Governors Island

Governors Island is a 172-acre island in New York Harbor, part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is about 800 yards south of Manhattan Island and is separated from Brooklyn by the Buttermilk Channel. Today, it is a popular public space with parks, arts events, and recreational activities.

Originally called Paggank ("nut island") by the native Lenape people for its many chestnut, hickory, and oak trees, the island was later known as Noten Eylandt in Dutch and then Nutten Island in English before becoming Governors Island. It was first used by the military in 1755 during the French and Indian War and became an important defense point during the American Revolutionary War.

From 1783 to 1966, Governors Island served as a United States Army base for training troops. It later became a United States Coast Guard site until 1996. After closing as a military base, it was sold to the public in 2003 and opened for visitors in 2005. Today, over 800,000 people visit each year. The island can only be reached by ferry and has no permanent residents. Since 2021, it is open to the public year-round.

Etymology

The Native Lenape people called the island names like Paggank, meaning "Nut Island" because of its many trees. Dutch explorers later named it Noten Eylandt, which also means "Nut Island". The name "Governor's Island" came from British leaders who set it aside for New York's royal governors. The name became official in 1784.

History

Colonial period

Governors Island was much smaller in the past, with many inlets along its shoreline and groves of hardwood trees. It is unclear if the Lenape people used the island for permanent homes or mainly for hunting and gathering. In 1524, explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano may have been the first European to see the island, then called Paggank. In May 1624, the first settlers arrived on the island, then known as Noten Eylandt, as they landed there to claim the area of New Netherland. They came from Amsterdam with thirty families aboard the ship Nieu Nederlandt, led by Cornelius Jacobsen May.

In 1633, Wouter van Twiller, the fifth director of New Netherland, arrived and used the island for his personal farm. He built a windmill there but left in 1642. The windmill was later destroyed, and the island was used as a recreation area by the Dutch until 1664 when the British took control. By 1680, the island, now called Nutten Island, had a single house and was used by colonial governors to raise animals. The British renamed it "Governor's Island" in 1698 and began using it exclusively for governors. Over time, various governors used the island for different purposes, including building a mansion, hunting pheasants, leasing it out, and even using it briefly as a quarantine station.

American Revolution

Plans for fortifications on Governor’s Island were first made in 1741, but they were never built. In 1755, during the French and Indian War, the island was used for a military encampment. By the mid-1760s, a fort and earthworks were documented on the island. After the American Revolution began, General George Washington ordered defensive improvements. In April 1776, earthworks and cannons were added in anticipation of British forces returning. The island’s defenses were used to slow British ships on the Hudson River and helped protect Washington’s retreat from Brooklyn. The British took control of the island later that year and held it for the rest of the war, continuing to improve its defenses.

Late 18th through 19th centuries

After the Revolution, Governor’s Island was transferred to New York State and used as a hotel and racetrack. The island’s fortifications fell into disrepair. In 1794, federal funding was allocated to build new defenses, and Fort Jay was constructed. Ownership transferred to the federal government in 1800. More fortifications followed, including Castle Williams and the South Battery, completed before the War of 1812, though they were never used in battle.

In the mid-19th century, the island was used to garrison troops and later became home to the New York Arsenal. Construction of buildings continued, and the island saw use during the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War, primarily as a support facility. Castle Williams held Confederate prisoners, and Fort Columbus was used for officer prisoners. After the Civil War, the island became an administrative center for the Army, with new buildings and facilities added. A cemetery was established but later moved.

Army operation in the 20th century

In the late 1880s and 1890s, the Army expanded the island using excavated material from the building of the New York City Subway, increasing its size by 103 acres. New buildings were planned but never built. The island’s name was changed back to Fort Jay in 1904, and a new chapel was built in 1907.

During World War I, the island became a major military base with barracks, warehouses, and a railroad. After the war, it became headquarters for the Second Corps Area. In the 1920s and 1930s, more buildings were constructed, and the island developed into a community with housing, schools, and recreational facilities. During World War II, the island served as an administrative center and a recruitment station before recruitment moved closer to Manhattan.

Coast Guard operation

In 1965, the Army decommissioned the base, and it became a U.S. Coast Guard installation. The Coast Guard used the island for Atlantic Area Command operations and as a regional headquarters. The island had up to 4,000 personnel and 1,000 family members, along with facilities like a marina, training school, apartments, and recreational amenities. Notable events included ceremonies for the Statue of Liberty restoration and meetings between world leaders.

