The vision for Governors Island came into sharper focus after more details of the first phase of development were revealed to AN last month. Leslie Koch, president of the Trust for Governors Island, confirmed that the city has committed $300 million to the project. During construction through 2012, the island will only be open on Saturdays and Sundays; work is expected to be complete by October 2013. New key features, from transparent signage to curbs that morph into seating and customized lighting provide a distinct identity.

The most immediate change that visitors will notice is a new arrival pier at Soissons Landing. Koch said that Yankee Pier to the south would accommodate visitors from Brooklyn. Historic areas will be left pretty much alone, though nearly $27 million has already been spent to stabilize historic structures. The project will also bring much-needed infrastructure such as telecommunications and a potable water connection from Brooklyn.

On arrival at Soissons Landing, a transparent Welcome Wall developed by Pentagram will greet visitors. Partner Michael Bierut said the designers knew that if the signage was too large it would become intrusive, too small and it would become useless. So the group explored ways to dematerialize the wayfinding. The firm created a trellis-like gate to hold cutout letters (a redesigned version of the font Agency), making the background for the letters the park itself. “The more they get smothered by the landscape the better,” said Bierut.

LEFT TO RIGHT:  THE HAMMOCK GROVE SWINGS AMONG FULL-GROWN OAKS; A SITE PLAN OF GOVERNORS ISLAND; A PLANTING PLAN FOR LIGGETT TERRACE.

The terrace in front of McKim, Mead and White’s Liggett Hall seems set to become the island’s social heart. West 8’s Adriaan Geuze described the paisley-like interplay of plantings and fountains found there as a “baroque” composition. Here a swirling labyrinth of boxwoods weave in shallow fountains and play areas that don’t quarantine the kids. “No fences around this play area,” said Koch.

The Liggett Terrace swirls give way to the much-ballyhooed Hammock Grove where Geuze described a “micro typography of oak trees” leading toward baseball fields overlooking the Statue of Liberty. From the terrace to the playground and on through the southernmost tip of the island, generous white precast concrete curbing undulates with grade changes to form seating in certain areas. The curbs delineate the landscape, allowing visitors to read the typographic changes from flush with the lawn in some areas to 18-inch ledges in other areas. The petal-like swirls that are writ large in the site plan and scaled down in the boxwood hedges translate into an even smaller whorl pattern in the curb’s pre-cast concrete.

At night, lighting by Suzan Tillotson is moody. Again, Liggett Hall takes center stage with the façade washed from below with LEDs. Nearby, discreet fixtures, tucked under the boxwood and with a pale green gel, bounce soft light off one side of the hedges. Tillotson explained that in order to preserve off-site views, the light levels taper off closer to the water’s edge. Twelve-foot high lampposts use only 40 watts. The West 8-designed fixtures resemble asymmetric Calla lilies whose light spill along the walkway. As the island’s perimeter is not included in the first phase, elsewhere the familiar orange-hued street light bulbs will be used to differentiate old from new, but the closer you get to Liggett, the cooler it gets.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed to allocate $260 million in capital funds towards the overhaul of Governors Island, according to an announcement he made concerning the city’s 2012-21 preliminary capital plan on February 17.

Infrastructure improvements include updating the island’s utilities, stabilizing its historic buildings and restoring potable water.

The city money will finance the Trust for Governors Island’s park and public space master plan, which will carve out 22 acres of green space for more than 2,000 new trees. The plan also encompasses significant renovations to the island’s gateways, including Soissons Landing; and the creation of recreational fields, courtyards, and hammock-filled open space.

Using these city funds, the Trust for Governors Island will continue to overhaul the 1.4 million square feet of historic buildings for future tenants’ reuse; bring the island’s half-century-old electric and telecommunication systems up to date; invest in the piers and other marine infrastructure along the Manhattan and Governors Island waterfronts; and demolish high-rise buildings from the Coast Guard era to make room for open space.

In addition, South Battery, currently an asphalt play area, will be transformed into acres of lawn and shrubs intended to showcase the island’s historic presence.

“When the City took control of Governors Island from the State last year, Mayor Bloomberg committed to investing the funds necessary to transform it into one of the world’s great waterfront parks and to build infrastructure to sustain future uses,” said the Mayor’s Governors Island Spokesperson, Andrew Brent.

Brent continued, “The capital investments bring the infrastructure of the island into the 21st century and transform the island with extraordinary public spaces, designed by West 8, that build upon the island’s unparalleled setting in New York Harbor, the preservation of its historic landscape and its place as a playground for the arts, culture and recreation.”

The Trust for Governor’s Island released a statement, saying, “The Bloomberg Administration’s ten-year capital plan is a strong and critical investment in Governors Island’s future. The capital plan funds significant improvements in the Island’s infrastructure and historic structures, and expands the first phase of the park and public spaces.”

“With two extraordinary new ball fields and places for art and play,” the statement continued, “these new spaces create wonderful recreational opportunities for the residents of Lower Manhattan and neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs.”

“Investing in Governors Island is a vital step as we build an extraordinary amenity for the community and the city,” said State Senator Daniel Squadron in a statement. These dollars, he added, will move the city closer to realizing his vision of a unified Harbor Park, a “‘Central Park’ for the center of our city.”

Councilmember Margaret Chin said she commends the Bloomberg administration for investing in Governors Island and “working to ensure a bright future for this historic area.” Chin said she looks forward to participating in a “new chapter” of the island’s history.

“This transformation,” Chin said, “will make Governors island a destination for New Yorkers looking to enjoy the outdoors and take in the cityscape from a new perspective.”

The first finished areas of the park and public space will be Liggett Terrace, a six-acre courtyard with a play area, plantings, food vendors and seating; Hammock Grove, which will have trees, open space and hammocks; and the Play Lawn, 12 acres of open space that will comprise two new ball fields and clay infields.

Construction of the island’s park and public spaces will begin in late 2012 as scheduled. They are slated to open in 2013.

The city’s ten-year capital budget is due for City Council approval on or before June 30, 2011.

