Blog

High­lights from the Har­bor: Gov­er­nors Island in 2019

Dec 27, 2019 2:03 pm

2019 was one of Gov­er­nors Island’s biggest and best years yet. Since open­ing to the pub­lic near­ly 15 years ago, Gov­er­nors Island has made great strides towards becom­ing a year-round resource for all New York­ers. We’re proud to share this year’s achieve­ments and high­lights as we work to make Gov­er­nors Island even better. 

Gov­er­nors Island is open to the pub­lic for 6 months each year. Vis­i­tors enjoy this jew­el in the Har­bor spring, sum­mer and fall, stay­ing out for evening din­ing, stargaz­ing and movies on the Parade Ground dur­ing extend­ed sum­mer­time late-night hours.

Our new fer­ry, Gov­er­nors 1, increased Man­hat­tan week­end ser­vice to every 20 min­utes, tak­ing the plan­ning out of your journey.

As of this year, 6 mil­lion vis­i­tors have set sail for Gov­er­nors Island since we opened to the pub­lic, with near­ly 1 mil­lion set­ting foot on our shore in 2019.

Gov­er­nors Island is an afford­able, go-to get­away for New York­ers: 80% of our 2019 vis­i­tors came from New York City.

The South Island’s lush park­land beck­oned vis­i­tors to climb the Hills, relax in Ham­mock Grove, and enjoy sports of all kinds on the Play Fields.

Over 4,600 free week­day morn­ing bike rentals from Blaz­ing Sad­dles got peo­ple ped­al­ing along the Island’s car-free paths while near­ly 1,000 free Sat­ur­day kayak ses­sions with the Down­town Boathouse got them pad­dling in the Harbor.

Hun­gry vis­i­tors fired up our pub­lic grills 617 times for gath­er­ings at Pic­nic Point and Nolan Park.

A diverse array of over 80 events, pro­grams and activ­i­ties thrilled Gov­er­nors Island vis­i­tors this year, 70 of them com­plete­ly free.

Vis­i­tors explored art exhi­bi­tions and cul­tur­al cel­e­bra­tions by orga­ni­za­tions like Pio­neer Works, MoCA­DA, the Amer­i­can Indi­an Com­mu­ni­ty House and NADA, and flocked to events pre­sent­ed by Film at Lin­coln Cen­ter, Japan Per­form­ing Arts, and the globe-trot­ting eques­tri­an jump­ing league, Longines Glob­al Cham­pi­ons Tour, among many others.

Shantell Mar­tin breathed new life into a for­mer chapel, cre­at­ing a site for reflec­tion and con­tem­pla­tion in Shantell Mar­tin on Gov­er­nors Island, our 2019 pub­lic art com­mis­sion, which wel­comed poet­ry read­ings with orga­ni­za­tions like the Poet­ry Soci­ety of Amer­i­ca.

Free pub­lic pro­grams engaged vis­i­tors in dia­logue sur­round­ing our chang­ing cli­mate, pre­sent­ed by orga­ni­za­tions includ­ing the Cli­mate Muse­um, Swale, Bil­lion Oys­ter Project, GrowNYC, Earth Mat­ter and more.

Gov­er­nors Island pri­or­i­tizes com­post­ing, with over 75,000 lbs of mate­r­i­al divert­ed from the waste stream from ven­dors, ten­ants, events and pub­lic bins to Earth Mat­ter’s Com­post Learn­ing Cen­ter in the Urban Farm, where vis­i­tors gained first­hand knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence on weekends.

Bil­lion Oys­ter Project has cured over 1 mil­lion lbs of oys­ter shells on the Island for use in new reefs that help restore New York’s oys­ter pop­u­la­tion, clean its water­ways and pro­mote biodiversity.

Birds con­tin­ue to thrive on our shore — bird­ers and the avian enthu­si­asts of NYC Audubon have record­ed 206 indi­vid­ual species of birds on Gov­er­nors Island.

LMCC’s new Arts Cen­ter at Gov­er­nors Island opened this Sep­tem­ber as the Island’s first year-round ten­ant ded­i­cat­ed to arts and cul­ture, invit­ing the pub­lic to explore its expan­sive gal­leries and join spe­cial events. The space will serve 40 res­i­dent artists year-round with free stu­dio space.

The Urban Assem­bly New York Har­bor School began its 10^th school year on Gov­er­nors Island this Sep­tem­ber, engag­ing more than 500 stu­dents with a mar­itime career and tech­ni­cal cur­ricu­lum that uti­lizes the Har­bor as a classroom.

Our Hor­ti­cul­ture team cares year-round for over 120 acres of open space (that’s over 90 foot­ball fields), fill­ing the land­scape with strate­gic plant­i­ngs that keep the Island’s ecosys­tems thriv­ing, resilient and biodiverse.

2,300 Friends of Gov­er­nors Island vol­un­teers donat­ed 11,000 hours of their time this year to keep Gov­er­nors Island look­ing its best.

Next year, we’ll con­tin­ue work­ing to make Gov­er­nors Island the 365-day-a-year des­ti­na­tion that New York deserves it to be. Keep an eye out for announce­ments about next sea­son and how we’re expand­ing access even more in 2020.Next year, we’ll con­tin­ue work­ing to make Gov­er­nors Island the 365-day-a-year des­ti­na­tion that New York deserves it to be. Keep an eye out for announce­ments about next sea­son and how we’re expand­ing access even more in 2020.