Redevelopment

In 1995, the Coast Guard announced plans to close the base. In 2001, part of the island became Governors Island National Monument. By 2003, the rest of the island was transferred to a city-state agency for public use, with restrictions on permanent housing and casinos. Redevelopment began slowly, with the first public visits in 2005. Plans included creating parkland, restoring historic areas, and adding educational and cultural facilities. Construction started in 2012, and the island became a popular public space, attracting over 800,000 visitors by 2018. Today, Governors Island operates year-round with various organizations and facilities, including schools, arts centers, and research plans.

Geography

Governors Island has 172 acres of land. About 22 acres are cared for by the National Park Service, and the rest by The Trust for Governors Island. The island is located about 400 yards west of Brooklyn and 800 yards south of Manhattan. It is part of the borough of Manhattan and shares the ZIP Code 10004 with nearby areas.

The island is shaped a bit like an ice cream cone. The northern part, which is natural, is like the ice cream. The southern part, which was built up, is like the cone. The highest natural point on the island is 40 feet above water level. The southern part was once very low but has been raised to create parkland with hills that are between 26 and 70 feet tall.

Notable structures

Fortifications

Main articles: Fort Jay and Castle Williams

Old buildings were built on Governors Island to help protect New York Harbor. These worked together with Castle Clinton at the southern tip of Manhattan, Fort Wood on Liberty Island, and Fort Gibson on Ellis Island. The buildings were made to keep the city safe during the War of 1812.

Fort Jay, found in the center of the northern part of Governors Island, is the oldest. It was built in 1794. It was made on the highest spot of the island, with a slope going down from all sides. The first buildings fell apart, so they were replaced in 1806. Fort Jay was first named after New York governor John Jay, but after it was rebuilt, it was called Fort Columbus until around 1904. The new fort reused the old slope and many walls. Though it has been fixed up many times, how it looks now mostly comes from changes made in the 1830s. The walls of Fort Jay are made of sandstone and granite, with a special shape on the north wall. The fort is surrounded by a dry moat.

Castle Williams was built between 1807 and 1811 on the northwest corner of the island, on what was then a rock under the water. It was named after USACE chief engineer Jonathan Williams. It is a round building made of sandstone, standing 40 feet high and 210 feet wide. The walls get a little thinner from bottom to top. The building has four levels, each with 13 places for cannons, holding 104 cannons in total. Two parts inside the south side of the fort were taken out in 1900.

Open landscapes

Northern portion

There are four open spaces in the old northern part of Governors Island. The northernmost is the slope of Fort Jay, a grassy area without trees that goes down from all sides of the fort. This slope helped create a space between the walls of Fort Jay and the moat. It once had a polo field and the Governors Island Golf Course.

To the southeast of Fort Jay is Nolan Park, a formal area with tree-lined paths surrounded by old officers’ houses and offices. The park’s eastern edge curves southwest toward the southern end of the area, while the western and northern edges meet at right angles. Nolan Park looks today much as it did in the 1870s and was named after Major General Dennis E. Nolan, who led the First Army from 1933 to 1936.

Governors Island's Parade Ground is west of Nolan Park and south of Fort Jay, covering about 13 acres. The ground slopes down away from Fort Jay toward the water to the south. It was used for military training and as a place for prisoners kept at Castle Williams. The golf course once reached into the parade ground, but some parts of it are still there. Near the Parade Ground, looking out over Buttermilk Channel, is New York City's only lavender field.

The fourth open space is the triangle between Clayton and Hay Roads, also called Colonels Row Green or Hay Park, found southwest of Fort Jay and northeast of Liggett Hall. It was made in the early 1900s and forms a wedge shape between Hay Road to the east, which marks the island’s original southwest shoreline, and Clayton Road and Liggett Hall to the southwest.

Southern portion

The southern part of Governors Island has a park covering more than 43 acres. The north end of the park has Hammock Grove, a landscaped area with rolling hills and over 60 kinds of trees. The hills rise up to 27 feet above sea level, keeping the area from flooding. The grove is 10 acres and has 50 hammocks. Right west of it is the 14-acre Play Lawn, which has two fields for baseball. The paths here wind around like in Frederick Law Olmsted’s designs for Central Park and Prospect Park, creating a quiet feel.

