East River View Of Roosevelt Island FDR Park, Southpoint, Goldwater Hospital And Queensboro Bridge From Long Island City Gantry State Park

Spent a very nice Saturday in Long Island City enjoying the food from the LIC Flea & Food vendors,

walking around the wonderful Gantry Plaza State Park on the East river waterfront

and relaxing in the Gantry Park very comfortable benches.

directly across from Roosevelt Island.

Here's the view of Roosevelt Island from Gantry Plaza Park in Long Island City.

No Response For Roosevelt Island Rowing/Kayaking Request For Proposals, One Response For Waterfront Food Concession - RIOC Real Estate Committee Meeting In Executive Session to Discuss RFP's As Well As Island House and Southtown Ground Lease Extensions

Yesterday was the due date for submission of the Roosevelt Island Rowing/Kayaking and West Promenade Subway Pier Waterfront Food Concession Request For Proposals (RFP) to the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC). Though not officially confirmed, my understanding is that there were no submissions for the Rowing/Kayaking RFP and only one for the Waterfront Food Concession RFP.

Both of these subjects are among the Agenda Items for today's Executive Session RIOC Real Estate Committee meeting which is closed to the public.

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that a meeting of the Real Estate Development Advisory Committee of the RIOC Board of Directors will be held on Wednesday, May 2, 2012 at 5:30 p.m. at the RIOC administrative office, 591 Main Street, Roosevelt Island, New York.

AGENDA

1. Chair's Motion for Executive Session to Review and Discuss:
a. Responses to RFP's:
i. RFP#12-27395 Operation of a Kayaking/Rowing Concession in the Eastern Channel off
Roosevelt Island; and
ii. RFP#12-27396 Operation of a Waterfront Food Concession on the West Promenade of Roosevelt Island;
b. Proposed Modifications to the Ground Lease for Southtown Buildings 7, 8 and 9; and
c. Proposed Modifications to the Ground Lease for Island House. 

As with all RFP submissions, RIOC can choose to accept, reject or modify any proposal.

Last weekend, I visited Gantry State Park in Long Island City and came across their version of a waterfront food concession with seating for about 30, though it was closed at the time,

as well as these places to relax and take in the great East River Waterfront Views.

(note the Kahn/FDR Memorial in background)

 If you have not been to Gantry State Park in Long Island City - go, they did a great job.

Long Island City Waterfront Theater - Can Roosevelt Island Be Next?

Mabou Mines is performing "Song for New York: What Women Do While Men Sit Knitting" on a barge off the shore of Long Island City"s Gantry Plaza State Park. This is the type of event that should occur on Roosevelt Island and Southpoint Park. From today's NY Times:

Mabou Mines is known for epic works and unflinching experimentalism. But even for this group, “Song for New York: What Women Do While Men Sit Knitting,” a seaborne celebration of the city in music and verse, is a first: its first site-specific piece. Its first major one outdoors and on the water. And the first requiring not just the support of civic arts groups but also agencies like the Coast Guard and the Parks and Police Departments. If all goes according to plan, the show is to open tonight off the shore of Long Island City, Queens (the audience will be safely onshore), and run through Sept. 9.

“It’s a response to Walt Whitman’s great New York poems, and Hart Crane’s Brooklyn Bridge poem,” she said. “Those poems are old now, and I thought it would be good for women to speak for the city.”

And:

The new verses are sung by five of them to a mishmash of musical styles, from jazz ballads to tarantellas. They’re connected by a historical narrative — a yarn, in Mabou’s parlance — written by Nancy Groce, an urban folklorist who has worked with the Smithsonian Institution.