Governors Island Plans Second Acts for Historic Buildings
The Trust for Governors Island is seeking partners to plan new uses for a pair of historic buildings: a former gymnasium and a disused theater, dating from 1926 and 1937, respectively. The buildings will be repurposed for arts, cultural, and recreational programming.
Buildings 324 (a onetime YMCA) and 330 (known as the Fort Jay Theatre) sit adjacent to one another in the midst of the Governors Island Historic District, steps away from Yankee Pier (which services ferries from Brooklyn). The site is alongside the future New York Climate Exchange campus, a $700-million project that will break ground later this year.
The old theatre contains a 750-seat auditorium, and features Art Deco details on the proscenium and ceiling. When the island was a major U.S. Coast Guard base, from 1966 to 1996, the theatre hosted live productions and screened first-run films for the island’s residential population of several thousand.
In a separate Governors Island development, the historic Building 140 (adjacent to the Soissons Landing ferry dock, which faces Lower Manhattan) is slated to be reborn this fall as a dining destination. Originally constructed in the mid-1800s as a munitions depot and later used as (among other billets) a bank and a post office during Governors Island’s history as a military installation, the building is being transformed by the team behind the long-popular Taco Vista food stand to create three new, year-round restaurants, plus an events venue. Building 140 will house an expanded and reimagined Taco Vista (serving Mexican fare and drinks); Priscilla’s, a year-round café serving coffee, pastries, and lunch; and the Riverline, an indoor/outdoor, full-service restaurant that will also have the capacity to host special events. The project is being led by Michelin-starred chef Eduard Frauneder, familiar to Lower Manhattan residents as the proprietor of Cafe Fleuri, a new French bistro on Washington Street.