Page 31: of Marine News Magazine (March 2005)

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March, 2005 • MarineNews 31 board of Friends of the Hudson River

Park, which campaigns for a Hudson

River Park that's "designed for the recep- tion of boats. There should be a harbor master."

Quality of life is a big issue in New

York. A lot more people inhabit Manhat- tan than its landmass was designed for.

They need all the help they can get, just to put up with it all. Some, for example, just by dint of numbers, get pushed to the fringes. Where do they go from there?

Saved from Isolation "I was concerned about the isolation of many New York neighborhoods," Mr. Fox told us, "where residents might have to walk three or more blocks to get to the subway." The "Hop on, Hop off" cam- paign of the Water Taxi came up as an antidote to the problem of accessing the coastal fringes. For twenty bucks during the warmer months, citizens can take afternoon rides to their hearts' content, for two consecutive afternoons. Although the company suggests walking tours at each landing, regular citizens with business around town can ride to points as their movements require. They're mothers with strollers who board at Hunt's Point, in

Queens, and a few minutes later reach 34th-street, where you can buy anything.

The South Street Seaport, the Financial

District, the World Trade Center area, and on up to Greenwich Village, all can be reached in record time by hopping-on and hopping-off. There's Goldman-Sachs in

New Jersey, and the Brooklyn Army Ter- minal. There are tie-ins to be made: you got a population? We got a ferry. "At

Schaefer's Landing, you've got 356 units of market-rate housing plus subsidized housing, and you have to walk a third or a half mile up a hill to the train. And then you have to come over. With the Water

Taxi, it's six to ten minutes to Manhattan.

The developer has guaranteed us x- amount of riders for his stop, and that's what we do. So we're cross-promoting."

Last autumn, New York Water Taxi expanded its scope with the introduction of a National Parks harbor tour, the most ambitious of three or four revenue pack- ages to-date. New York Harbor is rimmed with parklands, from the Battery to the

Statue of Liberty, to Fort Wadsworth, way out by the Verrazano Bridge. Passengers wrapped in headsets hear a recorded nar- ration, in the voice of David Rockefeller

Jr., describing the natural and historic sites along the way, while the skipper speeds-up or slows to keep the visuals in synch.

Preaching What it Practices

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Headed uptown, fella? No doubt about it, with that big LED destination board. By the time you read this, modified boats with bulbous bows - placed on both hulls by the original Derektor shipyard - will have begun service. (Photo:

Don Sutherland.)

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