New York Harbor, Upper Bay, 1999, with Governors Island near the center, Manhattan to the left, Brooklyn at top, and Jersey City at the bottom; Ellis Island is at the left, Liberty Island at right, just off New Jersey. [photo by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]

The Island Near the Island at the Center of the World
New York Harbor has been inspiring extravagant praise for centuries, ever since the three-masted Half Moon, sponsored by the Dutch East India Company and captained by Henry Hudson, sailed into the waters surrounding what would become first Nieuw Amsterdam, later New York City. “The greatest natural harbor on the coast of a vast new wilderness” is how Russell Shorto describes it in The Island at the Center of the World. [1] With its islands and wetlands and rivers, its maritime and industrial infrastructures, its fortifications and bridges and monuments to immigration, liberty and enterprise, New York Harbor has long occupied a central place in the history and mythology of one of the continent’s greatest cities.

Today the Harbor is undergoing a vital transformation. In recent decades the decline of shipping and manufacturing, along with growing environmental consciousness, has given rise to new concerns and opportunities, spurring ideas for ecological remediation and speculative real estate, and opening up possibilities for public space where the land and the sea meet. [2] In the last three decades the most important new parks in New York City have been at the water’s edge: Battery Park, Gantry Plaza State Park, Hudson River Park, Riverside Park South and Brooklyn Bridge Park are among the most prominent.

One of the next major public landscapes at the water’s edge is likely to be Governors Island. Situated at the mouth of the East River, with spectacular views of the harbor, Governors Is. has been in limbo for years, ever since the Coast Guard ceased operations there in 1996. But the Island has always been something of a mystery; for most of its colonial and post-colonial history, it was a military outpost little known by the citizens of the growing metropolis across the bay. Sparsely populated since early settlement by the Dutch and then the British, it first became known as Governors Island in 1698, when the British colonial assembly set it aside for the “benefit and accommodation of his majestie’s governors.” [3] During the Revolutionary War the Continental Army constructed earthworks to protect the harbor from the British [4], and with the establishment of the new republic, the strategically located island continued to be fortified as a defensive bulwark. In the years before the War of 1812, the U.S. Army built a castle and a battery; early in the 20th century it expanded the island with fill from the excavation of the Lexington Avenue Subway [5]; later it constructed a bulkhead for protection from storm surges, as well as other facilities such as piers, helicopter pads and a rail line.

Top: Governors Island, 1816. [via New York Daily News] Middle: Governors Island, 1865. [via National Association for Civil War Brass Music] Bottom: Governors Island, with the Brooklyn waterfront in the distance. [Photo by Andrew Moore, courtesy of The Trust for Governors Island]

Today Governors Island is dominated by the vestiges of its military legacy and by panoramic views of the surrounding harbor. Fort Jay (ca. 1797) occupies the northern edge; crumbling barracks and tarmacs are found throughout the interior; the Coast Guard’s old Lima Pier juts into the Buttermilk Channel toward Red Hook; the encircling bulkhead varies from seven to twelve feet above sea level. Looking north toward the mouth of the East River, you can take in the sweep of the Brooklyn Bridge, and, on the waterfront below, the new Brooklyn Bridge Park; across the river are the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan, fringed by the green of Battery Park. Looking south you find Staten Island and the old naval base, now a cruise ship harbor, of Bayonne, NJ, and the gentrifying waterfront of Jersey City. And in the distance, at the mouth of the harbor, the Verrazano Bridge leaps across the Narrows, marking the entry to the port that was the gateway to America for so many millions of immigrants.

With the end of military operations, the federal government arranged the return of Governors Island to New York State for the nominal cost of $1, on condition that future development would benefit the public (with 22 acres being set aside to create the Governors Island National Monument). And even as its official status was being negotiated, the urban design community was debating new uses for the 172-acre island located just one-half mile from the southern edge of Manhattan. In 1996 the Van Alen Institute sponsored an ideas competition, Public Property, which drew more than 200 entries in response to the challenge “to consider the urban potential of Governors Island” and how it could contribute “to the survival of a vital public realm.” A few years later the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation, the public entity charged with redevelopment, along with the non-profit Governors Island Alliance, began sponsoring programs and facilities, including art exhibitions and sports venues, as part of the effort to encourage public activity and build a constituency for the island. And in 2007 the City organized a major competition, inviting five teams of internationally prominent designers to propose ideas for the island’s “future public open space,” including a new 87-acre park at the southern end, a “great promenade” around the perimeter, and park spaces within the designated Historic District at the northern end. The winning proposal was the work of a team led by West 8, in collaboration with Rogers Marvel Architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects, and Urban Design +. [6]

Governors Island promenade near Castle Williams with views of Manhattan. [via The Trust for Governors Island]

In 1987 Adriaan Geuze founded the Rotterdam-based West 8, and he has remained its leading principal and animating force, even as the landscape architecture and urban design firm has grown to 70 people with satellite offices in Brussels, New York and Toronto. At first working primarily in Western Europe, West 8 quickly earned international recognition with projects that were by turns whimsical, poetic, ecologically responsive and urbanistically sophisticated, including the Schouwburgplein (1991-1996), a raised public square in the heart of Rotterdam; the master plan of the Borneo-Sporenburg district in Amsterdam (1993-1996); and the landscape of Schipol Airport in Amsterdam (1992), a scheme for planting 25,000 birch trees in under-used spaces and marking the entries with fields of potted flowers.

Exhibiting an ability to create challenging landscapes and encourage new patterns of use, and with a solid grounding in the rich tradition of Dutch landscape making, West 8 has worked across a range of temporal and spatial scales. The firm’s landscape design for the Eastern Scheldt Storm Surge Barrier (1991-1992), in Zeeland, consists of large alternating bands of black and white mussel shells which provide not only safe resting places for shore birds during high tide but also a visually striking landscape for motorists driving along the adjacent causeway; its design for the Inner Garden at the University of Utrecht (2004-2005) features eye-catching red metal “props,” or struts, for new pine trees, which work as a playful counterpoint to the leafy green of the canopies and the restraint of the institutional architecture; the firm’s Cow-Horizon Project (2005), one of its most playful works, created for the Rotterdam Biennale, involved the installation of super-sized inflatable cows in the pasturelands along highways throughout Holland. More recently the firm has received prominent commissions in North America, including projects like the revitalization of the Toronto Central Waterfront, now underway, and a projected plan for the redesign of the open space of Lincoln Mall in Miami Beach.

Adriaan Geuze and the Narrative of New York City
West 8’s proposal for Governors Island, created before the economic crash of 2008, is today viewed by The Trust for Governors Island — the public agency created to oversee the ongoing project — as part of the long-range transformation of the island from military fortification to economically viable and socially vital public amenity. [7] Last fall I talked with Adriaan Gueze about his team’s design for the new park, and about their strategies for realizing an ambitious public project in a challenging time.

