NYC Ferry Restaurant Tour, Part VI: Pizza Yard (Governors Island Ferry)
How to prioritize a blog about going to Governors Island for pizza, I mused at the end of my trip? Should it be more about Governors Island, or more about the pizza? Neither, I realized, as I approached the dock with a tummy full of Classic Margherita. It had to be about the ferry that got me there. The island has its own dedicated ferry line. Operated by the Governors Island Trust, it departs from the swooningly gorgeous Battery Maritime Building, a 1906–09 Beaux-Arts masterpiece at the tip of Lower Manhattan. As if to bless my lead shot, above, a gull flew overhead in the upper left corner, while a deckhand prepared for docking in the lower right. Many times have I ogled it from the Staten Island Ferry — the big orange vessel.
Back to the beginning of my voyage, when I walked through the entrance in the Battery Maritime Building.
In addition to the ferry, the building also hosts the high-end restaurant Casa Cipriani.
The ferry operated by the Governors Island Trust costs less than a round-trip subway fare (at presstime) and you can pay as little as zero point zero if you’re under 12, a senior, or have an NYCID.
Once you’ve paid your fare, or collected your freebie ticket, enjoy a cool waiting room, where a mural makes a subtle point about plastic pollution, putting fetching maritime images into soda, bleach, and detergent bottles.
Out of the waiting room, onto the boat.
The ferry is operated by the nonprofit Governors Island Trust. It docks on the island’s north shore, at Soissons Landing, named for a World War I battle, with memorable views of the Lower Manhattan skyline.
It is not the only option. You can also take the NYC Ferry’s South Brooklyn Route from Wall Street’s Pier 11 to Yankee Pier, shown below. It’s on the southeast side, facing Brooklyn. There is also a Commercial East River Ferry operating on weekends. Ferry operators and schedules are subject to change, so check before you go.
My ride at the Manhattan end was the Samuel S. Coursen (1926–50), named for an Army lieutenant who died saving another soldier’s life in Korea.
After a few vehicles had driven into the two giant spaces on the middle deck, passengers on foot boarded belowdecks. On this weekday excursion, the Tuesday after Labor Day, it wasn’t at all crowded.
Couples huddled in front of the Statue of Liberty as we made the seven-minute journey across the area at Manhattan’s southern tip where the Hudson and East rivers meet and greet.
I climbed to the top deck to observe our arrival at Soissons Landing.
Docking was a bit rough. The boat really smacked those battered timbers at the left side of the pier, though my camera was aimed at the scaffolds on the right.
Kind of like aquatic bumper cars. It reminded me of a rough landing at where the flight attendant said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have just attacked LaGuardia Airport. And guess what? We won!”
But we made it in one piece. The ferry needs not only to meet the dock but get level with it. Look to the left and right…
…and note the orange blocks within the scaffolding. They are weights that enable the dock to hook onto the boat, level it, and hold it steady as passengers disembark.
We pass beneath the mighty apparatus.
From the dock, a familiar sight.
Nearby is Historic Building 140, built in the mid 19th century as a munitions warehouse and later used as a bank, post office, Army base, and Coast Guard base.
I grabbed a few shots of its classy gold-leaf insignia: the Great Seal of the United States…
…and what is probably a more militarized version of it, the two-fisted olive branch and spear motif replaced with cannon, shield, and battle flags.
In addition to this classy entrance, with its map and signage, Soissons Landing has plenty more signs along the way guiding you to your destinations.
This blog won’t attempt even a sketchy summary of the island’s most notable architecture. But walking south along the eastern shore’s Nolan Park…
…I was cheered by the pastel yellow houses ennobling green leafy public spaces. They were probably officers’ quarters — the grunts stayed in the barracks.
Several houses were hosting art exhibitions. This one was associated with NADA House. The streets are dead quiet because there is very little traffic on the island — vehicles can cross only over water, and there’s only so much space for them on the ferries.
Here’s an exhibit associated with the American Indian Community House.
Outside massive Liggett Hall, a Georgian Revival behemoth and former barracks more than a thousand feet long, is a play area for some of the island’s one thousand current residents. There were once more barracks on the south side of the island, though I didn’t get there today.
Here’s more of Liggett Hall, with its cupola.
Outside, a propellor. WTF? Or as the English colonists on the island might have said, what praytell is this?
THE INSIGNIA OF THE EARLY BIRDS, the sign says. A nearby plaque explains that this is a bronze cast from the propeller of a wooden plane built by the Wright Brothers in 1909. It was the first U.S. military plane and made its maiden flight from the island.
I approach the cupola’d center of Liggett House for reasons that will shortly reveal their relevance to this Restaurant Tour episode.
Passing through the belly of the great Beaux-Arts beast by starchitects of yesteryear McKim, Mead & White.
This plaque commemorates a historical pattern common in other parts of the New York area as the land passed from Lenape tribes to the Dutch to the English. It notes that the island is the “birthplace of American military tactics which won for England a great dominion, sole safeguard of Washington’s retirement [retreat] from Long Island in 1776, early guardian of New York City, mobilization point in the Mexican, Civil and Spanish-American wars, supply base during the [First] World War.”
