Photo via Governors Island

It’s officially October, which means it’s time to start planning your fall agenda. And while there are plenty of great places for pumpkin picking and foliage peeking outside the city, there are still some ways to enjoy autumnal activities without leaving NYC. On Governors Island, you’ll find one of New York City’s only pumpkin patches, complete with a backdrop of fall foliage, live music, a beer garden, and pumpkin painting with the Children’s Museum of the Arts. And on Saturday the 27th, the Island will host free trick-or-treating.

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Photo of Governors Island via simplethrill on Flickr

The city has launched the public review process for rezoning Governors Island, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Friday. A notice announcing the first public hearing for the plan was posted by the city, a critical part of the environmental review process (h/t Crain’s). The rezoning would create 4.5 million square feet of commercial, academic and cultural development, part of an endeavor to turn the 172-acre island into a 24/7 community.

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Island Oyster, via Trust for Governors Island

In April, the Trust for Governors Island announced extended Friday hours for the 2018 season, allowing visitors to explore the island until 10pm. And now, thanks to a sponsorship from Grey Goose, they’ll also remain open late on Saturdays, all the way to 11pm. “Late Saturdays” begin tomorrow and run through September 1st, with all ferries free after 6pm. As Governors Island says, “Visitors can now enjoy stunning sunsets overlooking New York Harbor, take leisurely bike rides around the Hills and visit Island Oyster for a Grey Goose Fair Winds Fizz specialty cocktail.”

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Photo by Timothy Schenck

Get ready to party on Governors Island this summer. The Trust for Governors Island on Tuesday announced extended hours for the 2018 season from 6 pm to 10 pm, allowing visitors to explore the park, drink cocktails and enjoy beautiful sunsets every Friday beginning May 25. During “Late Friday” nights, guests will be able to traverse the entire Island, including the promenade and Nolan Park and Colonels Row homes in the park’s historic district.

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Image courtesy of The Trust for Governor’s Island.

Among a growing chorus of futuristic transportation suggestions meant to meet the city’s exploding need to get from point A to point B, Crain’s reports that the city’s Economic Development Corp. is studying a gondola that would operate from lower Manhattan to Governors Island. Though the idea has been proposed before, anticipation of a planned redevelopment project on the 172-acre island has fostered a new urgency.

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Renderings courtesy of Austin+Mergold in collaboration with Maria Park, and consulting engineers Chris Earls (Cornell) and Scott Hughes (Silman)

“Oculi” is the latest winner of FIGMENT’s City of Dreams competition, an annual design contest challenging architecture and design firms to build a pavilion out of recycled materials to be assembled and displayed on Governor’s Island. Last summer, visitors to the island were graced with a pavilion made out of more than 300,000 aluminum cans (the number of cans used in NYC in an hour), melted down and cast into cracked clay. This year, the competition is highlighting metal grain bins. A design by the firm Austin+Mergold, in collaboration with Maria Park (of Cornell University) and consulting engineers Chris Earls and Scott Hughes, will reuse old metal grain bins for a pavilion that establishes a visual connection between urban and rural ways of life.

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Photo of Governors Island via simplethrill on Flickr

Since Governors Island first opened in 2005, transforming the 172-acre piece of land in the New York Harbor into a public space has been slow. However, after a 40-acre park with a playground opened last year the ball has officially started rolling. According to Crain’s, the Trust for Governors Island recently released two requests for proposals aimed at making the waterfront location a destination for entertainment and cultural activities. The trust is offering licenses for up to three years during the island’s season, which runs from May 1 through October 31.

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The 172-acre Governors Island first opened as a publicly accessible outdoor space in 2005, but it’s still open just 120 days per year, with the city spending over 10 years trying to figure out what to do with the rest of this teeming-with-potential site. Just last year a new 40-acre park and playground opened, and the area is now ready for its next major revitalization. As Crain’s reports, the Trust for Governors Island will roll out a plan to create a 24/7 community with even more public parks, nonprofit tenants related to the site’s maritime history, restaurants, and five million square feet of new commercial, office, and education space.

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From her back window on Columbia Street in Brooklyn, artist Nancy Nowacek could see Governors Island and Buttermilk Channel (the strait connecting Brooklyn to the island), and it seemed incredibly close. In fact, it’s the equivalent of only about four city blocks away. So since 2012, Nowacek has been working on her vision of building Citizen Bridge over New York Harbor, a floating modular pedestrian bridge over the 1,400-foot span from Red Hook to Governor’s Island.

In what is currently planned as a one-day-only event, she sees Citizen Bridge as a completely new way to experience New York City harbor, rather than seeing it from the shore, from a bridge above, or from a boat. As noted by Mental Floss, Nowacek has turned to Kickstarter to raise money for a pilot phase. The project’s goal of $25,000 would fund a proof-of-concept, which is the final phase before launching for real.  So far, they’ve prototyped seven bridge designs in full-scale sections.

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With forecasts threatening snow (?!) on this fine late March weekend, the idea that an “army flame thrower” was among the historic methods the city used to make piles of the formerly-white stuff disappear is oddly satisfying.

Moar! this way