Brian Davis: The idea of a new public park on Governors Island has generated a lot of excitement in New York City. Every year more and more people visit, and recently Mayor Bloomberg said that the Island “can become one of the world’s greatest public places, and we’re committed to making it happen.” How do you see the Island’s potential right now?

Adriaan Geuze: I like to think of Governors Island in terms of the narrative of New York. Public life in New York City has traditionally been focused not out to the sea but in on the land — the view has been more inward than outward regarding public space. For centuries the water’s edge was given over to infrastructure, like highways, and to shipping and industry. But now the city’s political leadership is looking to the waterfront as the location for the next generation of public spaces, of public parks. So this is new, and it’s a great moment in the city’s history. It promises to define our time, to make it distinct from earlier eras.

BD: That’s true. But there’s a big difference here at Governors Island. Unlike other waterfront parks, such as Battery Park or Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Island isn’t adjacent to well established neighborhoods. The new park will be on an island where nobody actually lives, and all visitors will need to take a boat. This might discourage some, those not interested in the experience or the effort required; at the same time it will attract others who’ll welcome the chance to be on the water. Do you think this will make the park a more exclusive, or at least self-selecting, experience?

AG: Of course. But the need to take a boat can also be seen as a democratizing element. To get to the island, you’ve got to take a ferry, which now is free, and so you share the boat with fellow citizens, no matter your income or where you live or what borough you’re from. That’s fantastic. Once you embrace that idea, you realize it’s an unusual starting point for a park design. But in any case we couldn’t make a park that’s better than the extraordinary landscape that surrounds this island — a 360-degree panorama of the harbor and the horizon, including the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Verrazano Bridge, the skylines of Manhattan and Brooklyn. What more can you dream about? It’s the magic of the harbor that will create the destination that will draw people.

Governors Island, future park, view of South Battery. Project by West 8. For the full West 8 Team, see Governors Island — Park & Public Space Master Plan. [via the Trust for Governors Island]

BD: So is your design largely about emphasizing the context, about allowing visitors to engage the harbor by taking the ferry and enjoying the island?

AG: That is an understatement! Our park is trying to dramatize those qualities that are there already. We are using the existing landscape — the borrowed view — as a starting point. But then we dramatize it. We build up tension and create thresholds. These are the design tools used in 18th-century English landscape architecture — in gardens that sought to instill a sense of the sublime. So we are working in that tradition. Here you have the industrial waterscapes, the gantry cranes of New Jersey, and you have the long views of Staten Island and Brooklyn, with the great bridge jumping athletically over the river, and then you have the view of the most famous skyline in the world, the tip of Manhattan. It’s as if Manhattan were designed to create this view! Plus you have the atmosphere, the wind and the sky, which is different every ten minutes, and the waves. The landscape of the harbor is unbelievably rich. It’s all there.

BD: Another issue that’s important to New York City, and any coastal city, is climate change and the possibility of sea level rise. How does the design for Governors Island address these issues?

AG: The logic of Governors Island to date is the result of its military uses. The land is flat as a pancake, which is a problem for, say, planting trees: if you plant trees near sea level they will be stunted or killed by the brackish water seeping up from below. There is also the fact that a lot of the island was created by fill. For this park, then, we will need to import soil — which in fact creates real opportunities. With flat topography a landscape has very little drama — from every vantage you see the same thing. But here we can use the new soil and sculpt it to create a more interesting, undulating landscape, and of course creating higher ground is also a way to anticipate sea level. So we conceptualized the topography as not only functional in an ecological sense — and dealing with rising sea levels is fundamental — but also as dramatic. By sculpting the land we can create view lines and thresholds; we can heighten the experience of the harbor.

But at the southern end we will do the opposite with the topography; here we will cut into the island and take advantage of being at sea level in order to create a wetland with plants, sights and smells that are uncommon in New York City today. The bulkhead will remain in place, but the seawater will infiltrate the island here to create the brackish zone.

These two aspects — the pragmatic need to deal with the likelihood of sea level rise and the aesthetic desire to dramatize the landscape through topography — are the backbone of the design.

Governors Island, future park, Hammock Grove. [via the Trust for Governors Island]

BD: It seems that the design uses changing conditions as an opportunity to create spectacle and experiences that excite the senses and emotions.

AG: These sentiments and ideas were very much on our minds. The commission began with a competition. Can you imagine the chance to design Governors Island? We were excited! This harbor is like the Bosporus Strait or the bay of Rio de Janeiro; these are places in the world which have a logic, an aura, beyond culture and beyond time. We immediately felt the power of that. The challenge was how to create a destination in the middle of the harbor, in a place that had been off limits for centuries. The harbor captivates people, but the island was a mystery and not a part of public experience.

BD: In your essay, “Flatness,” you emphasize the landscape as a major protagonist in Dutch culture. [8] You include some wonderful, iconic characters and elements: the farmer, the painter, the engineer, the cow, the windmill, the dike. It seems that the proposed design for Governors Island, though in a different setting and culture, is also about the mythology of place. The way you talk about the Harbor — about a logic beyond culture and time — implies this. Is that a fair way to characterize how you interpret this landscape?

AG: That is a bit too academic, I think. First of all we want to create a park which will fulfill people’s dreams and desires. As part of the brief, we had a chance to communicate with local communities. We organized events on a ferry and on the island, evening events with special user groups who were involved, interested or living nearby. With the help of an outreach specialist and the client, we gathered information about what people thought. Then we organized the statistics and mapped the comments. We made maps to figure out what people think about the island, what people expect; we took the data and made it spatial, in an effort to see if we could accommodate people’s expectations.

But we won’t be content with just this simple programmatic pragmatism. As I said earlier, one of our goals is to create a design that emphasizes the experience of the great harbor, which is what makes Governors Island special. And to do this you need more than data. You need to work from your own experience, your inner resources — the ideas and values that you build up over a lifetime. But it is not so easy to talk about these things.

BD: But that’s what I want to know! It’s one thing to resolve a series of specific situations according to certain technical guidelines and programmatic objectives. But West 8 consistently creates landscapes that do more than solve problems. Are there particular methods or processes that enable you to capture the magic of a particular landscape?