The south end of the park has the Hills area, covering 10 acres. The Hills has four hills that are 26 to 70 feet high, made partly from old debris from torn-down buildings on the island. Each hill has a path to the top. From shortest to tallest, they are the 26-foot Grassy Hill; the 40-foot Discovery Hill, which has special art; the 40-foot Slide Hill, with four long slides; and the 70-foot Outlook Hill, which has a viewing area at the top looking out over New York Harbor, Lower Manhattan, and Brooklyn. The Hills has over 41,000 bushes and 860 new trees. Building the Hills cost $70 million, with Google CEO Eric Schmidt giving $15 million.

At the very southern tip of Governors Island is Picnic Point. This area has grills and picnic tables close to the water.

Other structures

When the Coast Guard left Governors Island in 1996, there were 49 buildings built before 1917, mostly in the northern part, and 121 buildings built after 1917, mostly in the southern part. The southern part was mostly for living and industry, while the northern part had a mix of uses. The island had lots of open space.

Residential

Governors Island has several groups of small officers’ houses, most now empty, though some are used for exhibits or offices. The two biggest groups of houses in the old northern part of the island are Colonel's Row (buildings 403–410) and the houses around Nolan Park (buildings 1–20).

The Block House in Nolan Park

Colonels Row red brick houses, #406 and 407

Nolan Park has several important buildings. The Admiral's House/Commanding Officer’s Quarters (building 1), a two-story Colonial Revival brick house built in 1843, is listed separately and as a city landmark. North of it is the Governor's House (building 2), a two-story Georgian brick house built around 1805–1813. The southeast corner of Nolan Park has the Block House (building 9), a two-story Greek Revival building built in 1843. Buildings 3-5 (built in the 1850s), 6-11 and 14-18 (built in 1878–1879), and 19-20 (built in the 1890s) all served as homes for officers. Building 12, a three-story Georgian Revival brick apartment building, was built in 1928 or 1931 for the 16th Infantry Regiment.

The east side of Colonel's Row has eight individual officers’ houses numbered 403 from north to south, which originally faced the old shoreline southwest of Hays Road. The first buildings, 405–408, were built in 1893-1895 following the same plans from the Quartermaster General, made as two-family homes. This was followed by buildings 403–404, built in 1904-1906 using the same plan. Building 409, a two-and-a-half-story Colonial Revival design made for unmarried officers, was finished in 1910, while building 410 was built in 1917 as a home for officers and is the only building on the island with a Modified Arts and Crafts style.

The southwest side of Colonel's Row is dominated by Liggett Hall (building 400), a three-to-four-story barracks that stretches nearly the full width of Governors Island, measuring 1,023 feet long with two 225-foot-long wings going south. Built in 1930 for the 16th Infantry, it was one of the largest military barracks in the world when finished and was the first Army building made to house a whole regiment. The building has a ground-level walkway that runs between the first and second floors, plus an extra part on the southeast side. Two almost identical Georgian Revival buildings, building 550 (now the New York Harbor School) to the north and building 333 to the south, are right next to Liggett Hall. Both are three-story U-shaped buildings with wings around a front courtyard; they were built in 1932 as housing for the First Army before the Coast Guard used them as classrooms. Nearby are a smaller pair of nearly identical 3+1⁄2-story family homes for the 16th Regiment, built in 1940. These are building 555 north of building 550, and building 315 near the southern waterfront south of the YMCA and theater.

Many of the old homes in Nolan Park and Colonels Row now serve as seasonal homes for arts and culture groups that usually offer free programs for visitors during the island’s public season.

Previously, there were apartment buildings as tall as 11 stories on the southern half of Governors Island. The biggest of these, the 11-story, 165-unit Cunningham Apartments (building 877), was on the island’s north side. Built in 1968, it was torn down in 2013.

Religious

People have practiced religion on Governors Island since the first chapel opened in 1846. There came to be three places of worship on Governors Island. The Chapel of St. Cornelius the Centurion (building 13), a two-story limestone building in the southern part of Nolan Park, was designed by Charles C. Haight and built in 1907, replacing the old 1846 chapel. Over the chapel’s history, leaders have been assigned by several groups, including the Army, Coast Guard, and Trinity Church.

A Christian church called Our Lady, Star of the Sea was built in 1942. The one-story wooden building is at Clayton and Comfort Roads on the north shore of Governors Island.

A synagogue for Congregation Shaare Shomayim was started in 1960 in what is known as building S-40. The one-story wooden building, located east of Barry Road on the island’s east shore, was first used as a “temporary” storage space.

