Levi and Hugh

Last time these two gentlemen appeared in this blog was in late June 2013 aboard ILENE at the end of a lovely daysail amid the many islands of Boston Harbor.

Levi is Hugh's grandson. Hugh and I, as junior officers, served together on the USS Hammerberg, DE-1015, back in 1967.
     They came to New York, Memorial Day weekend, for sightseeing and largely to explore New York's harbor islands. On Saturday they did the USS Intrepid and The High Line before coming to our house to rest up before dinner. When offered his choice of Vietnamese, Polish, Persian, Chinese, Deli, Italian, Indian or Ukranian, Levi asked for German, also within about half a mile of our house. I enjoyed Schnitzel, Red Cabbage and Spaetzele with them at Rolf's.
Next day I met them at Bowling Green after they had toured Liberty and Ellis Islands, to take the ferry to Governor's Island, recently turned into a park after centuries of military use. As many as 5000 people worked on the island during wartime, and 60 percent of them lived on the island in various structures built during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, many of which have been re-purposed for tourism.
     I had visited the island only once before, in 1968, when it was a major Coast Guard base. I took my division of men assigned to the Navy Reserve "surface training division" (no boat) at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where I was assigned to complete my military reserve duty after two years of active duty. The reserve unit was sadly a joke and a waste of taxpayer money: men who were not motivated to train were supposed to be taught by Chief Petty Officers who were getting out and did not want to teach. So I looked for opportunities to avoid the boredom and the Governor's Island visit, along with ones to the nearby South Street Seaport Museum and the Hayden Planetarium (to study navigation, of course), were our escape hatch to sanity. After a year of monthly weekend meetings during my first year of law school, we were all offered the opportunity to resign and I never looked back until my visit to the Governor's Island with Hugh and Levi.
       A stream of visitors is debarking from the ferry. ($2 for the round trip passage, seniors half price, kids free -- a bargain!) and a view north up the mighty Hudson River is to the left.

The ferry is a small one compared to the Staten Island ferry and is seen behind the tree to the left, with its other terminal, on Manhattan, at the extreme left. To the extreme right can be seen the tall ships of the South Street Seaport Museum, to which my friends walked next.

They have done a great job of making the island into a city/national park. Tours are available of the two forts, the pentagonal one in the center of the island and one with a curved outer wall in the extreme northwest corner. The island's size was near doubled with landfill excavated a century ago from the tunnels through which subways now rush. There was lots of activity on the island with a gift shop an arts center, many food kiosks, several performances for kids, pop up galleries for art, clothing, and the Math Museum, and to the west, large fields for soccer with Lady Liberty as a spectator.

They also have a "grove" of hammocks, bicycle rentals (or you can bring your own) and bike paths.

Manhattan's skyline  from above the carefully and diversely planted new trees on the island, with the new Freedom Tower to the left.
Governor's Island is a fun place to visit for city dwellers and tourists alike. Hmm .... all they need here is a group of moorings and a dinghy dock!

But meanwhile progress in getting ILENE ready for her upcoming 17 month "season" (June '14 through October '15) is proceeding, but she is not quite ready to sail yet and other events keep interceding.