AG: At Governors Island we will use topography to create a coherent, meaningful experience. By sculpting topography — which on one level is a purely pragmatic device — we will create hilltop panoramas and we will encourage scenic island tours where one view after another unfolds. We will design view corridors that allow you to enter the park and suddenly come upon the spectacle of the Brooklyn Bridge, or the Statue of Liberty. All of which will create a kind of hide-and-reveal. So you are here, say, and the view is hidden, though you have an almost subconscious sense of where it might be; and then you move through the park and discover the view.

BD: Another theme of yours, in “Flatness,” is the idea of the working landscape, and the absurdity of making every place into a hedonistic recreational zone. For centuries New York Harbor was primarily a place for work. Now it’s being remade into a park for play and entertainment. Did you think about such distinctions here?

AG: It’s important to understand that “Flatness” was a critical essay about contemporary Dutch culture; it was 100 percent political. My purpose was to explain that the political leadership of The Netherlands has not been taking care of the country’s landscape, and in fact is ruining it for the next generation. The essay was published in every Dutch newspaper, so it had a lot of visibility; yet it is not necessarily the basis for my whole way of thinking, and I don’t think it’s applicable here.

BD: On Governors Island there are some interesting ongoing initiatives. The New York Harbor School and the Red Hook Farm [9] have recently begun operating, and there are artist residencies and installations. How do these initiatives and the idea of the working landscape fit with the park design?

AG: At the moment artistic endeavors on the island are very much about experimentation. It’s an interesting time because there isn’t yet anything as formal as a sculpture garden, a display of finished work. It is much more open and free. This seems to be fundamental to the spirit of the Island, a quality that it can continue to encourage.

For instance, did you see the “archeological” project that a group of Flemish artists exhibited in the fall of 2009? You had to queue, you were given a safety helmet and jacket, and you were allowed onto what seemed like an archeological site, with digging zones marked off and inspection tools scattered around. The artists created an installation, complete with a story line that an old village that had been wiped out in a storm had been unearthed. There was a church tower, ruins and foundations. It was amazing. Visitors felt lost or intrigued or provoked; the project really played with the ironies of the site, with an essential quality of the island. You couldn’t do the same kind of project in Central Park; it is too vulnerable.

BD: This essential quality of the island that you refer to — is it mystery and exploration?

AG: Yes. And if you organize three or four of these kind of experiments each year, maybe one is totally useless and nobody talks about it, the other is okay, and one is fantastic. It’s intriguing to think about Governors Island continuing to be this sort of experimental zone.

Top: Governors Island, future park, lower level promenade. [via the Trust for Governors Island] Bottom: Governors Island, future park, the Hills. [via the Trust for Governors Island]

BD: Where would you place Governors Island in relation to West 8’s other work? Is it a culmination? Or an evolution, or a new direction for West 8?

AG: I have to be very personal here: I’ve come to believe that you need a lifetime to design a park. When I was 26, I had my diploma and was officially registered as a landscape architect and was allowed to make parks and gardens. Now I’m 50. And for the first time in my life I feel that I can deliver a park and know what it is about, what it could be about. So you need a lifetime. Park design is pragmatic, but it is also more than functional. And to make parks that are functional and something more, you need all kinds of tools; you need life experience, and of course you have to make mistakes. But now I’ve been to many beautiful places and have had many life experiences. This is my profession and I love it. I’m a greenfinger — I just want to plant trees!

At Governors Island, we are prepared to deliver a park because we know how to deal with complex bureaucracies and long timetables. To meet with all these communities and to survive maybe three or four mayors, to adapt constantly to the changing social, political and economic climate — all that is part of park design as well. A park needs to have a strong identity and an exciting narrative to survive as a design — not as a reality, as a design — because you have to explain it again and again and again, before it finally gets built. We need our two decades of experience to create a park at this level.

BD: Are there parks you’ve designed that you now consider complete?

AG: Yes, the first parks, the early ones I did 22 years ago. In recent years, for the first time, I really feel I can experience some sense of our oeuvre. Before I always thought we did more on paper than out in the world. But now when I go to those first projects, I sense that we have made a park.

Governors Island, looking toward Liberty Island. [via the Trust for Governors Island]

Future Prospects
In the three years since Governors Island was opened to the public and West 8 began working on the park design, the number of visitors per season (the Island is open from June through September) has grown steadily; in 2010 the number was 443,000 (60 percent more than the previous year). Programmatic activities include artist residencies, exhibitions and food festivals; and as noted above, the Brooklyn-based Added Value has opened a community farm, and the Island is home to the New York Harbor School. It’s also got the city’s first bike share program. Despite the recent withering of public funds, political support has remained strong.

But questions persist. Foremost is the eventual development of the large zones on the eastern and western edges of the island. Many observers have noted that the program and design of these areas will be critical to the function and experience of the island as a unique environment — as a public place with an important national heritage. New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff has rightly noted that waterfront park projects have often been conceived as a “savvy way to raise property values.”  In fact, the great New York City parks have historically been speculative ventures, no matter their democratic or public health goals. What’s interesting at Governors Island is that the very terms of its transfer from the federal to state and city government require that the Island be developed “for substantial public use.” The redevelopment has the potential to be a new, more truly democratic experiment, more like Ellis Island than Central Park. [10].

Perhaps the essential challenge to the future of Governors Island will be establishing and maintaining convenient, economical connections to and from the Island and other destinations around the harbor and throughout the boroughs. Currently ferry service is free, but it is seasonal and leaves only from Brooklyn Bridge Park and the South Ferry Terminal in Manhattan. One of the early criticisms of Central Park was that it was too far uptown to be convenient to the poorer neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan. [11] It wasn’t until efficient public transit — buses, elevated trains and subways — made the park broadly accessible that it truly flourished as a democratic public space. As Adriaan Gueze notes, Governors Island will not be a part of people’s daily routes; they will have to choose to engage with the Harbor and go to the Island. Being able to get there cheaply and quickly will be paramount to creating new public spaces at Governors Island.

Notes

1. Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America (New York: Random House, 2005), 8.

2. Many of the new waterfront parks have been undertaken in conjunction with private development schemes; examples include Riverside Park South, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Gantry State Park and Battery Park City.

3. Edmund Banks Smith, Governor’s Island: Its Military History Under Three Flags, 1637-1913 (Charleston, SC: BiblioBazaar, 2010), 11.