Office and storage

Several buildings were built as part of the Arsenal but were not used as homes, instead serving as offices or storage. Building 110 now holds the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Arts Center at Governors Island, which opened in September 2019. All were built from brick between the 1850s and 1870s. Buildings 106 (a pump house) and 108 and 109 (offices) were built in the 1940s in the same style as the other buildings. Pershing Hall (building 125), a three-story brick building north of buildings 107 and 108 on the northern waterfront, served as the First Army’s headquarters when built in 1934.

The waterfront has several buildings, including building 130, the original Arsenal workshop, and building 134, a modern building which had offices for USCG Group: Station New York. Governors Island also has several small vehicle garages of different styles. Most of these garages were built in the 1930s and 1940s during the WPA’s updates to the island.

As of 2023, a climate laboratory made by Stony Brook University is being built on Governors Island. The lab, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, will have two narrow wood buildings connected by a roof with solar panels. The buildings will sit 8 feet (2.4 m) above the rest of the island, with a curved outside and solar roofs.

Service structures

The northwest side of the island has building 515, the former Post Hospital, later used as housing for unmarried soldiers. The three-story brick-and-limestone building was built in 1935 following a Neo-Georgian design by McKim, Mead & White. Nearby is the Tampa Memorial Library (building S-251), a one-story rectangular wooden building. Built in 1908, it was first used as storage and was renamed after the cutting of the cutter Tampa in 1918.

The area around the South Battery, south of the Parade Ground, includes several old service buildings. Building 301, a one-story brick building near the waterfront, housed an elementary school called PS 26. It was first built in 1934, with two wings added in 1959–1960. To the west is building 324, built in 1926 as the Army YMCA. The War Department Theater (building 330), a two-story 700-seat theater built in 1937–1939, is west of the YMCA, facing the southern part of Governors Island.

Monuments

The Monumental Setting for Bronze Plaque, a brick bench with stone decorations between buildings 406 and 407, was built by the WPA in 1938. The Early Birds Monument, first put up in 1954 south of Liggett Hall, is a bronze copy of a Wright Brothers’ plane’s propeller on a granite base, remembering early flying on the island.

Operations

Three groups work together to care for Governors Island: the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy, the Trust for Governors Island, and Friends of Governors Island.

The National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy takes care of the part of the island that is a national monument. The Trust for Governors Island plans new things and organizes art shows. Friends of Governors Island runs programs and events for visitors.

Governors Island uses special working dogs to gently move away large groups of Canada geese. These dogs help keep the island safe and friendly. The island also used to have sheep that helped eat unwanted plants, but this program has ended. Old cannonballs from when the island was used for defense can still be seen near Fort Jay.

Activities

Governors Island has many fun things to do! You can take free tours led by the National Park Service, ride bikes, have picnics, see art displays, and enjoy fairs, festivals, and concerts. The northern part of the island has the Governors Island National Monument and a historic district, while the southern part has a big park run by the Trust for Governors Island.

There are many regular activities to enjoy. You can see art shows and learn about different cultures near Nolan Park and Colonel’s Row. At Downtown Boathouse, you can try free kayaking classes. There are also walking tours and self-guided tours to explore the island’s history. Other fun spots include an adventure playground called The Yard, a place to learn about composting, and a small farm where you can see plants grow. Some activities, like using the QC NY spa or staying at the Collective Retreats camping area, cost extra money. You can rent bikes from Blazing Saddles or use Citi Bike stations around the island to get around.

Public access

Governors Island is open to visitors all year, every day from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. In the past, the island was only open on summer weekends and mostly closed at night except for concerts. Now, it’s accessible much more often.

The first boats to Governors Island began in 1794, charging just three cents per ride. Over time, the boats changed from rowboats to steamboats and larger ferries. Today, there are two main ferry spots on the island. One is Soissons Landing, where ferries go to Manhattan’s Financial District, taking about 7 minutes. The other is Yankee Pier, which has ferries to different parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan, depending on the season. Some of these ferries are free for children and certain groups on weekends.

Notable people

Some famous people were born on or worked on Governors Island. Comic book artist Neal Adams and entertainers the Smothers Brothers were both born there. Military leader Withers A. Burress ended his career commanding troops at Fort Jay on the island. Other well-known people include United States Army officer Winfield Scott Hancock and former director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Peter Marzio.