EDITORIAL: WHITHER WATER TAXI?

By George Fiala

A few months ago I wrote a front page editorial about how Red Hook could be made better. I said that we really need a localized governing mechanism that doesn’t now exist. The reason I mentioned was that there are many illattended community meetings. I thought that probably with so many meetings, it’s hard for the average resident to keep up with them.

My thinking was that with one monthly “super meeting,” run by a committee of local leaders headed by a paid employee, it would be easier to get a big crowd, and more things would get done, rather than the piecemail way things often happen now.

I made up the term “GID,” for government improvement district, and more than a couple people actually mentioned to me that might not be a bad idea.

I have written about the need for a more local government before, but this was the first time anybody mentioned reading it.

So, therefore emboldened, here’s another good reason for better organization of our community.

Nothing happening behind Fairway

By now probably a lot of you readers have noticed that the bright yellow Water Taxi no longer stops at the dock that is still right in back of Fairway.

I’m not exactly sure when they stopped arriving, but it must have been when it was still cold, because I remember somebody saying that probably they will start up again when it will get warmer.

I do know that Fairway had shoppers that would take the ferry from Lower Manhattan. And I do know that a lot of businesses on the south end of Van Brunt got a lot of tourist business every summer from the ferry. Our ofice is right here—and I would see for myself the hordes of people speak- ing all kinds of language walking down Van Brunt after the ferry would arrive.

But no—the ferry has never returned. There is no sign at the landing with any sort of explanation, and when I ask the Water Taxi workers, they are not sure. Durst, who used to own the Water Taxi, were so disappointed at not receiving the NYC Ferry franchise that they sold the company to the other disappointed ferry service, NY Waterway. I guess it was Waterways who stopped the service. You might have thought they’d have reached out to the local newspaper with some sort of announcement, but in fact, even the man who knows everything Red Hook, the mustachioed John McGettrick, is in the dark about this.

One guess is that Fairway might have helped subsidize that ferry stop, and were no longer willing to spend the money.

Fairway has cut a lot of local expenses, and so that bears a ring of truth.

But to take away such a resource without any recourse is a tough nut.

Lets say we had the sort of local organization I am talking about. Which would include a tourist bureau and a local chamber of commerce.

As a group, we would be in better charge of our own destiny. If, for example, it was a simple matter of Fairway not wanting to keep paying the bill, we might, as a community, decide that the Water Taxi to Fairway is something we don’t want to lose. Especially those businesses in proximity to it, such as local barbecue and shellfish joints that have prospered here. Now we have a mainstream ice cream vendor a short walk from the former ferry stop. And lots of the smaller businesses that benefit from Manhattanites and tourists.

If it’s simply money, we might decide that it is worth our while to raise it ourselves. Perhaps Fairway could pay something, and we’d be able to raise the rest.

At least we’d have that option.
Now all we have, as Mary Kyle would say, is bupkes.