4. These defenses were elaborated in 1794 as part of the First American System of coastal fortifications, which consisted of 20 outposts along the Atlantic coast meant to protect the new republic’s ports from attack, especially by the English navy. See Fort Jay: Governors Island National Monument Historic Structures Report (Lowell, MA: National Park Service, 2005). 

5. At this time The Brooklyn Daily Eagle argued that Governors Island would be put to better use as a park rather than a military installation. All that was lacking, the paper pointed out, were ferries to transport people from Downtown Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan: “There is a proposition to spend a million and a half of dollars on Governor’s Island, for the purpose of improving it as an Army station. … At present the island is a depot and a prison … but as a station is has no consequence. Governors Island, on the contrary, has many advantages as a public park. It is worthless as a defense, and by means of ferries it could be put in reach of thousands who at present occupy rookeries in lower Manhattan and tenements in crowded parts of Brooklyn.” “Governors Island,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 11, 1901.

6. For the full West 8 Team, see Governors Island — Park & Public Space Master Plan. 

7. The Trust for Governors Island views the project as a long-term effort that will be developed in phases. The project budget — estimated pre-crash — is $200 million. Construction is tentatively scheduled to start in 2012. See Governors Island: What Happens Next.

8. See West 8, Mosaics (Basel: Birkhauser, 2008), 6-20.

9. See New York Harbor School and Red Hook Community Farm for more information.

10. It is worth noting that while Ellis Island and the Gateway National Recreation Area in New York and New Jersey are popular, they have never become truly integrated into the daily lives of citizens living nearby. Located in New York Harbor, Gateway is more national and international landmark.

11. See Roy Rosenzseig and Elizabeth Blackmar, The Park and the People: A History of Central Park (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998).

Published: January 22, 2011

That the Dutch have a knack for plants should come as no surprise to anyone who has admired a tulip or visited cities in the Netherlands where even the most urban apartment dwellers have a table in the sunlight for a prized collection of carefully nurtured bulbs. It is that combination of natural inclination and urban know-how wedded to calculated bravado that has made the Dutch landscape firm West 8 so in demand. Their reputation in the U.S. is now growing faster than kudzu with the Governors Island master plan, the new Lincoln Park in front of Frank Gehry’s New World Symphony Orchestra Academy in Miami Beach (opening on Jan. 25) and the recently awarded commission to develop a 40-year master plan for the 1,077-acre Longwood Gardens, a horticultural showcase in Kennett Square, Pa. From civilizing an ungainly greenway atop a newly buried tangle of freeways for the riverbanks of Madrid to transforming Governors Island in New York Harbor from a ghostly military base into a destination playground, West 8 is the firm to go to for complex urban landscape projects.

Adriaan Geuze, 51, founding partner and design director of West 8—based in Rotterdam with satellite offices in Belgium, New York and Toronto—has described drawing his inspiration from “the poetic beauty of the artless and the mundane.” His approach to landscape has translated into a fearless use of shapes, scales both intimate and urban and radical twists, as seen in the wavy boardwalk on Toronto’s Central Waterfront that brings to mind the destabilizing dynamic of a magician whipping a tablecloth off a fully set table.

The firm came to renown with its bold redevelopment of two docks in Amsterdam, stacking them tightly with 2,500 housing units all varied in terms of style, outdoor space and roof gardens. Their international reputation continues to grow: In April, an installation of red bridges popping up above a sea of swaying trees will be the centerpiece at the 2011 Xi’an International Horticultural Exhibition in China; next year, the Jubilee Gardens on the Thames will debut at the 2012 London Olympics.

A key player in the emerging field of landscape urbanism, Mr. Geuze is nurturing landscape design’s role as a powerful force in shaping our world sustainably and with sensitivity. Here, he answered a few questions about how his landscape ideas take root.

I believe every public park needs seasons, illusions to another world and a very strong identity.

Historically in Europe, parks were very important within the city, while in the average American city, parks were not cultivated as part of the urban tissue. But at this moment, America is in the blossom years of landscape architecture.

In the European mind, American landscapes are about the wilderness and the culture of the car—that’s the American landscape. You don’t have that in Europe: the deserts, the California coastline, the petrified forests. These are amazing.

We hoped to give Lincoln Park [in Miami Beach] a sense that it is a place where people can meet. One of the simple tools to do that was to deliver shade where people could sit in daytime to enjoy ocean breezes. At night, the park will have gigantic outdoor video projections on the wall of the New World Symphony. People will sit there like in a forest at sunset when the orange of the sun illuminates everything in a surreal way.

Parks are like poetry and music. They basically have no reason to exist—that is also what is so special about them. They are places where you can dream about a non-realistic, non-time-related world.

The Dutch tulip is famous for not having a smell. My grandma had a garden of roses, typical English tea roses, something like 35 cultivars. And so for me personally and deep in my unconscious DNA, the smell of roses is by far the best.

I always bring gifts of flowers. Always. But I have a hysterical reaction to mixtures of flowers. When I buy bouquets, I buy only one type and one color. And since in Holland flowers are so cheap, we don’t buy three dozen but six dozen. I don’t give presents of 20 when I can get 60.

My home in Rotterdam has only a very small front garden with a swing, a hut built by my son and the smallest imaginable plot. But our house in the north of Spain is my secret place. It’s on a hillside with three levels and three gardens. One is all mulberry, entirely natural, a work of Zen. In the next garden, there is a hexagon-shaped wall made of concrete with pockets filled with stones that I gather. It is only 20% filled now; it will be a lifetime’s work. At the highest point there is an herb garden where I grow artichokes and vegetables and all kinds of tomatoes. In Spain there is a different tomato for every pasta, salad or sauce. These are the gardens for me.

Published: August 3, 2010

Next time you visit Governor’s Island, be sure to swing by the exhibit space to get a taste of the island’s past and a chance to influence its future.

“We wanted to find creative ways for people to give us their input,” said Leslie Koch, president of the Trust for Governor’s Island.

In the exhibit space’s main room, you come across a map of what the island will look like in the future. It’s the master design plan for the park and public space, which was heavily influenced by the community through an innovative public outreach strategy.

The planning group wanted to get the visitors actively involved in the design phase and go beyond the typical modes of outreach, such as workshops, surveys and public hearings.

“We really want those visitors to be part of the process, even more than the public at large,” Koch added, since they’re the ones using the island.

