab military houses, old tennis courts, an empty swimming pool, the place feels like something out of 1960s Americana. Leslie Koch takes us around in a golf cart. She’s the head of the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation, or GIPEC.
KOCH: This was really a bustling small town. It had a movie theatre and a Burger King and sports fields and an elementary school and everything that you could possibly want in a small town. And you can still see some signs of what those buildings were used for. But they are all empty, it’s not like Pompei, there’s nothing inside.
REPORTER: GIPEC is a joint agency of the city and state. Since taking over the island from the federal government in 2003, it has faced the challenge of how to redevelop the 80 acre southern half, and also find tenants for the landmarked historic district. It’s proven complicated. By deed, housing isn’t allowed, except for short-term housing like dorms or hotels. Industrial uses and casinos are ruled out. Beyond that, it’s largely an open field.
PIRANI: The idea of having a master developer come in and take over the whole island for a single use or a single vision, we always felt was a long shot.
REPORTER: In fact, when GIPEC tried that method, they found no qualified takers. So now there’s a new approach. Rob Pirani heads the Governors Island Alliance, a group of civic organizations.
PIRANI: We felt that the way to make the island work was to create a very strong framework of public spaces and parkland, and then use those public spaces and parkland to create a framework for development. We’re hopeful that there will be any number of hotel developers who will be very attracted to an island location surrounded by a great park..
REPORTER: In other words, make a destination by building a public park; and since the park must pay for itself, bring in developers to build around it. A big new park sounds good, but there are some challenges. This is an island: You can’t just walk through on your way to work, or go for a 10 minute stroll. And there’s something else:
ZUKIN: Nobody really knows who the stakeholders are.
REPORTER: Sharon Zukin teaches sociology at Brooklyn College and writes about New York and other cities.
ZUKIN: Nobody lives there, and of course that means nobody has to be displaced, but nobody really has an emotional attachment to that land. And that both presents a clear playing field for the city government, but it also creates a problem because the uses have to be created and the stakeholders have to be established.
REPORTER: Right now the island’s users are visitors who take the seven minute ferry ride from the tip of Manhattan, just 800 yards away. It’s 400 yards to Brooklyn. The Dutch settlers used to bring their cows over on barges to graze. Now, visitors can explore the historic half of the island on Saturdays and Sundays in the summer.
KOCH: You can see a row of beautiful Victorian homes that are quite large. We don’t know who the future tenants of these houses will be, what kinds of entities, commercial or non-profit might be there, but you can see this beautiful campus setting with these glorious old trees, it’s really a wonderful place to visit.
REPORTER: Last year there were 26,000 visitors. This year Koch expects more, thanks to a series of concerts and new water taxi service from Red Hook. On a recent Saturday, people are checking out the island, roaming around the historic buildings or picnicking near the water. Almost everyone is here for the first time. Claudine St Bernard came with her daughter all the way from East New York.
CLAUDINE: I love ancient places, so that fascinated me, I said I really want to come and see what the island look like. It’s a good way to get out and bond with my daughter.
REPORTER: But the southern part is fenced off. And that is where the new Governors Island is supposed to emerge. Five audacious plans for the new park are now in competition, imagined by some of the world’s top design firms. They involve tidal pools, wetlands, hills and wooded areas, and different visions of a grand promenade around the island. The plans are displayed on GIPEC’s website, and also in a building near the ferry dock. Still, only a few visitors know there’s a design competition going on. One of them is Ochi Scobie, who lives in the East Village.
OCHI: I thought it was really interesting the plan for the beach, that’s the one I’d vote for. The one that didn’t appeal to me was the one with the marshy area, I guess kind of swamp like, there was some bridge path over a swamp, I remember in the picture.
REPORTER: The computer generated images are so realistic that they almost look like photographs. They show people enjoying the new park, biking or swimming or relaxing at outdoor cafes. They’re meant to draw you in, to give everyone a reason to want to visit the island. But in a way they’re also misleading.
RICH: I wonder if it’s clear that these aren’t actual proposals to be built.
REPORTER: Damon Rich heads the Center for Urban Pedagogy, or CUP, which designs education projects about the city.
RICH: The idea is that one of these concept plans will be chosen, and then that team will throw away its concept plan and develop an entirely new plan in contract with GIPEC. I don’t think that’s a very easy thing to understand.
REPORTER: So even when the winner is announced, later this summer, what actually gets done on Governors Island won’t be any clearer. And the longer the process remains obscure, the less likely that people across the city will feel involved. Right now, not many New Yorkers feel they have a stake in Governors Island, and changing that has barely begun.
KOCH: We want everyone, from Staten Island, from the Bronx to come to this park. Yes, it’s critical for us to attract a diverse array of people, both now and in the future. If you build it well and it’s really a wonderful thing to do, then they’ll come.
REPORTER: And when they do, they’ll find spectacular views and a whole new world on the water that could become one of New York’s most spectacular assets. The question is exactly what, and when.
HOST: If you’d like to weigh in on the Governors Island plans, the design teams will defend their projects at a public forum this evening at 6:30, at the Reeves Great Hall at the Fashion Institute of Technology, 28th Street and 7th Avenue.Governor's Island
Links:
GIPEC website
View the designs
Governors Island Alliance
CUP website