NYC Takes Back Governors Island & Brooklyn Bridge Park From NY State, No Plans To Take Back Roosevelt Island For Now - Freedom Will Have To Wait

Aerial View of Governors Island From GIPEC

This April 12 post asked if Governors Island and the Brooklyn Bridge Park

Brooklyn Bridge Park Image From NY Times

are being returned to the City of New York from the State, why not Roosevelt Island which is under lease from the City to the State until the year 2068?

Roosevelt Island Image From Improv Everywhere

Imagine a Roosevelt Island free of it's Colonial Overlord, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp. (RIOC) and the State of New York.

How close, if at all, was Roosevelt Island to being brought back to the bosom of the City of New York? Well, the New York Observer recently reported that in 2006 such a plan to recapture Roosevelt Island from NY State and return it to New York City was seriously considered by the Bloomberg Administration. From the April 27 NY Observer:

In late 2006, as a set of projects calling for hundreds of millions in funds languished in their planning stages, Dan Doctoroff, then deputy mayor, became frustrated.

Operating under the code name “Project Repo,” aides to Mayor Bloomberg’s right-hand man for development drew up a clandestine list of where the city could seize control of major initiatives it shared with the state.

Among those considered for a city takeover, according to multiple people familiar with the plan, were the sprawling Queens West housing development near Long Island City; Battery Park City; Roosevelt Island; Brooklyn Bridge Park; and Governors Island....

I tried to find out how real Project Repo was as regards New York City taking back Roosevelt Island from the State. After all, there was a time when former Mayor Rudy Giuliani expressed support for the liberation of Roosevelt Island from NY State but apparently Mayor Bloomberg is not so enthusiastic. Responding to my inquiry, Andrew Brent, a spokesperson for the Mayor's Office replied:

There haven’t been any discussions with the State about the City taking over Roosevelt Island.

but a small sliver of hope for the future of Roosevelt Island's liberaton came from John Moore, a spokesperson for Roosevelt Island's NYC Council Member Jessica Lappin,

Council Member Lappin has not been briefed on any plan for the Bloomberg administration to take back Roosevelt Island for the City, but it’s a conversation that she would welcome.

Will getting rid of RIOC and returning Roosevelt Island to the City be beneficial for Roosevelt Island? This reader thinks so:

Most of the island's problems stem from the fact that it is in New York City, but not of it. If we were just a normal NYC neighborhood, maybe Main Street we would have some retail that didn't look like it belongs in a third-world country. Maybe some of the empty stores would get rented. Maybe a real restaurant would open here. Maybe other residents of the city would realize that we are just a stop on the F train. Maybe RI residents would realize that they live in a housing project in New York City and not in an isolated small town in the middle of nowhere.

Who will step up and champion freedom for Roosevelt Island - our own version of Braveheart's William Wallace and who will be the tyrannical King Edward The Longshanks.

You Tube Video of Braveheart's Freeeeeeeedom Scene