Blog

Share Your Build­ing 877 Memories

Jun 5, 2013 1:29 pm
[cap­tion id=“attachment_6858” align=“aligncenter” width=“468”]Building 877 in 2004 by Lisa Kereszi Build­ing 877 in 2004 by Lisa Kereszi[/caption] This Sun­day, June 9th at pre­cise­ly 7:36am, we will be implod­ing the largest build­ing on Gov­er­nors Island, Build­ing 877. This con­trolled demo­li­tion will clear space for over 30 acres of new park and pub­lic spaces. If you’d like to watch the implo­sion in real time, it can be seen from Lib­er­ty State Park in Jer­sey City, the Bat­tery in New York City, or from the 7:30am Stat­en Island fer­ry leav­ing from Man­hat­tan! We will also be livestream­ing the implo­sion on this blog and through our youtube chan­nel. Check back for more details lat­er today. Build­ing 877 was con­struct­ed atop the land­fill from the exca­va­tion from the Lex­ing­ton Avenue sub­way line in 1905. With the con­sol­i­da­tion of U.S. Mil­i­tary forces in 1966, the Island was trans­ferred to the Coast Guard. Gov­er­nors Island was the Coast Guard’s largest instal­la­tion, serv­ing both as a self-con­tained res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ty, with an on-island pop­u­la­tion of approx­i­mate­ly 3,500, and as a base of oper­a­tions for the Atlantic Area Com­mand and Main­te­nance and Logis­tics Com­mand as well as the cap­tain of the Port of New York. Build­ing 877 was built to serve as hous­ing for Coast Guard fam­i­lies. Though no longer func­tion­al, Build­ing 877 has remained on the Island since it was aban­doned in 1996. For­mer res­i­dents, please share your mem­o­ries of Build­ing 877 in the comments!
Sign up for Our Newsletter