Please
be advised, beginning Monday, November 15th, Leitner-POMA, operators of
the R.I. Tram, will begin maintenance work on both cabins to continue
ensuring the safe operations of the Tram.
During
this work, which is scheduled to last through the end of December 2021
(weather dependent), only one Tram cabin will be in operation at a time.
The Tram will operate on an as needed “load and go” departure
throughout its regular hours of operation.
Please
plan your travel accordingly, as long lines for the Tram can be
expected during rush hour. To supplement Tram service during this
planned work period, the RIOC Red Bus will be providing free shuttle
service, to and from Manhattan, Mondays – Fridays, from 3 PM – 8:30 PM.
Schedules for Red Bus Shuttle and regular service below:
Roosevelt Island to Manhattan Shuttle
Departs
hourly from the R.I. Tram Station (300 Main St.), making all northbound
local stops to Capobianco Field (opposite P.S./I.S. 217), before
heading into Manhattan.
First trip will depart from the R.I. Tram Station at 3 PM
Last trip will depart from the R.I. Tram Station at 8 PM
Manhattan to Roosevelt Island Shuttle
Departs on the half hour from the southwest side of 2nd Avenue, between 58th & 59th Streets, and will make all southbound local bus stops (starting with 591 Main St.) to the R.I. Tram Station
Last trip will depart Manhattan at 8:30 PM
Regular Red Bus Service:
Will
continue normal morning rush hour schedule from 7 AM – 10 AM, with pick
up at the R.I. Tram station approximately every 7 ½ minutes
Will continue to operate from 10 AM – 3 PM, with pick up at the R.I. Tram Station approximately every 15 minutes
passed away in August at her home in San Francisco. While not a Roosevelt
Island resident, Bonnie had a second home in Manhattan and came to us over
twenty years ago on a $50,000 Ford Foundation grant.
Bonnie was a landscape architect with credentials in San Francisco and around
the world. Her early focus here was Southpoint Park which was slated for major
renovations, and Bonnie's schematics for that task were printed in
The Main Street WIRE March 20, 2004
issue at the time. They included plans for a boathouse and launching site for
kayaks regrettably never built. The Trust for Public Land conducted its own
planning at the time, which would have included a make-over of the Renwick
Smallpox Hospital Ruin. RIOC rejected these innovative ideas and produced our
current, modest Southpoint Park.
Bonnie was the founder and director of Life Frames, Inc. the sponsor of
A Living Library (ALL)
whose mission was, "to transform derelict environments with systemically
integrated hands-on learning for all ages resulting in ecological, place-based
branch Living Library & Think Parks in diverse parts of the world." Her
work has been displayed at the P.S. 1 gallery in Queens as well as at the
Biennale in Milan, Italy.
Bonnie never received the municipal financial support in New York City that
supported her projects in San Francisco, but took advantage of the RIOC Public
Purpose Fund to continue creating projects, built with the sweat equity from
all sectors of our population. She turned her attention to the PS/IS 217 schoolyard where both children and adults labored to haul the soil and manure
necessary to transform the area under the hallway windows into a vegetable and
flower garden.
She planted an orchard of fruit trees on the west promenade
school property, tragically destroyed during major school renovations. There
are still two pin oaks, planted by the school kids, across Main Street from
the school entrance.
Currently, A Living Library is represented by the garden
located between our new library building and Blackwell Park, now under
renovation. The park, under the leadership of ALL Director China Bushell, is
maintained with the support of many residents, old and young, and you may have
joined the Trick or Treaters at that wonderfully (gruesomely?) decorated crypt
over Halloween.
Those of us who worked with Bonnie over the years miss her terribly. We know
how much she loved Roosevelt Island and Roosevelt Islanders. A memorial is
tentatively planned for next May, Bonnie's birthday with a plaque to be placed
on one of the garden's benches and a tree planted in her name. What could be
more appropriate?
Here's a 2014 interview with Bonnie Ora Sherk describing her A Living Library life long project.
A group of Roosevelt Island residents, calling themselves The Ghouls Of RI,
organized a local Halloween celebration last Sunday. According to the Ghouls Of
RI:
By all accounts, on this past Sunday, the Roosevelt Island community held
the best Halloween event anyone can remember. For two hours in the late
afternoon, fifty to sixty participating families, residents, businesses and
organizations ran outdoor Trick Or Treating stations
which together spanned over a mile long route along the east and west sides of
the island, from Southtown to Manhattan Park.
From simple tables to decorated scenes, adults and children alike donning
costumes, the island came alive with the Halloween spirit.
There was a state of the art photobooth,
there were stations with music, and costumes, fantastic costumes
everywhere!
