Octagon's Homage to Amherst Sabrina Defaced

Local blogger "retro info!' from Populuxebooks has reported that the Sabrina statue which sits on the Octagon property facing the Western Channel of the East River and Manhattan has been defaced literaly and figuratively.

I forwarded the email sent to me by Retro Info onto Bruce Becker, the Octagon's developer and Amherst alumus extroadinaire for his comment and request as to what can be done to restore the beauty of this recasting of the original Sabrina statue which sat at Amherst.

Reactions to CB8 RI Transportation Mtg - Ferry Service

Last night Manhattan Community Board 8 held a special joint Roosevelt Island and Transportation Committee meeting at the New York Blood Center. It was held in the Auditorium in case a large number of individuals attended. It was not needed. The following are my thoughts and reactions as well information provided to us in the order of the agenda.

Part 1 - Ferry Service

The ferry landing planned for the site by the Octagon and the Dayspring Church / Former Boathouse will not be ready any earlier than Fall 2009 and certainly not ready for the planned Tram rehab outage in March / April 2009. The NYC EDC representative, Michael Taylor, a Senior Project Manager for Maritime Transportation Policy, who attended when asked why that site basically stated that those decisions are made a pay grades exceeding his own. He made it clear that the City is only going to build the dock and at this time there are no plans to include a Roosevelt Island ferry stop in the proposed City subsidized pilot ferry program. This was confirmed by Josh Orzeck, Community Coordinator, of the NYC DOT Manhattan Borough Commissioner's Office.

It appears that while the City is building the landing that they will be simultaneously undertaking a study to determine the impact and how an Octagon Landing will fit into any larger ferry routes. Mr. Taylor did state that part of the concept was to build the landing at the North end of the island to create a separate transportation link despite the fact, brought up by those in attenance,, that the majority of possible riders are are closer to the existing mid/South transportation hub.

A lot of good points were brought up by committee members and the public. These included (1) the fact that when the UN is in session the West Channel is closed (2) any landing should be designed to handle larger craft for evacuation purposes (3) there exists a former landing on the East Channel underneath the QBBridge that perhaps coud be rehabilitated and it closer to the existing hub. Each was listened to and acknowledged politely. The reaction to the existing landing was that it would take as much money to rehab that one as the Octagon site and the decison has been made already.

It is clear that unless a ferry operator can be profitable they will not provide service. My feeling is at the Octagon location sufficient riders will not materialize to make it profitable and we will be left with a nice dock to look at. I do give Mr. Becker plenty of credit for moving the process along and working with our elected reps to secure funding. I just hope it works and that additional landings can follow but that is highly doubtful. The public officials will never give us money for a second shot at this for years.

Leasing Agents Posing as Prospective Tenants ?

A YouTube contributor under the name "OctagonNYC" has posted a video (direct link) of a ABC News Nightline segment that focuses on real estate properties being converted into residential properties from past lives as asylums, such as the Octagon, and other non residential uses.

The focus of this presentation is however not the benefits of re-use but the assertion that a current Octagon leasing agent posed as a prospective tenant for purposes of the video shot. It is unclear if "OctagonNYC" is a current Octagon tenant or not or what prompted them to post this video other than the assertion of this act by the leasing agent.

I can't speak to the veracity of the assertion being made but the video shot is representative of individuals looking for what they hope is better value for their rental dollars.

Will NY Water Taxi’s Dropping of it’s East River Route Cancel the New Octagon Dock?

As reported today by the Roosevelt Islander (via Curbed and others) and the New York Times, the struggling New York Water Taxi company is cancelling its service on the East River route for the next four Winter months. What impact that has on the construction / refurbishment to the Octagon dock is unclear. But it can’t be a good thing if Octagon LP was expecting to receive year round service from NY Water Taxi and was going to be footing the bill for the construction. At least the Octagon residents did not lease their units with the promise of such a dock and the ferry service.

Update 5:00 pm

According to e-mails received this afternoon from Bruce Becker of Octagon LP the plan is to provide year round ferry service from the dock once constructed with the initial stop being 34th Street. Mr. Becker acknowledged that “long term feasibility of water taxi service is dependent on a larger network of routes so any reduction of service elsewhere is not helpful”.

Mr. Becker also informed me that a meeting was held today with representatives from both Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney’s office and the NYC Economic Development Corporation, which were “encouraging” in that the EDC is “studying how they can [aid] our efforts”.

According to Mr. Brice Peyre, of the Congresswoman’s New York City office, the staff member who attended the meeting had already left for the long holiday weekend so he could not add any comments regarding the aforementioned meeting.

New Water Taxi Dock - Comments from Bruce Becker & Steve Shane

The following are e-mails I received today upon specific requests for comments to both RIOC President Steve Shane and Bruce Becker of Becker and Becker and Octagon LP.

From: "Stephen Shane"
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:30:42

"RIOC Is delighted that another mode of transportation will be available for Roosevelt Island and will do whatever it can to promote its successful implementation.

The design for the dock facility has not been reviewed by RIOC but we will require obtaining the neccessary permits, licenses and approvals from the various City, State and Federal authorities having jurisdiction.

We have only had a support role so far. We approved the concept and urged the City Office of Emergency Management to get behind the application, which it did. We encouraged Congresswoman Maloney*s support."


- - - -

From: "Bruce Becker"
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:27:21
To:
Subject: RE: Octagon Dock Approval

"Hello Eric,

Yes, we are very pleased to be near the end of an exhaustive permitting process. The Army Corp permit was the last in a series of permits which were difficult to obtain, including a tidal wetlands permit from the DEC, a Coastal Zone consistency determination from the New York State Department of State, as well as a permit from New York City department of small business. This has been more than a two and a half year process including about six months spent designing dock improvements. Representative Maloney was very helpful in moving this process forward. We still have to work out funding agreements with the NYCEDC to utilize Federal funds which were secured for the purpose of making dock improvements by Representative Maloney, and arrange for required operating support for the water taxi operations.

We've been in discussions with New York Water Taxi for the last three years about bringing service to Roosevelt Island and adding our stop to planned routes up the East River. When service is established we expect to have service running to 34th Street and Wall Street. Eventually we hope there are many more options.

-Bruce "