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Waves of Change
Honoring a Matriarch of the Hudson
On Monday (July 22), the River Project will host its 2019 Summer Cruise, raising funds for the highly regarded, Lower Manhattan-based non-profit that aims to protect and restore the ecosystem of the Hudson River Estuary through scientific research and education programs.
Setting sail aboard the Hornblower Hybrid from Pier 40, guests will enjoy dinner and an open bar, as well as an auction. The evening will honor retiring executive director Cathy Drew, who founded the River Project in 1986.
Her vision and leadership, among other accomplishments, helped pass legislation that made the Hudson River Park an estuarine sanctuary in 1998. This legal designation was based, in part, on fish ecology data that Ms. Drew helped compile through her research in the Hudson.
For Ms. Drew, the Hudson has long been a personal passion. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology from Columbia University in 1979 and a Master of Science in Biological Oceanography from the Marine Sciences Research Center, in Stony Brook, in 1984. From 1973 to 1978, she worked as a scuba diver and underwater photographer on scientific expeditions throughout the southwest Pacific. In recent years, Ms. Drew’s research has focused on near-shore living resources — helping to accumulate a trove of data that informs many city, state and academic environmental programs.
Ms. Drew and the staff of the River Project also invented a new kind of marine research station in the early days of the organization, which they called an Estuarium — a combination laboratory, public exhibit and learning space designed to offer hands-on programs in the urban ecology of New York Harbor and the larger Hudson River ecosystem.
Housed at Pier 26 for decades, the organization moved to Pier 40 when the Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT) began to redevelop Pier 26 a decade ago. The River Project had always planned to return to its original home on Pier 26, but when HRPT announced plans for a new estuarium in 2014, its initial list of participants did not include the organization. This decision, controversial among Lower Manhattan community leaders who have long supported the River Project, inspired a chorus of support for the organization.
A century ago, Pier 26 was used as a dock for large passenger ships. By the 1990s, however, it had fallen into disrepair. Rebuilt by HRPT in 2008, the pier is now the home to the Downtown Boathouse (which hosts a free kayaking program), a dog run, and City Vineyards, a 350-seat restaurant, operated in partnership with Michael Dorf, who is best known as the founder the City Wineryperformance venue. Further out on Pier 26, construction work is now progressing on a plan to create a giant park space.
The River Project’s relocation to Pier 40 was always meant to be temporary, and the move was made amid expectations by community leaders and elected officials that the River Project and the Estuarium would be welcomed back to Pier 26, once the rebuilding was complete.
That assumption was cast into doubt at an April, 2018 meeting of the Waterfront, Parks, and Resiliency Committee of Community Board 1, when HRPT president Madelyn Wils offered an update about Pier 26. Turning to the Estuarium, she said, “we have a very ambitious plan right now for a two-story facility that would house two kindergarten-through-eighth grade classrooms, three college or post-graduate classrooms, and a significantly sized technology exhibit — a museum-quality type of facility, with a small aquarium.”
“It’s a $50-million project, and we have $10 million toward it,” Ms. Wils continued. “We are currently looking for an anchor donation,” for the remaining $40 million. “So we’re looking for a significant amount. But, if we are not able to get the kind of anchor contributions that we’re looking at, then we will scale back the project.”
The prospect of raising $40 million in new donations to support the Estuarium appears to be far from certain. This calls into question whether the River Project, will ever be able to return to its original home.
In this context, Monday’s event aboard the Hornblower Hybrid (which derives it name from a unique design that draws power from hydrogen fuel cells) may prove to be a crucial opportunity not merely to raise funds, but to demonstrate community support for an organization that has been a mainstay in Lower Manhattan since the 1980s.
Monday evening’s program begins with boarding and cocktails at 5:30 pm, followed by a dinner cruise from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. For more info, please browse: www.riverprojectnyc.org/events.
Matthew Fenton
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