! Alert

Stay safe in the heat: Drink plenty of water, spend time in the shade, and visit the first aid station at Soissons Landing if you feel unwell. Click here for important warm weather visitor information.

Stay safe in the heat: Drink plenty of water, spend time in the shade, and visit the first aid station at Soissons Landing if you feel unwell. Click here for important warm weather visitor information.

Blog

345,000 Vis­i­tors Enjoyed Gov­er­nors Island in the 40 Day 2012 Season

Oct 16, 2012 7:04 pm
[cap­tion id=“attachment_6037” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] Thank you to every­one who enjoyed arts, cul­ture and recre­ation on Gov­er­nors Island this sea­son. We will see you next May![/caption] Gov­er­nors Island wel­comed 345,000 vis­i­tors in its 40 day 2012 pub­lic sea­son. For those of you who were able to vis­it over the last sev­er­al months, you know that vis­i­tors enjoyed a wide range of arts, cul­tur­al and recre­ation­al activ­i­ties includ­ing the Corn­ing Muse­um of Glass’ Glass Lab, the Pig Island food fes­ti­val and the Coop­er-Hewitt, Nation­al Design Museum’s graph­ic design exhi­bi­tion. The Island was open on Sat­ur­days, Sun­days, Memo­r­i­al Day and Labor Day from May 26 through Sep­tem­ber 30. The Island will re-open to the pub­lic at the end of May 2013. As pre­vi­ous­ly announced, Gov­er­nors Island was closed on Fri­days in the 2012 sea­son to facil­i­tate con­struc­tion of the Island’s new park and pub­lic spaces and infra­struc­ture pro­gram. Through­out the sea­son, Gov­er­nors Island con­tin­ued to attract vis­i­tors from through­out New York City and beyond. Despite being open for 19 few­er days than 2011, the aver­age num­ber of vis­i­tors on a pub­lic day in 2012 grew to 8,200 from 7,100 last year. On a typ­i­cal day, the Island is attract­ing as many vis­i­tors as Ellis Island. The Trust for Gov­er­nors Island wel­comed the pub­lic dur­ing the 2012 sea­son while also mov­ing for­ward with its ambi­tious cap­i­tal pro­gram. In May, May­or Bloomberg and elect­ed offi­cials broke ground on the new 30 acre park and pub­lic spaces that will be com­plet­ed next year. In addi­tion, The Trust is over­see­ing sev­er­al major con­struc­tion projects that are bring­ing the Island’s infra­struc­ture into the 21st cen­tu­ry by restor­ing potable water, upgrad­ing elec­tric and tele­com sys­tems, sta­bi­liz­ing his­toric build­ings and upgrad­ing the 2.2 mile sea­wall and the docks that serve the Island. Dozens of orga­ni­za­tions pre­sent­ed pro­grams on the Island includ­ing those that had nev­er before pro­duced work here. Orga­ni­za­tions new to the Island includ­ed the Inter­na­tion­al Cen­ter of Pho­tog­ra­phy, the Corn­ing Muse­um of Glass, Bet­ter Liv­ing Through Math and Jalopy The­ater. These joined some old vis­i­tor favorites includ­ing Storm King’s Mark di Suvero at Gov­er­nors Island, which was in its sec­ond year and fea­tured more than a dozen of the artist’s pieces in green spaces through­out the Island, the Earth Mat­ter Com­post Learn­ing Cen­ter which intro­duced vis­i­tors to the Island’s newest res­i­dents, two goats named Pearl and Brows­er, FIGMENT’s nine hole artist designed minia­ture golf course and musi­cal per­for­mances such as the alt-clas­si­cal Rite of Sum­mer series in Colonels Row. We look for­ward to see­ing you all again next year when Gov­er­nors Island re-opens on May 25, 2013.
Sign up for Our Newsletter