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Finalists Show Island Paradise Plans
By Carl Glassman
POSTED JUNE 29, 2007
Imagine slipping away for the day to an island of forests and beaches, pools and playing fields, meadows and majestic harbor views. All that and more just a seven-minute ferry ride from Lower Manhattan.
Such visions grace the schemes of five design teams. They are the finalists among 29 teams that competed to be the architects of a 40-acre park, now the empty fields and deserted buildings of the former Coast Guard station in the southern half of Governors Island.
The winner is to be announced some time this summer.
The concepts were unveiled recently by the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation (GIPEC), the state-city agency charged with managing 150 acres of the 172-acre island. (The National Park Service administers the historic 22-acre northern end.)
GIPEC insists that this is not a competition of pretty pictures or even plans, but a way of picking the best team.
“I want to emphasize that this is really the beginning of the process,” said GIPEC president Leslie Koch, speaking last month to a heavily attended forum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where representatives from the five teams presented their ideas. “One of the challenges for those of us who are not architects is when you look at gorgeous renderings, you’re ready to put on your bathing suits and start swimming next weekend. That’s technology.”
Still,
viewers are left to wonder which ideas in the concepts could—and should—come to be. The forest dense with artificial fog? The 4,000 free wooden bikes for traversing the island? The floating swimming pools? The mountains created from the debris of the island’s demolished buildings?
On June 25, Koch showed the design schemes to the Waterfront Committee of Community Board 1, who voiced little enthusiasm for any of the colorful concepts.
“The artificial landscape and all the fancy stuff just drives up infrastructure costs and maintenance costs and perhaps drives greater development of the island,” said Julie Nadel, the committee’s chair.
A draft resolution, tabled by the Waterfront Committee for more discussion this month, would make ballfields the board’s highest priority for Governors Island. Nadel called the fields “the one thing we really do need. It’s simple and flat.”
Downtown Little League president Mark Costello, who has been closely watching the design competition, said fields will be important to the success of the future island.
“Sports fields, on a small percentage of space, can bring a lot of people out there, on a predictable basis,” he said, “not just June but spring and fall, and these people will do other things as well.”
Having grown beyond the capacity of the Battery Park City ballfields, the Downtown Little League now plays some of its games on Governors Island. All told, the outing takes the better part of a weekend day, and some parents say they dread it.
“We can’t change the geography of Governors Island,” said Koch. “The experience has to be delightful to reflect the journey that got you there. But we can’t move it closer.”
Costello said that with an island trolley and increased ferry service, including a ferry from Battery Park City, the transportation problem would be “relatively easy to fix.” In any event, he added, the remaking of Governors Island presents an opportunity for Downtown families, and a responsibility, too.
“A group before us came and built public schools. They had to get up off their butts and get it done,” he said. “I think Governors Island is going to be the thing we build and leave to the parents who come after us.”
The five plans can be seen at www.govisland.com, the Center for Architecture, 536 Laguardia Pl. and on the island. Ferries to the island, open on weekends, leave from the Battery Maritime Building (next to the Staten Island Ferry terminal) on the hour, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and return on the half hour from 10:30 a.m to 5 p.m.
