[Announce] mid-December meeting, lecture, party.

[Erik Baard]

Ahoy’all!

Let’s have a brief meeting, followed by a Trip Planning 101 lecture 
and an informal party in the back room of LIC Bar in mid-December. 
Stay tuned for the exact date. For now, some information to digest...

MEETING

The meeting will serve to catalyze the formation of action groups for 
advancing our work in Hallets Cove, the Newtown Creek, and catch us up 
on infrastructure and maintenance. We currently have a group focusing 
on putting together a fundraising event, under the guidance of Ed and 
Helena. John is conjuring the wacky festive flourishes that will keep 
people coming back year after year. Ed, Helena and John will need us 
to provide a lot of leg work.

Our senior volunteers will continue to confer on new boat purchases, 
including the question of whether we should expand the sit-on-top 
fleet or add enclosed cockpit boats.

Our ultimate goal is to grow into three autonomous paddle programs, 
based at Hallets Cove, Anable Cove, and the Newtown Creek. The three 
might be linked locally though the LIC Community Boathouse, or they 
might be represented as peer members of the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe 
Club network. 

All three sites would be vital links in the forming NYC Water Trail, 
and should open the way to rowing as well as paddling. The boathouses 
would also be premier destinations on the Queens waterfront greenway.

Please read the following and let us know where you’d like to be 
involved.

Hallets Cove

The large curve of protected water in Astoria, with a small beach 
administered by Socrates Sculpture Park and a bit more than a block 
north of that art space, is the home of our Sunday “walk-up” paddles. 
Thanks especially to support from NYC Department of Parks and 
Recreation, Partnerships for Parks, and Silvercup Studios, and key 
volunteers, we’ve put hundreds of people on the water at Hallets Cove 
and won the hearts of many community leaders. 

A wedge of land between the beach and Socrates Sculpture Park is 
privately held by a developer who is converting the former Adirondack 
Furniture (earlier piano factory) and adjacent lots into condos. The 
Trust for Public Land, NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, 
Socrates Sculpture Park, and the LIC Community Boathouse are exploring 
ways in which this parcel might be purchased for public use. Our goal 
is to have a boathouse on this land, perfectly situated for making the 
Hallets Cove boating program permanent and sustainable. I’ve promoted 
a personal vision of a “boat hill,” a naturalistic earthen hill with a 
hollow, monolithic concrete dome core suitable for boat storage.

More details (though with a slightly out of date rendering) here:

http://www.licboathouse.org/index.php?
home_page_blog_p=13&tm_session=dfe0445369f441e2c9cdea58656a001c



Anable Cove

Anable Cove, and its Anable Basin section, is at the very heart of 
Long Island City’s redevelopment. Our presence here is best known 
through the “Friday Night Chill Paddle,” which grew greatly under 
Monica’s leadership. We also launch our longer tours from this 
location, like our Manhattan circumnavigations and the Harbor Ramble, 
which have garnered great media attention. 

There’s good reason to expect that this location will remain the 
largest boathouse on the western Queens waterfront, given the coming 
population density, affluence, and location directly across from the 
midtown Manhattan skyline.

Plaxall Inc. currently provides us with free storage space and has 
kindly penciled us into its redevelopment plans, along with a vibrant 
arts presence. Naturally, both our services and the creative energy 
brought by artists, increase the value of the waterfront. 

A few goals for the Anable Cove site are:


•	Securing a permanent boathouse on Anable Cove. 
•	Forming a World Boatbuilding Museum in cooperation with the 
Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, Municipal Arts Society, East River 
ApprenticeShop, and rowing groups. 
•	Encouraging sustainable development of the waterfront and 
wetlands restoration in cooperation with local allies like the Friends 
of Gantry Neighborhood Parks and Hunters Point Community Coalition.
•	Attract a private kayaking outfitter to open a shop and 
instructional center in privately rented space to elevated skill 
levels in the area, building a saqfer boating culture.


Newtown Creek

The LIC Community Boathouse is a longstanding member of the Newtown 
Creek Alliance (  http://www.newtowncreekalliance.org  ) and pushed 
hard from the start for water access on the highly industrial Queens 
side of the creek. A measure of success is the New Yorkers for Parks 
design exercise for a Vernon Boulevard street end park, which has 
gained momentum toward realization. But for our purposes, the end of 
Second Street is far more desirable. 

Second Street runs along the east side of a lot recently purchased by 
the city for moderate income housing. This cornerstone of Queens West 
will be a bustling area, and Second Street leads directly to a small 
notch in a curve by the mouth of the Newtown Creek. There’s ample room 
for a boathouse (another potential “boat hill” site) and there’s an 
urgent need for community stewardship of the creek. As a bonus, the 
estates of Mount Vernon and Monticello have agreed to supply us with 
Newtown Pippin saplings (   
http://www.twinleaf.org/articles/pippin.html  ) descended from the 
apple tree that once grew along the creek, from which cuttings were 
taken for the Founding Fathers’ plantations. Imagine a boathouse 
nestled in a Founding Fathers grove!

Queens Community Board 2 environment committee chairperson Dorothy 
Morehead urges us to act quickly to establish a toehold in this hot 
real estate before it’s claimed and planned for other uses. The first 
step is storing canoes at the site, even if simply locked and placed 
under a tarp, so that we might offer environmental monitoring and eco-
tours. 
Ms. Morehead invited us to meet with her and give a presentation to 
her committee.

Already, a local company has offered us sponsorship for the creation 
of a viable Newtown Creek program, so let’s put our minds to it!

LECTURE

Monica, Erik, John, Ted, and (if possible) Warren will explain how 
trips are planned: tides, currents, eddies, gear, group dynamics, 
traffic patterns, emergency pull-outs, etc. Equipped with that basic 
knowledge, we’ll brainstorm some dream trips and invite you to send in 
your own.

PARTY

Well, if we’re at LIC Bar, why not celebrate our successful summer and 
look forward to the new year together a little?  :)


Erik Baard

LIC Community Boathouse
http://www.licboathouse.org

Nature Calendar
http://www.naturecalendar.com

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