'May I Barge In?'
Our Town downtown
February 19, 2007
Suitors line up to dance with Lady Liberty
Last Thursday was one of those days you don’t go out unless you have to, you get your lunch from the deli in your building or you get it delivered, your cell phone goes from two battery bars to dead in the course of a two-minute conversation. There was an announcement in the subway that the MTA was enacting some sort of “cold weather plan,” which involved storing all their equipment underground, and meant that the express would be running on the local track. It was 22 degrees out but felt like 8, with gusts up to 25 miles an hour.
Not, in other words, a day for sightseeing, boating, or being up on high, exposed monuments. Not if you’re a New Yorker.
“Where you from?” a security guard at the screening checkpoint underneath a big white tent at Battery Park asks me as I shed coat, scarf, hat, gloves (thankfully, they weren’t asking for shoes, a concession possibly due to the wetness of the floor) in preparation to proceed through a metal detector. “Westchester, originally. Now the East Village.”
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
My answer – “I’ve always wanted to see it” – rings hollow. We both know that New Yorkers don’t go to the Statue of Liberty, ever, and definitely not today.
Tourists, on the other hand, flock to the monument like Muslims to Mecca. It seems to have been written in a guidebook implanted in their deep collective subconscious; they appear to have no choice but to make the pilgrimage.
The threat of frostbite? A young German man buttons the hood of his girlfriend’s parka tight under her chin, then pats her on the head. They both grin. They’re into it, man.
Two rounds of airport-tight security, no liquids or backpacks allowed? They rent storage lockers and march on, re-buckling the belts that hold up their fantastic Italian jeans.
Oh, the statue itself is closed? They climb a narrow staircase to the top of the pedestal, recording for all posterity the posterior of the person in front of them, then fire rounds of digital photos up under Lady Liberty’s skirt.
In 2005, 4.2 million people rode the Circle Line Ferry, which loops from Battery Park to Liberty Island to Ellis Island and back to Battery Park – and it wasn’t because the 1950’s and 60’s vessels were super-fast or the hot dogs and nachos particularly good (although when you’re fending off hypothermia, a relish laden hot dog does hit the spot). At $11.50 for an adult ticket, that amounts to a big fat chunk of easy change: $35 million of revenue in 2005.
So when the National Park Service announced on December 28, 2006 that the contract to run the ferry was up for grabs after 50 years of operation by Circle Line, it’s easy to imagine mouths frothing, even taking into account that the winning bidder would have to hand over 18 percent of its revenue to the Park Service.
Representatives from sixteen companies, including New York Waterway, New York Water Taxi and McAllister Towing, showed up for a tour of the ferry operations on January 9. The Times reports that some of the potential bidders for the 10-year contract weren’t all that impressed with the seven-boat fleet.
The company spokespeople wouldn’t talk to me about what they liked and what they didn’t over the phone. One spokeswoman finally clued me into the fact that none of these companies were going to reveal their “special sauce” before their bids were due.
The companies are limited, though, in how innovative they can be, because the winning bidder, if it’s not Circle Line, would be required to buy the fleet from Circle Line.
One can anticipate, and understand, the desire to replace the clunkers with faster, more modern vessels, but here’s the thing: the tourists didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the ferry’s lack of amenities or speed. The fat pigeons strutting amongst passengers’ feet, the shortage of seats and the stained, outdated emergency instructions made the ferry ride as legitimate a New York experience as taking the subway.
“I like this kind of chairs,” said a Chinese high school girl, pointing to the wooden slat benches bolted into the floor around the periphery of the upper deck – a set-up that actually does create a communal feeling, a sort of central plaza of Babel.
But even if they can’t do much with the fleet, bidders are being encouraged by public representatives and activists to add stops to their route, like Governor’s Island, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Hudson River Park, Jacob Riis Park and the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Proposals are due February 26.
On the subway back from my death-defying visit to the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal, I noticed a middle-aged father and twenty-or-so-year-old son pair I’d seen on the ferry.
“How’d you like the Statue of Liberty?” I asked the dad.
“Very nice,” he said in a thick accent, I think Italian.
“How come you decided to go see it?” I asked, then rephrased it three different ways in an attempt to break through the puzzled mask that had clamped down on his face.
He clearly wished I would stop harassing him. “It’s the holidays,” he shrugged.
The train stopped. He and his shaggy-haired son jumped up simultaneously. “Okay, bye!” he grinned, suddenly ecstatic. “We going to Ground Zero now!”