So Koch and her colleagues created an online blog and carved out a space in the exhibit room for arts and crafts. A long, narrow table in the middle of the exhibit room has two rows of rubber stamps in the shape of trees, bikes and ice cream. Visitors are encouraged to stamp the yellow Post-it notes and to add written comments above or underneath.

“The truth was, we actually thought at the time that the rubber stamps were more for kids. What we discovered is that adults can be really creative when you give them the opportunity,” she said.

The public caught on right away: about 1,500 Post-it notes have been amassed since Koch came up with the idea.

“[The visitors’ feedback on Post-it notes] really relates to their experience on the island,” Koch said. Examples of Post-it notes include “cruising around ice cream island” and “giving Downtown its very own Central Park.”

The exhibit space was previously used to showcase the prototypes of five design teams to compete for the commission of the parks and public space project.

“We hadn’t started the plan yet, and we thought it would be a really good question to ask people, ‘What would you like to see in a park and public space?’”

The winning team in December 2007 was West 8, which will begin with phase one of the refurbishing project — an overhaul of Soisson’s Landing, the ferry arrival point — in 2012.

The design team studied the graphic, along with blog posts and feedback from public workshops and Community Board 1 meetings, to come up with the master plan, which it presented to C.B. 1’s July 19 Waterfront Committee.

The refurbished island will have a wider promenade with new paving, lighting and guardrails; additional seating along the waterfront; sheltered waiting rooms for ferry users; and additional greenery, replacing barren asphalt, among other features.

The group compiled the data from the Post-it notes into “Wordle,” a software program, to generate a “word cloud” graphic, which displays recurring key words or phrases, according to their popularity.

Among the popular requests were additional resting places, ice cream vendors and more biking. “Ice cream island might sound silly, but it’s not,” she said. “The island is shaped like an ice cream cone.” The team responded quickly, placing red furniture and ice cream shops around the island.

The island, equipped with a recreational bike trail, doubled its bike supply from last summer due to high demand. The Trust also tacked on an organic farm to the Island, another popular wish among the Post-it notes.

The public also suggested that the Island be fun for adults as well as kids. “Rather than having a playground — one concentrated area, we thought, what about if we had play stations around the island,” Koch said. So the team installed hammocks and red swings overlooking the water.

The design team also interacts in person with visitors of the island, asking them about their experiences and what else they’d like to see there.

“We require the design team to be out here on public days and observe,” said Koch.

Log onto to www.govisland.com to learn more about the future Governors Island, and visit the Trust’s blog (http://govislandblog.com/) to post comments about the renovation projects.

Published: June 16, 2010

Community board review, surveys, neighborhood impact assessments, public hearings. Traditional methods of soliciting public input on major design projects can be a little dry and uninspiring. And that’s if you even know about them — public participation is often limited to those motivated few who know to show up and have the time to do so. But when a project — say, a new public park on a 172-acre island in New York Harbor — requires a ferry ride to visit, the vitality of the space depends on getting people to show up. So, how do you create a destination? The answer might be as simple as this: ask people what they want, make it easy for them to tell you, and then give it to them. That’s the theory behind the extensive public outreach effort that led up to and is now responding to the Governors Island Park and Public Space Master Plan, an effort masterminded by Leslie Koch, President of the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation (GIPEC). We sat down with Koch in Building 110 on Governors Island, where visitors can view and respond to an exhibition of the master plan, to talk about the ideas and efforts put into envisioning New York City’s future island oasis: the outreach methods they employed, the challenges of identifying an audience for a park on an island with no existing constituency, why designers need to engage with the public, and how Post-it notes and hammocks can lead to the thoughtful design of public space.

For nearly two centuries, Governors Island was used as a military base. In the mid 1990s, when the Coast Guard closed its operations on the island, interest developed in identifying a public use for the island. Beginning in 1995, a coalition of civic groups called the Governors Island Alliance, along with local community boards, elected officials and other interested parties, worked to build public support for the transfer of the island from the Federal to the State and City Governments and to solicit public input on how the island should be developed and used. The State and City of New York co-purchased the land (at a cost of $1) from the Federal Government in 2003 with goals of revitalization and development. (Earlier this year the State relinquished control to the City after ongoing funding problems impeded progress.)

In 2006, Leslie Koch was appointed President of GIPEC, the agency responsible for the planning, redevelopment and operations for 150 acres of Governors Island (the remaining 22 acres are designated as a national monument and are thus operated by the National Park Service). She has since led the charge to “bring Governors Island back to life” and put into motion the process of creating a vision for its future; a process that encompasses everything from designing a park in the 100-year flood zone (the first project in New York City designed with climate change in mind, according to Koch) to reminding New Yorkers of the majesty of the Statue of Liberty (just for tourists you say? Take a look at it from Picnic Point).

In the fall of 2006, GIPEC launched a design competition for a preliminary vision of the park. Five teams were selected and the call for public response began. The teams’ ideas were presented as part of two exhibitions (one on the island and one at the Center for Architecture), a public forum, public tours and online. The success of the public feedback effort and its impact on the jury process encouraged Koch to pursue similar methods once the winning team was chosen – West 8, led by Adriaan Geuze, with Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Mathews Nielsen and Rogers Marvel – and they began work on the master plan. Online and off, on the island and around the city, using photo booths and rubber stamps, the team took great strides to discover what New Yorkers are looking for in their recreation space. -V.S.

“We collected 1,500 Post-it Notes. People were really thoughtful, whether they were saying “don’t screw it up” or “I want a place to walk with the person I love” — that was a big part of our public input in 2008.” -Leslie Koch 

“You think of a hammock as a place for contemplation in the shade. … Well, on Governors Island, hammocks are everything — they’re play devices, they’re napping devices, they’re gathering devices. … That has led to a whole host of insights.” -Leslie Koch 

“We have repurposed our bus shelters … you can stand somewhere and imagine what it will look like in the future.” -Leslie Koch 

Percent of respondents who report that these potential improvements are very important or important. From 2008 survey conducted on Governors Island. 

All images courtesy of the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation. Rendering of Hammock Grove by West 8 / Rogers Marvel Architects / Diller Scofidio + Renfro / Mathews Nielsen / Urban Design +.

When the federal government sold Governors Island to the City and State of New York for one dollar in January 2003, it wasn’t clear who had gotten the short end of the stick.