Ah, I can hear you all say, he finally gets to the point.
Looking in one direction, toward the Parade Ground and the chapel, you got your picnic tables. Note wood-burning pizza-stove fuel to the left.
Looking in the other direction, with Liggett House in the background, you got your picnickers.
You got your panorama shot of the above.
Welcome to Pizza Yard, located adjacent to but not actually in Liggett Hall. It has a second location in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. That’s one of its ovens to the left.
But this the one out of which my Classic Margherita came. The gentleman cutting it served it with a smile.
Lunch is served. That’s the Chapel of St. Cornelius the Centurion in the background, across the Parade Grounds. It is part of the Episcopal Church though the island also has a Catholic chapel.
That’s my baby, a thin-crust marvel, fluffy around the perimeter, made with Tipo 00 flour.
Though I did have an uninvited guest.
See that slice at lower right? The one just a little bit lit by the sun?
That’s where the wasp landed.
Perhaps attracted by the sweetness of the tomato sauce, he — I assume it was a he, not a queen — was quite persistent. I should have taken a picture of him. The yellowjacket kept landing, on exactly the same spot, and I kept shooing him away.
Finally I moved to a different table. Mercifully he didn’t follow me. Perhaps it was some kind of territorial thing. I was happy to avoid the science experiment of my first sting by a wasp, but what should I do about the slice in contention, I thought? Should I eat it or throw it away?
Yup, I ate it.
These three teens were among my fellow pizza diners. They were singing John Denver’s “Country Road.” Not in harmony, but in unison. I wondered if it was a pun on Colonel’s Row, the cluster of historic buildings toward which we were walking.
If I come this way again, I might try a healthy bowl at Makina, the island’s vegetarian and vegan option.
Like most of the dining options on Governors Island, it is a food stand. The food is Eritrean and Ethiopian.
Or perhaps I’ll go for “ice cream & burgers” at BBQ & Booze.
That would put me nearby some snazzy Manhattan skyline viewing infrastructure.
And some equally snazzy picnic tables.
Although, as a melanin-deprived individual, I would prefer this covered seating area.
The rejuvenated World Trade Center sits cheek by jowl, or maybe it’s tongue by jowl, with Castle Williams, built in 1807–11 to protect New York from attack by sea.
While that would be hard to imagine nowadays, it might have been possible during the War of 1812, sometimes described as a second war for independence, when the fledgling United States of America again went up against Great Britain following harassment of American ships trading with our ally France. Those holes in the rounded structure were presumably for cannon.
Some historians say we wanted to annex Canada, but we were probably just pissed that the Brits were using it as a base to attack our naval and commercial ships. It was not enough to just win our independence; we had to keep it, a lesson that resonates today. Castle Williams was named after Jonathan Williams, Secretary of War (not Defense, back then).
This area due west of Soissons Landing and the Governors Island Ferry, a promenade across the island’s northern shore, offers a peerless selection of New York landmark viewing — almost an embarrassment of riches. To the right of Lower Manhattan is the Brooklyn Bridge.
Behind the Brooklyn Bridge is the Manhattan Bridge, both crossing the lower part of the East River. A future episode of the Tour will take me to DUMBO, the neighborhood Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.
You can watch the Staten Island Ferry gliding past the Statue of Liberty.
And if you’re full of burgers & beer, or wood-fired pizza, or a vegan bowl, and you need relief before boarding the ferry back to Lower Manhattan, Governors Island has got you, babe.
When the view is this good, you don’t mind waiting for the boat, even if you just missed the half-hourly departure.
And so we boarded for the quick trip home. Home for me, anyway. Perhaps a hotel for others.
As the Brooklyn Bridge came closer…
…the boat wheeled to the left, toward the Battery Maritime Terminal.
Let me dote upon you, my lovely, with your orange buddy next door.
My eye may have been momentarily drawn to the Freedom Tower, as it always is.
But this view of the Battery Marine Terminal was new to me and equally compelling. Almost home now. The deckhand prepared to get busy.
The captain cut the engine as we approached the bay at far right.
We managed not to smack the pier like several tons of bricks this time.
Closing the distance but still a little green harbor water remained.
And home. I saw a bit of the island’s historic north side this time. But the south side remains unexplored — and there will be a next time, because this trip is so easy, and free to seniors, and I’d like to get down to the southern end.
Also, I really want to do lunch at Casa Cipriani!
Previously on the NYC Ferry Restaurant Tour:
Part I: The Wharf (Rockaway Route to Rockaway Park)
Part II: Kimo’s Kitchen (Rockaway Route to Rockaway Beach)
Part III: Big John’s (Rockaway Route to Sunset Park)
Part IV: Salty Dog (South Brooklyn Route to Bay Ridge)
Part V: Crown Cafe (Statue City Cruises to Liberty Island)
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