Kayakers lobby for a new landing on the waterfront

Volume Number 1 Issue Number 1| September 29 - October 5, 2006

Chelsea Now photo by Jefferson Siegel

On Sept. 10, the day Pier 63 Maritime closed at W. 23rd St., Manhattan Kayak Company kayakers towed the small craft upriver to a new location.

By Albert Amateau

Nearly 100 kayak enthusiasts, some waving their paddles, came to a Community Board 4 Waterfront Committee meeting last week calling for support of their efforts to stay on the Pier 63 Maritime railroad barge when it moves at the end of this year to a new berth three blocks north on the Chelsea waterfront.

The kayakers, along with a group of outrigger canoe club members, found a sympathetic reception at the Sept. 27 meeting when the committee decided to ask the state Department of Environmental Conservation to allow human-powered boats to use the barge’s new location at Pier 66A, a restored railroad float bridge at 26th St.

The wood-and-steel float bridge formerly served to transfer railroad freight cars from barges to railroad tracks on the Chelsea waterfront.

For the past seven years or so, about 170 nonmotorized boats, mostly kayaks, have had their home on the former railroad barge berthed on the north side of Pier 63 at 23rd St. The barge, owned by John Krevey, has been serving as a popular town dock and is also the home of two historic ships, the Frying Pan, a lightship decommissioned from the former U.S. Lighthouse Service, and the John J. Harvey, a retired New York City fireboat.

But the Hudson River Park Trust, the state-city agency building a riverfront park on the Hudson, is getting ready to transform Pier 63, former home of Basketball City and current interim location of the Police Department’s Mounted Unit, into a public park pier.

So the Trust has agreed to let the barge, along with its historic vessels, plus kayaks and outriggers, moor next to the railroad float bridge, designated as Pier 66A, which the Trust restored last year.

At the same time, the Trust is completing a new Pier 66 just north of the float bridge, with a boathouse that could accommodate about 50 kayaks.

Nevertheless, the state D.E.C., which issues in-water permits, has noted that the water between the float bridge and the new Pier 66 is designated under the state Estuary Maritime Plan for motor-powered boats. The agency indicated that it would probably deny permission for paddle-power boats to be launched and landed in the area.

But kayakers, led by Eric Stiller, president of Manhattan Kayak, which runs programs and kayak storage on the railroad barge, said at the Sept. 27 meeting that kayaks and motor power have coexisted for seven years at Pier 63 without injuries are accidents.

Moreover, water sports are growing, Stiller noted. A recent addition to the railroad barge is a kayak polo club, and the New York Outrigger Club has two six-person outriggers and three smaller craft on the barge. Stiller said a permit for kayaks at the Pier 66A float bridge is especially important because so many boat users would swamp the limited storage on the newly built pier to the north, Pier 66. In addition, New York Water Taxi is slated to use Pier 66A as a taxi stop.

The Community Board 4 Waterfront Committee will ask the full board to endorse a letter to D.E.C. at its monthly meeting on Oct. 4.