The Outdoor Trick or Treating route was chock full of spooky and delightful
tidbits of human creativity on display.
One of the silver linings of the pandemic is the way people have begun to
think outside the box to find new ways to thrive. Nowhere was this more
apparent than on Halloween this year. An idea sparked by a local parent on a
community Facebook page last year was met with such enthusiasm and joy, it
seemed like a decided improvement on the way we New Yorkers used to do our
domicile Trick or Treating, where kids took to the halls and stairwells and
elevators in small, windowless spaces and came back with a truckload of a
Halloween haul. The new “pandemic Halloween” brought us out of our boxes,
into the fresh air, and it brought us together. It was New and Improved,
bringing some of the best elements of suburban Halloweens to the city. It is
an example of how hardship can make us better.
This year, we decided not to wait to hear whether Halloween would be cancelled
by RIOC, State or City officials and expand upon the brilliance of our outdoor
Halloween. This outdoor Halloween version of things was exciting precisely
because it wouldn’t have to be fettered by public officials, or be at the
mercy of changing COVID statistics. This year, the event went a little bigger,
putting out a call for participants early in October, with flyers posted
around the island
and conversations to bring in local businesses and organizations. Then big,
colorful posters went up,complete with a QR code that could be scanned for a
digitalized map of the route. While we don’t have an exact count of the
numbers, it’s estimated that nearly 1000 people participated on Sunday.
To all who participated, we thank you for linking hearts and minds with us
to make this event truly magical. While some old traditions may be on hold,
like the Halloween Parade, there is always space for new ones to be created.
Our entire community-- from the youngest to the oldest-- has made clear that
the Roosevelt Island spirit is here to stay. Thank you all for your support
of our second annual Outdoor Trick or Treating; we will see you in 2022!
Another example of the Roosevelt Island
Zero Waste movement
taking place Saturday November 6. As previously reported, the annual
Roosevelt Island Pumpkin Smash, turning Halloween waste into nutrient rich compost, returns to the
Manhattan Park lawn this Saturday.
Welcome to RENEW, a take-back program that gives EILEEN FISHER clothes life
beyond your closet. You bring back your old pieces, we find them another
home—or turn them into entirely new designs....
Cynthia Power, Director, EILEEN FISHER Renew, describes the various ways the
brand is taking back, reselling, and upcycling garments as well as recycling
efforts to reduce the amount of textile waste in landfills:
https://t.co/glCUW7aDTs
Don’t let your Pumpkins haunt the landfill! Please join us
for a smashing good time (rain or shine) Saturday, November 2nd from 11am
to 2pm on Manhattan Park’s lower lawn (between building#20and#30facing Manhattan’s skyline). All are welcome to this
free event.
Get your pumpkin therapy on! Come smash, chop
and throw pumpkins to break ‘em into bits so that our partners fromNYC Compost Project
hosted byBig Reusecan give ‘em a new life as nutrient-rich compost,
which comes right back to amend our island soils.
Delicious cakes made locally by Andrea, cider and cookies
from our farmers market will make this day even sweeter. We welcome
bringing your own mug to help us reduce waste and to keep the neighborhood
clean and green.
Fan favorite, the leaf crunch, is back too, so
please bring your favorite fallen leaves on your way to the Smash to add
to the pile!
This is one of our favorite events and helps hit
home that food scraps are not trash but valuable. Thanks to partners
Manhattan Park and RIOC for making this event possible. And to Coach
Scot’s baseball players and the Girl Scouts for volunteering.
Local
Anthony Longo and son, co-founders of@grin_10044, say “Roll through to check out the new Bam!Boo!
Bowling experiment too!”
There will be a Halloween costume drop
box for costumes no longer needed and a used battery tube.
Big
Reuse has returned to support this Pumpkin Smash on Roosevelt Island but
they never really left. Thanks to their ongoing support, and that of the
local
Haki Compost Collective
volunteers, residents have now dropped over 200,000 pounds of food scraps
each Saturday from 9am to 2pm for composting since 2015.
A bit grumpy about composting? Stop by the ScanScrap
table for the unveiling of new supportive initiative for those not
convinced.
Be sure to visit partner tables including longtime
supporters from the
RI Garden Club, who
will highlight our worm friends, and
iDig2Learn
to find out more about Haki composting initiatives.
See you at
the Smash!
Here are scenes from 2017 Roosevelt Island Pumpkin Smash
NYC Election day for Mayor, City
Council, Public Advocate, Comptroller and Borough President is tomorrow November
2. The Roosevelt Island polling location is at PS/IS 217 (645 Main Street) from
6 am to 9 PM.
A sample ballot is here.
