Good morning. It’s Wednesday. Today we’ll find out about a new ferry that’s cleaner and quieter than conventional ones. We’ll also find out why the group that manages Central Park says carriage horses should be banned in the park.
Julio Santiago nudged a controller that looked as if it belonged on a video game console, and added a footnote to the maritime history of New York City. He became the first captain at the helm of a hybrid-electric ferry, a $33 million vessel that officials said was cleaner than conventional diesel-powered ferries. Captain Santiago steered the new ferry, the Harbor Charger, on its inaugural run to Governors Island, the 172-acre oasis across New York Harbor from Lower Manhattan. Officials who were onboard said the ship was the future of maritime transportation, at least for trips like the ones to and from Governors Island. From the pier on South Street, the island is only 800 yards away — less than half a mile. But the route crisscrosses one of the busiest waterways in the world. Captain Santiago said he has to be on the lookout for things like chunks of ice in the winter — and swimmers like one who front-crawled by, shadowed by a kayak, while Captain Santiago was standing in the wheelhouse, waiting to rev the engine and pull away from Manhattan. The Harbor Charger is quieter than a conventional ferry, and Captain Santiago said it was also more maneuverable. “This boat would actually turn on a dime — you could turn it 360 degrees,” he said. But most of the chatter aboard the Harbor Charger was about how it is powered. When the Harbor Charger is in its hybrid mode, a diesel engine generates some of the power to make it go. “Today it’s a Prius,” said Alex Brady, the chief real estate office for the Trust for Governors Island, which was involved in designing the vessel. “In the future it will be a Tesla.” It has been built to run entirely on battery power, and it will, once a dockside charger now on the drawing board is installed in about two years. Captain Santiago said the Harbor Charger could go an entire day on one charge. Many people with hybrid cars smile smugly at the miles per gallon that their cars rack up. But hybrids, on the road or on the water, produce fewer exhaust emissions. Officials said the Harbor Charger would reduce emissions by 600 tons a year, compared with a conventional ferry. The reduction once it is running in its all-electric mode will be even greater, an additional 800 tons a year. The vessel was named after a contest that drew 800 entries from nautical enthusiasts. Among the rejected entries was Boaty McBoatface, which first surfaced in a similar name-that-boat contest for a British polar research ship in 2016. The Governors Island judges also shunned names that played off puns — Ferry Impressive or, with a nod to the vessel’s technology, Watts Up Dock. The Gov Boat, which rhymes with “The Love Boat,” did not win the hearts of the judges, either. The Harbor Charger will replace the Lt. Samuel S. Coursen, commissioned by the Army in 1956, when Governors Island was a military installation. And there is a footnote about how Captain Santiago’s place at the helm of the Harbor Charger gave him a place in maritime history. While the Harbor Charger is the first hybrid-electric vessel in New York State, officials said it was not the first in the United States. That distinction went to the Wenatchee, a ferry in Washington State that was retrofitted with batteries where two of four diesel engines originally were. With a capacity of just under 2,500 passengers and just over 200 vehicles, the Wenatchee is larger than the Harbor Charger, which can hold half that many passengers and 30 vehicles. It turned out that Captain Santiago, who works for the NY Waterway ferry company, was not the only person aboard the Harbor Charger with a captain’s license during the inaugural run on Tuesday. Deputy Mayor Adolfo Carrión Jr. said that he too had a captain’s license, and used to have a 27-foot Formula Performance Cruiser. But when he became commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, in 2022, “I was paying for storage,” he said. Then, in the spring, he was named deputy mayor for housing, economic development and work force. “So, after I’m done with this job, I’m going to go back in the water,” he said. WEATHER For today, expect showers and thunderstorms with temperatures in the high 80s. Tonight, the chance of showers and thunderstorms continues, with temperatures in the mid-70s. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Friday (Feast of the Assumption). The latest New York news
We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. Central Park Conservancy asks for a ban on horse-drawn carriages
Until now, the Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit group that manages Central Park, had not taken a public stand on horse-drawn carriages, a politically divisive issue that has been debated for decades. But on Tuesday, the conservancy urged city officials to ban the carriages. The conservancy said it was supporting a bill before the City Council that would prohibit horse-drawn carriages from operating in the city. “We do not take this position lightly,” Betsy Smith, the conservancy’s president, wrote in a letter to Mayor Eric Adams and the Council speaker, Adrienne Adams, “but with visitation to the park growing to record levels, we feel strongly that banning horse carriages has become a matter of public health and safety for park visitors.” Her letter came a week after a 15-year-old mare that had worked in New York City for less than two weeks collapsed at an intersection in Manhattan. She was pronounced dead after she was taken to a stable in Hell’s Kitchen. City officials are investigating what caused the death, which my colleague Ed Shanahan says reignited the debate about an industry that some consider a vestige of 19th-century charm and others consider abusive to animals. Representatives for the mayor and the speaker did not immediately respond to requests for comment. John Samuelsen, the president of the union that represents carriage drivers, the Transport Workers Union, lashed out at what he called the “corporate aristocrats at the Central Park Conservancy.” He said that the bill before the Council would idle 200 people who work in the carriage-horse business. METROPOLITAN DIARY An animal
Dear Diary: Back in the mid-1960s, my best friend at the time, Peggy, and I would travel to Manhattan whenever we heard that a British pop group was coming to New York City. We would wait patiently outside the hotel where the band was staying, hoping for a sight of one of our musical heroes. Sometimes our patience was rewarded; sometimes it was not. I, a 15-year-old schoolgirl, once got to stroll arm-in-arm on a street in the West 50s with John Steele, the drummer for the Animals. I gave him a gift, a Mad magazine that he tucked under his other arm. Another time I entered a shop and saw a New York comedian who often appeared on late-night talk shows. I asked him for his autograph. He smiled. “You don’t know who I am,” he said. “Sure I do,” I replied. “You’re Milt Kamen.” I got the autograph along with a huge smile. — Lisa Morais-Knudsen Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Francis Mateo and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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