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Weather Dampens Governors Island Visitor Numbers

By Julie Shapiro | October 20, 2011 6:48am
Governors Island visitors braved the rain on the ferry June 11, 2011. After a scalding and wet summer, Governors Island saw about the same number of visitors as in 2010.
Governors Island visitors braved the rain on the ferry June 11, 2011. After a scalding and wet summer, Governors Island saw about the same number of visitors as in 2010.
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Mario Tama/Getty Images

GOVERNORS ISLAND — After several years of dramatic growth the number of visitors going to Governors Island has leveled off — due in part to a scalding July and a rainy August.

The island saw 448,000 visitors in the summer of 2011, just a 1 percent rise over the previous summer's 443,000, the Trust for Governors Island announced this week.

Until this summer, visitorship to the island had swelled significantly each year, more than doubling from 2008 to 2009 and growing by 60 percent from 2009 to 2010. It was buoyed by high profile events and improved access from Manhattan.

Leslie Koch, president of the Trust for Governors Island, predicted earlier this summer that the trend would continue, with the number of visitors crossing the half-million mark for the first time.

But Koch told Governors Island board members Tuesday that the visitor numbers leveled off this summer because of bad weather, including Hurricane Irene, according to three people who attended the meeting.

"Visitorship went up not as dramatically as it has in recent years, and the major factor was the weather," said Rob Pirani, executive director of the Governors Island Alliance, an advocacy group, summarizing what Koch said at the meeting.

A spokeswoman for Koch confirmed Wednesday that weather affected this summer's visitor numbers.

Governors Island is only open to the public on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and holiday Mondays from Memorial Day weekend through September, so a few gloomy days can dampen the overall summer attendance.  

In July, the problem was record-breaking heat. The two hottest days, when the temperature shot up to 100 degrees or higher, fell on a Friday and Saturday, July 22 and 23.

Then August arrived with a deluge of rain, including nearly 6 inches on Aug. 14, a Sunday, the highest daily total ever recorded in Central Park.

And before August could end as the wettest month in New York City history, Hurricane Irene arrived to drench the city further, forcing Governors Island to close on Sat., Aug. 27 and Sun., Aug. 28 and disrupting a Dave Matthews Band concert that would have drawn thousands of additional visitors.

"That definitely put a damper on people enjoying the island," Pirani said.

Pirani added that while the island's visitor numbers will eventually level off because of limited space and ferry capacity, he believes that point is far in the future and the island will see much more growth before then.

"There is additional capacity on the ferry, and there is certainly room on the island," Pirani said.

A source who also attended Tuesday's board meeting agreed.

"[The Trust for Governors Island] felt like if they'd had a real season, they would have seen more growth," the source said.

Also at Tuesday's board meeting, the Trust for Governors Island unveiled new renderings of Liggett Terrace, a vast open space in the center of the 172-acre island that is getting a facelift starting next spring.

The design, by a West 8-led team, envisions a playful, inviting green space with maze-like hedges, spray fountains for children, mosaic tiling, movable seating, flower beds, a sound installation by Susan Philipsz and other pieces of public art.

Construction will begin early next year, and the new Liggett Terrace is scheduled to open in 2013.