NYCkayaker boathouses on the Hudson river in NYC

[Nancy Brous]

mike, as i tried to point out, the dtbh was the sole respodent to the very
public rfp put out by hudson river park for the boathouse they operate at
pier 96 at 56th street.  i'm not sure how you see this as translating to a
monopoly.

neither the dtbh nor floating the apple provides private boat storage.  the
park dictates what type of activities are acceptable at public boathouses
built on public land with public funds, and they insist, for good reason,
that these facilities are open to the public for a certain number of hours
during certain times of year free or at a very low cost.  so in effect the
dtbh does provide public kayak storage--for kayaks to be used by the public,
for free.

it seems that there is often confusion on this list about public storage
versus private storage of kayaks.  private storage is when you, as a kayak
owner, rent a spot for your personal kayak (which is not used by the
public), sort of like renting a parking spot for your car.  public storage
would be storage of kayaks used by the public on public land or in public
facilities, much as there are public tennis courts and parks which can be
used by the public.  i doubt anyone wonders why they cant park their private
cars in central park or build a private storage shed on NYCs public tennis
courts or ball fields.  i cant fathom why anyone would expect (or want) a
public park to encourage use of its space for private kayak (or any other)
storage.

that said, hudson river park will consider a response to the rfp for one of
the new boathouses which includes private kayak storage as part of a
proposal for the operating and programming of the public boathouse, provided
that the proposal  satisfies the public use elements as well.

if it is storage rather than monopolies which you are most concerned about,
there is currently a group of independent kayakers working to ensure that we
maintain adequate private kayak storage in hudson river park, particularly
at the pier 63 maritime barge when it relocates to pier 66a next season.  we
stand to lose approximately 70 private kayak slots if the DEC permits issued
to the barge's owner are not ammended.
ithis effort has been mentioned on this and several other lists.  at at
least 2 recent park and community board meetings there was a great showing
of paddlers who were willing to take their time to come out in support of
such storage and show the strength of the numbers in the paddling community.

this loose affiliation of independent kayakers (some who need the storage
and some who just support the cause) welcomes anyone with ideas and energy
to work for this common goal.
a yahoo group called HRPAccess has been set up for anyone interested in
helping.

there are other groups working toward getting public launches and boathouses
set up eventually on the east river in manhattan, in queens, brooklyn,
staten island, hoboken, governor's island, on the harlem river, etc.  i'm
sure that if you want to become involved in a constructive way you can find
more information online or i may be able to help point you in the direction
of a few  of these groups.

in the interim, as i mentioned, there is NYC parks dept-run kayak storage at
the 79th street boat basin, private storage at pier 40 at new york kayak
company, and you might want to contact the inwood canoe club as well to see
what their policies are.

so there is storage on the hudson in nyc now, and if we want to keep it and
hopefully add more, we will have to work for it rather than bemoaning its
lack and waiting for the kayak storage fairy to pay NYC a visit.

On 10/30/06, mike pidel <mpidel at optonline.net> wrote:
>
>  There can be a  problem with when one organization with a different
> mission than other local paddlers monopolizes the available boathouses.
>
> D TBH does not offer public storage of kayaks.  Many paddlers want public
> storage of kayaks without having to volunteer their lives away.
>
> If there was more public storage of kayaks, there would be a larger
> kayaking community. Many new and seasoned paddlers don't further their
> involvement with kayaking due to no place to keep a kayak in Manhattan
>
>
>
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