WE MISSED THE BOAT
Greenpoint passengers fume over ‘quizzical’ snafu
An NYC Ferry stop in north Brooklyn was temporarily out of commission Monday over a disagreement with a real estate developer.
Boats in the city fleet were skipping the Greenpoint stop Sunday and most of Monday as a result of the clash. Service to Greenpoint was back by 4 p.m., officials said.
NYC Ferry — managed by the city’s Economic Development Corporation and operated by the company Hornblower — has operated out of Greenpoint since the service launched in 2017. But earlier this month, the private firm LendLease bought the pier and nearby waterfront site for $111 million.
EDC spokesman Chris Singleton said the company barred the ferry from operating along its property until insurance matters were resolved, explaining there was an issue with the transition of paperwork from the old owner to the new one.
Ferry service was restored after EDC officials unraveled the snafu — but some local ferry riders had already planned alternate commutes.
“I have a citizenship interview tomorrow in Lower Manhattan and I already planned my trip with my wife, and now I’m stuck without the ferry,” Radek Pikuc, 44, a Polish immigrant who lives in Greenpoint, said earlier Monday. “It’s so much nicer to take the ferry than the subway. We all can live without it, but if I have a choice between ferry and subway or bus I always take the ferry.”
Singleton said a shuttle bus was available Monday to take riders stranded in Greenpoint to the ferry landing at Hunters Point in Long Island City, but no buses showed up and an NYC ferry representative didn’t know where it stopped.
Mayor de Blasio called the outage a “quizzical situation.”
Stranded passengers stronger language. used
Stone Water, 46, was left without a ride just as he headed home to his apartment in Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Town.
“This is absurd. It’s an injustice,” the retiree complained. “This is essentially part of my commute. I don’t want to take buses, people aren’t taking precautions.”
Roman, 34, who declined to provide his last name, was on his way to a work meeting in Manhattan when he learned of the closure. He said he preferred to take the boats because they’re open air, and he’s afraid to take the subway because of the recent spike in COVID-19 cases in some parts of the city.
“I don’t know how I’m going to get to my meeting,” said Roman, an architect. “I might call a private car. I’m not taking the subway.”
The bulk of the NYC Ferry stops are near real estate developments — and the EDC aimed for the service to boost waterfront property values by offering breezy boat connections between the boroughs.
That so many of the stops are located in well-to-do areas like the Upper East Side, Financial District and Brooklyn Heights led the ferry to be used predominately by white, upper-middle class people, a 2019 survey from the EDC found.