Last Thursday was one of those days you don’t go out unless you have to, you get your lunch from the deli in your building or you get it delivered, your cell phone goes from two battery bars to dead in the course of a two-minute conversation. There was an announcement in the subway that the MTA was enacting some sort of “cold weather plan,” which involved storing all their equipment underground, and meant that the express would be running on the local track. It was 22 degrees out but felt like 8, with gusts up to 25 miles an hour.
Not, in other words, a day for sightseeing, boating, or being up on high, exposed monuments. Not if you’re a New Yorker.
“Where you from?” a security guard at the screening checkpoint underneath a big white tent at Battery Park asks me as I shed coat, scarf, hat, gloves (thankfully, they weren’t asking for shoes, a concession possibly due to the wetness of the floor) in preparation to proceed through a metal detector. “Westchester, originally. Now the East Village.”
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
My answer – “I’ve always wanted to see it” – rings hollow. We both know that New Yorkers don’t go to the Statue of Liberty, ever, and definitely not today.
Tourists, on the other hand, flock to the monument like Muslims to Mecca. It seems to have been written in a guidebook implanted in their deep collective subconscious; they appear to have no choice but to make the pilgrimage.
The threat of frostbite? A young German man buttons the hood of his girlfriend’s parka tight under her chin, then pats her on the head. They both grin. They’re into it, man.
Two rounds of airport-tight security, no liquids or backpacks allowed? They rent storage lockers and march on, re-buckling the belts that hold up their fantastic Italian jeans.
Oh, the statue itself is closed? They climb a narrow staircase to the top of the pedestal, recording for all posterity the posterior of the person in front of them, then fire rounds of digital photos up under Lady Liberty’s skirt.
In 2005, 4.2 million people rode the Circle Line Ferry, which loops from Battery Park to Liberty Island to Ellis Island and back to Battery Park – and it wasn’t because the 1950’s and 60’s vessels were super-fast or the hot dogs and nachos particularly good (although when you’re fending off hypothermia, a relish laden hot dog does hit the spot). At $11.50 for an adult ticket, that amounts to a big fat chunk of easy change: $35 million of revenue in 2005.
So when the National Park Service announced on December 28, 2006 that the contract to run the ferry was up for grabs after 50 years of operation by Circle Line, it’s easy to imagine mouths frothing, even taking into account that the winning bidder would have to hand over 18 percent of its revenue to the Park Service.
Representatives from sixteen companies, including New York Waterway, New York Water Taxi and McAllister Towing, showed up for a tour of the ferry operations on January 9. The Times reports that some of the potential bidders for the 10-year contract weren’t all that impressed with the seven-boat fleet.
The company spokespeople wouldn’t talk to me about what they liked and what they didn’t over the phone. One spokeswoman finally clued me into the fact that none of these companies were going to reveal their “special sauce” before their bids were due.
The companies are limited, though, in how innovative they can be, because the winning bidder, if it’s not Circle Line, would be required to buy the fleet from Circle Line.
One can anticipate, and understand, the desire to replace the clunkers with faster, more modern vessels, but here’s the thing: the tourists didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the ferry’s lack of amenities or speed. The fat pigeons strutting amongst passengers’ feet, the shortage of seats and the stained, outdated emergency instructions made the ferry ride as legitimate a New York experience as taking the subway.
“I like this kind of chairs,” said a Chinese high school girl, pointing to the wooden slat benches bolted into the floor around the periphery of the upper deck – a set-up that actually does create a communal feeling, a sort of central plaza of Babel.
But even if they can’t do much with the fleet, bidders are being encouraged by public representatives and activists to add stops to their route, like Governor’s Island, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Hudson River Park, Jacob Riis Park and the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Proposals are due February 26.
On the subway back from my death-defying visit to the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal, I noticed a middle-aged father and twenty-or-so-year-old son pair I’d seen on the ferry.
“How’d you like the Statue of Liberty?” I asked the dad.
“Very nice,” he said in a thick accent, I think Italian.
“How come you decided to go see it?” I asked, then rephrased it three different ways in an attempt to break through the puzzled mask that had clamped down on his face.
He clearly wished I would stop harassing him. “It’s the holidays,” he shrugged.
The train stopped. He and his shaggy-haired son jumped up simultaneously. “Okay, bye!” he grinned, suddenly ecstatic. “We going to Ground Zero now!”
