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PHOTO:
AP Photo Archive
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| Gov.
Pataki and former Mayor Guliani look over plans for Governors
Island in 2000. |
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Planning
the New Governors Island
By Beth Schepens
 hen
it first changed hands in 1637, Governors Island cost two ax
heads, a string of beads and some nails. It is now assessed at $500
million.
But some would say its history and beauty are priceless. To walk
off the ferry dock at Governors Island is to step into another time
and place. The trees' branches are twisted with old age and the
island's three forts, one of which became an Officers' Club, are
older than most of the buildings that form the Manhattan skyline
only a half-mile away. No building on the island is more than six
stories high, making Governors almost a country cousin to skyscraper-dominated
lower Manhattan.
After
the U.S. Coast Guard permanently left the island in 1996, no more
than eight people have lived there at a time. Most New Yorkers have
never even set foot on Governors Island. But since President George
W. Bush sold the island back to New York in January 2003 for $1,
politicians and civic leaders have been trying to change that.
The
Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation, a 12-member
city-state agency, was formed in 2002 to handle the transfer and
development of the island. At the head of the corporation, Secretary
of State Randy Daniels and Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff are trying
to broaden the vision of Governors Island's future while staying
within the guidelines of the deal that was brokered with the federal
government.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for New York,"
said Daniels. "And what we are doing here is important work;
work that will be long remembered here after we're gone."
"The work we have on the island is as important as the work
that built Central Park," the corporation chairman added. "I
believe we should build it with that sense of vision, that sense
of purpose. If we do that, we will be giving a perpetual gift to
the city of New York."
Two years after President Bill Clinton first offered to return the
island to New York for $1, Congress passed the Balanced Budget Act
of 1997, which required the land to be sold at fair market value.
Fighting for the island, former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.)
backed a law that allowed the land to be sold for $1, if it was
to be used for public purposes. But the "city and state bickered
away the moment," Moynihan would later recall in an editorial
in The New York Times.
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Talks
resumed with President Bush when, in April 2002, he announced plans
to sell the island back to the state for a nominal fee. "New
Yorkers celebrate!" Moynihan wrote in his Oct. 12, 2002 editorial.
"It is ours again and to be put to our purposes." He had
visions that started with the construction of educational institutions
on the island and did not end until well past a plan for 2012 Olympics
housing.
Moynihan played a key role in securing the land for New York state,
working through two presidential administrations to return the island.
"Without his persistence, pushing and cajoling, this would
not have happened," said Vice Chairman Doctoroff at an April
meeting, only a few weeks after the former senator died. The corporation
is considering ways in which Moynihan's legacy can be preserved
on the island he never gave up on returning to his native state.
Some of Moynihan's ideas were included in the deal between the federal
government and New York state. It required that New York almost
immediately turn the 22-acre
National Monument, which includes Castle Williams and Fort Jay,
over to the National Park Service. The state and city were also
to set aside 40 acres for public parkland.
 t least
50 acres of Governors Island had to be designated for educational,
civic and cultural purposes, some of which will be taken up by
The City
University of New York system. A CUNY campus has been a part
of the core redevelopment plans since talks began with President
Bush. Different academic committees have been working on a number
of development plans consistent with those articulated by Governor
George Pataki, said CUNY spokesperson Rita Rodin.
Pataki and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have also mentioned
the creation of an urban teacher training programs. Other possible
plans include a science research center, a conference center, a
public high school and an honors college — mostly to be housed
in the existing historical buildings. But those plans are still
waiting on the state's final approval of the university's budget,
which will determine what they are able to do, Rodin said.
The remaining acres can be used for commercial purposes — but
all of that cash flow must stay on the island to help sustain the
public uses and maintenance costs, said James Lima, senior vice
president of the New
York City Economic Development Corporation.
"There
will have to be substantial and continuing capital investment,"
said James Gill, chairman of Battery Park City Authority, who is
a member of the corporation. "There will have to be staying
power, because it's going to take a while."
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PHOTO:
Beth Schepens
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| A
ferry docks on Governors Island. |
Before
selling the island to New York state, the federal government was
spending $6 to $10 million a year in maintenance on the buildings
and the seawall, which has been deteriorating because of the higher
volume of ferry traffic in the bay. The city and state committed
to spending $5 million a year for the first three years to pay for
maintenance and planning. But officials have estimated that once
the public is allowed on the island, costs will rise to between
$20 and $30 million a year.
Ideas for hotels (there was once a Super 8 on the island), restaurants
(to replace the now defunct cafeteria and Burger King), museums
and a conference center have all been circulating. Gill
said he also expected that there would be retail space, a marina,
perhaps a Revolutionary War museum and a promenade with views of
the harbor.
Early proposals for a casino and a television antenna to replace
the one lost at the World Trade Center were rejected by city officials.
"I
think it's going to be great fun," said Gill. "I don't
have any doubt that it can be done."
 or
now, the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation
is in charge of these questions and more. The development process,
which is only in its beginning stages, will take at least three
years, according to corporation member Joseph Murphy, chairman of
Country Bank.
"I'm
a New Yorker," Murphy said. "I've been in finance and
real estate all of my life. And I'm a boater. So, I have the potential
love of the island and love the potential of the island.
"It has a beautiful view. It has a beautiful location,"
he said. "But it's a real complicated piece of real estate."
<Click here to take an animated slideshow tour of Governors
Island>
To
answer some of those questions and complications, the corporation
created a Governors Island Advisory Council in April to broaden
the input into long-term planning, development and conceptualizing
of what the island should be. Like corporation members, half of
the council members will be appointed by the mayor and half by the
governor.
Peter Fleischer, a former transportation and environmental advisor
to Mayors David Dinkins and Rudolph Giuliani, was nominated and
approved as vice president of the corporation in April 2003. And
the first steps toward redevelopment and opening the island to the
public again are being taken. (Summer tours will be available through
nonprofit organizations, while the development process continues).
A timetable will be set after a corporation president and staff
have been chosen, Daniels said. But the groundwork is being laid
for the full return of Governors Island to New Yorkers — for the
first time in three and a half centuries.
On one of the first true days of spring in late April, with the
sun filtering into a room in the old Army Headquarters on Governors
Island, Daniels told the 12-member corporation how lucky they were
to have this opportunity. "How often," he asked, "do
you get to develop an island just across the harbor from the greatest
city in the world?"
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