Was it really worth a dollar? Few people had visited the island since it was abandoned by the Coast Guard in 1997. For those who could get onto it, the charm of the 19th- and early-20th-century military buildings on the north end wore off as soon as they saw the southern end, a flat sprawl of concrete barracks and warehouses from the 1970s and ’80s. And in an era when government was increasingly dependent on the private sector to finance what once would have been public initiatives, it was hard to see how the city and state would ever raise the money to develop the island themselves. (A few proposals being tossed around at the time, including a global peace park and a theme SpongeBob SquarePants hotel, didn’t inspire confidence.)

But Sunday’s announcement that the City of New York has reached a deal to take control of the island from the state and will push ahead with a plan that includes a 2.2-mile-long waterfront promenade and a 40-acre park, offers reassuring evidence that even in difficult times it is possible to get the tricky balance between public good and private interests right — or at least right enough.

The plan, by Adriaan Geuze of the Dutch landscape architecture firm West 8, calls for a park that, if realized, will eventually include a cluster of steep, artificially created hills that form a focal point at the park’s center, visually tying it back to the city. Its wildly original array of parkscapes — including a “hammock grove,” a grottolike shelter, playing fields and marshlands — will give the island the kind of strong identity it currently lacks. When considered with Michael Van Valkenburgh’s Brooklyn Bridge Park, under construction across the harbor in Brooklyn, it represents a shift in the character of the city’s park system as a whole that is as revolutionary as Robert Moses’ early public works projects or Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s Central Park.

The city has committed $41.5 million to the first phase of the development, which still has to go through the standard public review process, and is tentatively scheduled to begin construction in 2012. A new ferry landing area is to be built at the northern end of the island, with a big shaded lawn overlooking the Lower Manhattan skyline. The northern half of the Great Promenade, which will eventually encircle the entire island, will allow people to stroll along the waterfront under a shaded walkway with views that reach from the Statue of Liberty to Brooklyn Heights. And the city will replace the asphalt parking lot on the south side of McKim, Mead & White’s 1929 Liggett Hall, an old Army barracks that divides the island in half: visitors passing through the hall’s central archway will emerge onto a mosaic terrace bordered by flower beds.

It is from here that the development’s second phase — for which the city will need to raise some $220 million — should eventually unfold. Pathways will wind south through a wild array of sloping lawns and densely wooded areas, with the hills just beyond them in the near distance. Scores of hammocks will be suspended in a forest of oak and birch trees. In a rendering that shows the hammocks sagging under the weight of people napping inside them, they bring to mind human-size cocoons.

This processional narrative reaches its climax with the hills, which will be partly built on the rubble left over from the demolition of the Coast Guard barracks and warehouses. Some will drop off into cliffs on one side, creating “view channels” to major landmarks: for example, one path cuts through a narrow canyon that lines up with the statue of Liberty; another looks out toward the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. A paved terrace, with a 360-degree view of the island’s surroundings, tops the tallest hill; a more informal meadow another.

To the west, a cafe structure designed by the architecture firm Diller Scofidio & Renfro will sit at the water’s edge, facing the Statue of Liberty. A lawn expands out onto the building’s roof, where visitors will be able to climb down through a large hole into a grotto-like shelter open to the water.

The island’s southern end culminates in a watery landscape of marshes and tidal basins. By now the hills have entirely blocked out the view of the Manhattan skyline. A raised concrete walkway wraps around the marshes at the tip of the island, so that visitors should feel as if the edge of the land were dissolving around them. To add to the sensory experience, Mr. Geuze plans to plant the area with strong-smelling plants, like sea asparagus and lavender.

The movement within the design — the disappearance and reappearance of carefully framed urban views; the shift from a verticality that intentionally echoes the downtown Manhattan skyline to the flatness of the water’s surface — is its single most impressive feature. But such variations also speak to the ways the city itself is changing. The exaggerated steepness of the hills, for example, is not only a clear nod to their artificiality — a “green” counterpoint to Manhattan’s towers — but also a practical response to rising sea levels caused by global warming.

Another positive aspect of the design is the care that has been given to the boundaries that will divide the park from two future development zones on the island’s east and west sides. These lines are gently curved, giving them a more naturalistic feel, and Mr. Geuze has proposed several major view corridors that will cut through the development areas, which should help mitigate their large size.

The big question is what happens from here. Critical aspects of the project still need to be ironed out. The city has yet to determine who will develop the areas around the park. We might end up with anything from university buildings (New York University has suggested that it could build dormitories and classroom space on the island) to luxury hotels and a conference center. And there are those who will argue, with some justification, that the plan for Governors Island is part of a larger, continuing process of gentrification in New York City that raises its own questions about whom these projects ultimately serve.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s ambitious park plans, in fact, are in some ways contradictory. On the one hand they are genuinely democratic, creating valuable public space that can be shared by all New Yorkers. On the other, they are a savvy way to raise property values, which ends up pushing the poor and middle classes farther and farther out from the city’s center.

Governors Island may turn out to be a crucial project in this respect. Sitting in the middle of the harbor, it ought to be accessible to working-class families from Staten Island and the Lower East Side of Manhattan, as well as to wealthier downtowners and Red Hook’s bourgeois bohemians. The nature of the developments that flank the park will be critical to determining whether the island feels as if it belongs to all of them, or just to those few who can afford to pay for its upkeep.

More than 10 years after the Coast Guard left Governors Island in New York Harbor, a team of architects has been selected to design a grandly whimsical green 40-acre park on its southern half that public officials hope will ultimately attract commercial development.

City and state officials announced Wednesday that the design — by the Dutch firm West 8, Diller Scofidio & Renfro, Rogers Marvel Architects, Quennell Rothschild & Partners and SMWM — had triumphed in a competition that had narrowed to five finalists.

Governors Island “has languished without sufficient attention, without sufficient investment,” Gov. Eliot Spitzer said at an outdoor news conference at the Staten Island Ferry terminal in Manhattan with Governors Island as a backdrop.

In an interview, he added, “We are committed to building it.”

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg echoed the governor’s determination. “It is one of the jewels of our city,” he said. “We couldn’t have a better location. Now it’s up to us to do it.”

The design, commissioned by the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation, calls for transforming much of the flat, sober island, which is roughly a half-mile from Lower Manhattan, into green space. That includes a two-mile promenade at the water’s edge, a new park on the southern flat expanse of landfill — where abandoned Coast Guard buildings are to be demolished — and an improved park in the island’s northern historic district. The architects proposed using the detritus from the buildings that are to be destroyed to form hills that would exploit the island’s views, which include the Statue of Liberty.