NYC Democratic Party
Mayoral nominee Eric Adams
and NYC Council District 5 (covering Roosevelt Island, Upper East Side and
East Harlem)
Democratic Party Nominee Julie Menin
held a Get Out The Vote campaign rally yesterday afternoon in Carl Schurz park
across the East River from Roosevelt Island.
Democratic Party Nyc Mayoral nominee
@ericadamsfornyc
at campaign rally joining with Roosevelt Island & UES Nyc Council
District 5 nominee
@JulieMenin
in Carl Schurz Park across from Roosevelt Island today. Greets Halloween
Trick or Treaters and says he’s wearing costume tonight
pic.twitter.com/q2ficFquMF
The prerequisite to prosperity is public safety and justice and they go
together. We don't have to divide the two.
We could have a new ecosystem of public safety that would include us all.
The good guys must win and they wear blue uniforms and blue jeans.
I want people to see that. But I also wanted people to know about my high
income earners those who are demonized. Those 65 000 that pay 51% of our
income taxes. I wanted people to know about their donation to our museums ,
their donation into programs to help fill the gap, their donations to
foundations. Those donations go to the museums and to Broadway and to use
their discretionary dollars to help our community.
We're not dividing our city. There's the ecosystem of those who drive the
limousine should be paid good salaries and those who sit in the back of the
limousine should be in this city. That's what this city is about and that's
how it becomes a great city...
... the beauty of diversity, that's our secret weapon. That is who we are. I
mean this is the only country that does dream attached to it's name. There's
no French dream there's no German dream there's no Polish dream but there's
an American dream....
... I am so excited, I was waiting to say just get Julie elected so we could
have a partner. Her competency, we have done so much together throughout the
years...
Here are the full remarks from Mr. Adams
Ms Menin said:
... I cannot tell you how fired up I am about this election, about my
election, about Eric Adams election, about the whole Democratic ticket,
Alvin Brag, Mark Levine the whole ticket. And I'm fired up because we're the
party of science, we're the party of facts, we're the party that is going to
fund our public schools, we're the party that's going to build affordable
housing, we're the party that's going to make our communities safe and make
sure that we have equal justice and accountability. That is what this party
is about....
NYC Council District 5 Republican nominee
Mark Foley was
also campaigning at the entrance to Carl Schurz Park.
According to Mr Foley the number one issue is::
... public safety and police. We support refunding, restoring, reforming and
respecting the police and that's what's separating us from my opponent who
promised substantial cuts to the NYPD budget in a substantial not
superficial way. That message doesn't resonate in this district...
... I support the vaccine. I do not support a mandate. I think it's terrible
what's happening now that these people, these front-line workers who last
year were hailed as heroes are being kicked to the curb fired and they're
not even allowed to get unemployment and it's just that's unconscionable to
me....
Curtis Sliwa is the Republican Nominee for NYC Mayor.
My 24 hour "Get Out The Vote" effort throughout New York City continues. Remember to get out tomorrow & Vote for me, CURTIS SLIWA pic.twitter.com/MlRr47MTgq
Thank you to everyone who attended our GOTV rally with the Upper East Side's
next Councilmember,
@JulieMenin! Early voting may be over, but New Yorkers still have Tuesday, Election
Day, to make their voices heard! Polls are open from 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM!
pic.twitter.com/gyXMpVmVCg
Amazing energy and crowd at our joint GOTV rally. We are the party of
science. We are the party of facts. We are the party to lift up New Yorkers
in an equitable and just recovery. VOTE! 🗳@ericadamsfornycpic.twitter.com/TljQzJCo4h
“You couldn’t find a better person than Julie Menin. She is indefatigable.
Every job she has had - she has put her all into. Her heart, her soul, her
brain. She has done an utterly amazing job and I know she will be a great
Councilman.” Thanks
@chuckschumerpic.twitter.com/b1WfYVfHRc
This Tuesday, Yorkville, Carnegie Hill, Lenox Hill, and Sutton Place
residents will vote for their new Councilmember.
@JulieMenin
is the clear choice! I’ve worked w/ her on Census efforts & have seen
firsthand her dedication to NYC. Proud to support her this afternoon to
#GOTVpic.twitter.com/fN2h8hk6DT
Roosevelt Island is a mixed income, racially diverse waterfront community situated in the East River of New York City between Manhattan and Queens and is jurisdictionally part of Manhattan. The Roosevelt Island Tramway, which connects Roosevelt Island to the rest of Manhattan, has become the iconic symbol of Roosevelt Island to its residents.
The Purpose of this Blog is to provide accurate and timely information about Roosevelt Island as well as a forum for residents to express opinions and engage in a dialogue to improve our community.
