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
With tie-up space ever decreasing in
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Don Sutherland.)
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