“We have to create a completely new and original experience,” Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff said yesterday. “We’ve always seen the parks as the catalyst to the development of the rest of the island.”

Jerry van Eyck, one of the West 8 partners, said in an interview that the architects hoped to set a standard of quality design on the island so “we don’t end up with Disney or casinos.”

Financed by the city and state, the park project is expected to cost about $400 million and to be completed by 2012.

Isolated and vaguely mysterious to many New Yorkers, Governors Island served as the site of American military installations since 1794. In 2003 the federal government sold it to the state and city for $1 under a general understanding that it would be developed into park space and a cultural destination, among other uses.

The National Park Service continues to own and operate 22 of the 172 acres, including Castle Williams and Fort Jay, two early 19th-century Army forts that are protected by landmark status.

The architects were asked to set aside space for new buildings that Mr. Doctoroff said could ultimately include cultural or academic institutions. “Part of the plan was to leave areas that can be allocated as developers come in,” said Ricardo Scofidio, one of the architects. “You kind of set the stage with the park.”

A jury of city and state officials and design professionals picked the architects over four other teams: Hargreaves Associates and Michael Maltzan Architecture; Field Operations and Wilkinson Eyre; REX/MDP; and WRT and Urban Strategies.

The winning design “was really the scheme that best addressed the issues of phasing,” said Frederic M. Bell, the executive director of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects, who served on the corporation’s advisory committee. “If money is going to be the problem, how do you create something at the outset that can grow and change over time?”

In the main, however, the architects were charged with imagining a park that was compelling enough to prompt visitors to get on the ferry — to design a destination that would “justify the journey,” said Leslie Koch, president of the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation.

The notion was, “What can you do in this park that you can’t do anywhere else?” Ms. Koch added.

For West 8, that includes providing a fleet of bicycles on the island that can be used at no charge; the architects even designed a wooden prototype bicycle for that purpose.

For now the island’s environmental conditions are harsh and windy, said Adriaan Geuze, one of West 8’s partners. So the architects aimed to create a landscape where people would feel shielded from the elements. “We believe we have to change that into a more intimate, human-scale green island where you’re protected,” he said.

Jonathan Marvel, one of the architects, said: “We tried to establish different ecological zones with the park. Topography, shoreline, freshwater places for migratory birds to land because they use the Hudson River as their compass.”

The firms involved in the winning proposal met several times to brainstorm and map out the project. “In a way it started as a think tank,” Mr. Scofidio said.

The city has been studying the possibility of building a gondola designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava that could transport people to and from the island. “Based on what we’ve seen so far, it is definitely very feasible,” Mr. Doctoroff said.

Avi Schick, president of the Empire State Development Corporation, was named chairman of the Governors Island corporation yesterday; he replaces Mr. Doctoroff, who is leaving the city administration in February to become president of Bloomberg L.P. but will remain a member of the corporation’s board.

At the news conferernce Governor Spitzer played up the symbolism of enlisting a Dutch architecture team to design on an island where the Dutch were the first European settlers in the early 17th century.

Asked whether he was gratified by his involvement in the high-profile project, his first in New York, Mr. van Eyck said, “Look at my face” — and then smiled.

The winning design for a 40-acre park that would unfold across the southern half of Governors Island is not the kind of grand public-works project the city once championed. But in an age when developers regularly usurp the government’s planning role, it reflects the kind of imaginative, civic-minded thinking that can restore our faith in city and state leaders.

The park’s informal landscape of undulating hills and voluptuous marshes is a refreshing departure from the crass commercialism that infects so many public projects today. At the same time, the designers have avoided tired period elements like cobblestone paths and bishop’s crook lampposts.

Although still in the early design stages, it could well become the most inspired public park built here in generations.

It’s hard to imagine a more gorgeous site, and the design team — Diller Scofidio & Renfro, Rogers Marvel Architects, West 8, Quennell Rothschild & Partners and SMWM — wisely capitalized on its advantages.

The 172-acre Governors Island in New York Harbor is now framed by the vanishing shipping cranes and warehouses of the Brooklyn waterfront on one side, and the Statue of Liberty on the other. Roughly a half-mile to the north is the dense cluster of Wall Street towers, Manhattan’s answer to the entrance of the Grand Canal in Venice.

City officials have worried that the island’s isolation might prevent it from drawing enough visitors to make it economically self-sustaining.

Yet the design makes the island’s isolation a virtue. Divided into four major sectors, the plan is anchored by a great lawn, a gently rolling carpet of grass that could be used for informal cultural events, with the harbor as a backdrop. A tree-lined promenade will trace the edge of the island so visitors can take in the stunning views.

The design’s most seductive feature, however, is an intriguing mix of natural and created landscapes. The architects envision a lush saltwater marsh at the island’s southern tip, an effort to recapture the natural beauty that was partly lost when the Coast Guard built housing after assuming control of the island in 1966.

As the promenade approaches the marsh, it morphs into a network of sinuous pedestrian bridges that loop over a fairy tale landscape of shrubs, grasses and willow trees. Visitors will feel as if they were suddenly hovering between the rough harbor waters and more stable ground.

To the north, in the center of the park, an artificial “mountain range” will be created from the rubble of the demolished barracks. Cutting diagonally across the island, the steep hills will create a skyline of sorts visible from the city, and frame vistas of the Statue of Liberty and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

The architects envision, in a later phase, more hills, which conceivably could house museums or commercial spaces buried deep in their cores.

Leslie Koch, the president of the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation, says the project could unfold in several stages. A free bicycle program could be in place by next summer, encouraging New Yorkers to familiarize themselves with the island and its haunting beauty. A final design and environmental review won’t be ready until the end of 2009, and the project may take five years to complete.

Yet this is an instance in which slow, incremental steps offer comfort. Given that the money for large-scale public development dried up long ago, the current strategy in most American cities today with projects of this scale is essentially to hand them over to developers and watch what happens.

The Governors Island plan, by comparison, is humble in scale but big on ambition. What is more, by developing the island bit by bit, the city is enabling the public to appreciate what it has gained, which could help prevent overdevelopment.

How refreshing to see government not only take back some responsibility for the public realm, but also to do so with such care.