A Short Voyage to New York’s Governors Island

Hopping the ferry to a roaring twenties lawn party

Elizabeth Sobieski
Globetrotters
Published in
7 min readAug 19, 2024

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Elizabeth Sobieski on the ferry

Here I am cruising on the ferry from Manhattan’s South Street to Governors Island. Although nearly a lifelong New Yorker, I had never made this journey before now.

For some of those years, I did have an excuse as the former military base was closed to the public prior to 2005.

It is just ten minutes by water from lower Manhattan, views of the Statue of Liberty included. Another ferry service has been added, arriving even faster from the Brooklyn waterfront.

At 172 acres, Governors Island is about one third the size of the principality of Monaco (510 acres), and one-fifth the size of Central Park (843 acres), but less peopled and more bucolic than either of these popular destinations.

(I know this may seem an odd juxtaposition, but as a New Yorker, I have long enjoyed joking about Central Park being twice the size of that storied sovereign state, gambling mainstay, and tax haven on the Riviera.)

On Governors Island, I remove my vintage-style shoes and walk barefoot across a grassy soccer field, shared only with two boys tossing a Frisbee, despite this being a perfect weather Sunday. I have the rest of the immense grounds to myself, and experience no worries…

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Globetrotters
Globetrotters

Published in Globetrotters

We are a group of ordinary yet extraordinary travel lovers sharing our experiences of exploring the world with the world.

Elizabeth Sobieski
Elizabeth Sobieski

Written by Elizabeth Sobieski

Elizabeth Sobieski @TheMaskedHatter on Instagram, has written for various publications and is the author of “The Masked Hatter-Pandemic Style", Penser Press.