Wel­com­ing Vis­i­tors to a Shared Part of the City

Over 750,000 peo­ple vis­it­ed dur­ing the 2018 sea­son – more than twice the vis­i­ta­tion from just 5 years ago. 75% of our vis­i­tors are from New York City!

Expand­ing Access to New York City’s Escape

Gov­er­nors Island came alive at night dur­ing extend­ed hours on Fri­days and Sat­ur­days from May to Sep­tem­ber – from out­door films and new water­front din­ing options to spend­ing the night under the stars.

Car­ing for the Park

Five new full-time gar­den­ers and 2,500 vol­un­teers con­tributed more than 14,000 hours of land­scap­ing (plus a squad of adorable work­ing dogs) to help us care for the 120 acre park – from the shady lawns of the His­toric Dis­trict to the south­ern end’s new, award-win­ning park. 

Com­mis­sion­ing Jacob Hashimo­to on Gov­er­nors Island

In his first-ever pub­lic instal­la­tion in New York City, artist Jacob Hashimo­to delight­ed vis­i­tors with a new com­mis­sion of two immer­sive works inspired by the Island’s his­toric archi­tec­ture explor­ing time, archi­tec­ture and cosmology. 

Fos­ter­ing a Vibrant, City­wide Des­ti­na­tion for the Arts

Over 60 orga­ni­za­tions across NYC – includ­ing 4heads, the Cli­mate Muse­um, the New-York His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety and more – host­ed near­ly 70 exhi­bi­tions, fes­ti­vals, youth pro­grams, res­i­den­cies, open stu­dio events and oth­er learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties – all free and open to the public!

A Liv­ing Lab for Envi­ron­men­tal Stewardship

From its posi­tion at the heart of New York Har­bor – and part­ner­ships with the New York Har­bor School, Bil­lion Oys­ter Project, Earth Mat­ter NY, GrowNYC and more – the Island con­tin­ues to inspire con­ver­sa­tion and explo­ration of our chang­ing cli­mate and how we all can be a part of the solution. 

Thank you to all our vis­i­tors for mak­ing Gov­er­nors Island great in 2018!