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Community Board 1 (CB1) has given a qualified endorsement to a plan for new management at Pier 15, on the East River waterfront at South Street Seaport. The dock has been the focus of controversy for years, because promises made more than a decade ago about community use of the facility (which is publicly owned) are widely perceived to have been ignored. Critics allege that early assurances about public access and amenities have been eclipsed as much of Pier 15 has been privatized and monetized.
The ferry operator NY Waterway is slated to take over management of Pier 15 on June 1. At the April 23 meeting of CB1’s Executive Committee, Don Liloia, a vice president of NY Waterway and its subsidiary DockNYC, said, “there have been a lot of problems at this pier. The public space has been taken over and one of the things that we need to establish here is public access.”
“My first objective is to clean up that pier,” he said. “We’ll also invest money into planting beds. I see it as an underused, abused asset, and it needs to be taken care of. We are going to reestablish boundaries and try to allow the public to use the space as it was intended. I don’t see this as a party pier. I think what should be coming out of this pier is sight-seeing vessels, chartered event vessels, historic and educational vessels.”
Addressing another longstanding complaint that the public restrooms promised for Pier 15 have not been available for several years, he said that DockNYC and NY Waterway are committed to opening and maintaining these facilities, and keeping public walkways accessible.
“There should be summer activities out there on a temporary basis,” Mr. Liloia continued. “We, as a company, program our terminal spaces. We do markets and school events. We also have a relationship with the Billion Oyster Project, where we allow children to come into our terminals, we give them space, so they can work with the Billion Oyster Project”—a nonprofit organization that seeks to repopulate New York Harbor with oysters.
Referring to a widespread practice that has proved contentious, he added, “we do not allow anyone to sell tour tickets on the street and operate out of any of these facilities.” Aggressive ticket hawkers often prowl local streets, trying to entice tourists to pay exorbitant prices for tour boat rides, sometimes with false promises (such as visits to the Statue of Liberty by vessels that do not dock there). “The solution is selling tickets from behind the window and people need to walk inside the building, see a certified ticket agent, or a ticket machine, Mr. Liloia said. “This way, if there’s a problem, they can come back and resolve that problem.”
At its April 28 monthly meeting, CB1 enacted a resolution recommending that the City’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), which controls Pier 15, finalize its proposed contract with DockNYC, provided that the agreement meet a list of conditions. Among these are assurances that the Maritime Pavilion (a 1,700-square-foot space that was meant to serve as a community amenity) be made available for use by local groups, and that DockNYC partner with the South Street Seaport Museum to create nautical educational programs. Additionally, CB1 wants DockNYC and EDC to create a Community Benefit Fund by imposing a $1.00 per-passenger fee for all commercial excursion departures from Pier 15, and then using this revenue for “the beautification, maintenance, and public programming of the Pier 15 open space and the Maritime Pavilion.”
The EDC has created such funds at three similar facilities— the Manhattan Cruise Terminal, the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, and the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal—which have raised more than $3 million to be used for needs prioritized by the surrounding communities.
Matthew Fenton
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