October 22, 2021
Theo Pollack
A short ferry ride from Lower Manhattan, one enters a setting still preserved from another time. Leaving from Whitehall Terminal, on South Street, a boat arrives just a few minutes later at Soisson’s Landing. This is the northern end of Governor’s Island – a teardrop-shaped patch in Upper New York Bay between the Battery, Brooklyn, and the Statue of Liberty. For most of its history, this island was a military asset. Today it is civilian, with parcels owned by a trust, the National Park Service, and the City of New York. There is a plan, which remains unrealized, but the island is open to visitors – a mix of intentions and accidents.
The land here is hilly and dotted with old structures. One of the first oddly resembles Castle Clinton – the old, circular fort that anchors Manhattan at Battery Park. The one here is Castle Williams, a ring of red sandstone, and once a component – along with its Manhattan counterpart and the larger, star-shaped Fort Jay — of New York City’s old harbor defenses. Dating from 1807, Castle Williams was used in the War of 1812 and the Civil War, and has since served as a prison, a community center, and a museum. Today, the National Park Service reports that its roof is occasionally open to the public, with panoramic views of the city and the bay.
South of the Castle and the Fort, the heart of Governor’s Island — once an Army base — resembles an old-school Eastern college, with red-brick buildings and yellow frame houses arranged around green squares. The boughs of old trees make canopies over shady walks and the ivy climbs up masonry walls. Yet these buildings and grounds are not polished and forbidding, like those of a smug, exclusive school. They are empty, for the most part, and need paint. There is something almost haunted here, a tangible memory of another time, when the military and colleges, the city and the country, were not such alien worlds: when soldiers – however practical – had good architecture, and students – however ambitious – lived in simple, time-worn spaces.
Today, the City has established picnic grounds at the southern end of the island. To reach this spot, a visitor must cross the island, about a mile’s walk from the ferry landing. The picnic grounds have the benefits of shade, barbecue grills, tables, and chairs. The Statue of Liberty can be seen at its closest range from land in New York City; and long, yellow Staten Island Ferries pass left and right incessantly. Beyond the whitecaps of the mermaid-green harbor, the jumbled cellar of New Jersey’s waterfront runs off toward the sunset, with cranes and derricks, tanks and warehouses, and a scattering of church steeples. To the south, Staten Island continues into its hills, and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is suspended over the entrance to the open sea.
Here is a flash of the New York City of immigrant stories and ship captains; of 1920s gangsters and returning World War II veterans and 1950s longshoremen and 9/11 evacuees; a timeless city waterfront whose outlines have not changed much through vastly different worlds. A fragment of a poem comes to mind:
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles.
For more than a century, we have come and gone and come back, like waves. It is still someone else’s city. We eat hamburgers and shish kebab and drink deep red Spanish wine. We talk and watch ships pass in the fading sun. Photographs are taken. The dog sleeps under a picnic table.
Elsewhere on the island are vegetable gardens, ducks, and goats. There are new walkways, slides and jungle gyms, and vacant lots filled with gravel and dirt behind chain-link fences. There are many seagulls, white and gray, especially on the rocks along the water’s edge. Some people say there are apartments here. Old buildings are empty and awaiting tenants. Plans are in the works. There are mysterious construction projects. There are promenades along the bay. There are vending machines and overlooks with binoculars. The October wind is cool now. The last boat leaves for Manhattan at 6:30. After that, some people will remain on the island to camp overnight.
