Good morning. It’s Tuesday. We’ll find out why the group planning a parade of tall ships on July 4 is building a temporary dock at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal. We’ll also get details on allegations that Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican in a tight race for re-election, used his political influence to direct business to a consulting firm he once owned.
The last time we heard from Chris O’Brien, he was getting comfortable with the word “semiquincentennial,” a mouthful of a term for a 250th anniversary. Now he is preparing to install a temporary dock — a “finger pier” — to accommodate tall ships that the Manhattan Cruise Terminal cannot handle.
O’Brien is the president of Sail4th 250, the nonprofit that is coordinating a parade of tall ships — over 45 vessels from more than 20 nations — during the “semiquin,” as he calls it for short.
He said that for that many nations to send that many ships to New York for a seagoing salute “is not merely a maritime event — it is a diplomatic statement.” They will be “affirming that the founding of this republic still matters,” he said.
But ships need places to tie up, and that proved to be a challenge. The piers along the Hudson River in Manhattan and the East River in Brooklyn have deteriorated since the days of stylish ocean liners and workaday cargo carriers. And some piers have been remade as parks. But Sail4th 250 has worked with the New York City Economic Development Corporation, a nonprofit controlled by City Hall, to make as many as possible usable, if only temporarily.
That is why Sail4th 250 will set up the floating dock between Pier 90 and Pier 92 at the cruise terminal. Pier 90 was shut down late last year after an inspection. The Economic Development Corporation said that the pier’s 90-year-old substructure was nearing the end of its useful life for large vessels that take up the full length of the pier.
Pier 92 was closed in 2019 after an inspection indicated that it was structurally unsound.
O’Brien said the dock would consist of “spud barges” — four platforms often used in dredging operations. They will be assembled and joined together over a couple of days in June. The result will be docking space for four vessels in addition to the one usable berth at Pier 90, which will be assigned to the Juan Sebastian de Elcano, a 308-foot-long Spanish schooner. The barge will be dismantled after the tall ships leave.
O’Brien said Sail4th 250 had also worked with the Economic Development Corporation to dredge and repair other city-owned piers, including Pier 36 along the East River.
Readying the piers was infrastructure spending “that we hadn’t planned on” when Sail4th 250 calculated its budget of $25 million, reduced from its original goal of $50 million. Besides the floating dock, the group has replaced aged bollards and cleats and arranged for fenders — the shock absorbers that prevent boats from damaging piers, and vice versa — in places where the ships will be tied up.
Sail4th 250 inevitably brings to mind the bicentennial in 1976. But this time the plans include a full-scale international naval review, the seventh in U.S. history and the fourth in New York Harbor. That will be followed by a sail between two bridges, the Verrazzano-Narrows and the George Washington, and past the Statue of Liberty. That won’t be the only spectacle: There will also be an international aerial review led by the Blue Angels, the Navy’s aerobatic flying squadron.
O’Brien said that one ship — the K.R.I. Bima Suci, a 364-foot Indonesian barque — had dropped out because of the war in Iran. “Their navigational plan had to be changed because of the conflict, and that caused a timeline issue,” he said. “They decided they couldn’t replan their route to get here in time.”
One difference between the nation’s bicentennial in 1976 and the Statue of Liberty’s centennial in 1986 is that this time, for security reasons, the waterways will be heavily regulated. Pleasure boaters can request a spot where they can anchor, but Sail4th 250 says they will have to stay put.
Someone with a 20-foot Boston Whaler should not be too disappointed. The Queen Mary 2 — which was billed as the longest, tallest, widest and heaviest nonmilitary vessel in history when it went into the water in 2004 — will not be allowed to join the procession to the George Washington Bridge, either.
Weather
Today will be sunny with a high of 67. Increasing clouds are expected in the evening; the low will be 52.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until Thursday (Solemnity of the Ascension).
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I remember the rats and the roaches.” — Anthony Dinh Tran, whose father bought the Carter Hotel off Times Square in the 1970s. In the early 2000s, it topped TripAdvisor’s list of the “dirtiest hotels in America.” Now there are hopes it can be converted for affordable housing.
The latest Metro news
-
Dumbo as a design hub: The Brooklyn neighborhood where factories once made coffee, soap and ceramics is now home to more than 160 architecture and design firms.
-
Writing with a flourish: Although cursive was dropped from the Common Core curriculum, students at one Manhattan high school are practicing dotting i’s and crossing t’s in an after-school club.
-
Classical meets salsa: Gustavo Dudamel’s decision to have the New York Philharmonic and the Spanish Harlem Orchestra perform together for the first time last week signaled how much he intends to change the Philharmonic once he officially takes over as its music and artistic director this fall.
-
Living in Riverdale on $48,000: Lori Perkins, a writer and literary agent who has side hustles to make ends meet, bought her three-bedroom co-op apartment as a foreclosure special. “Every big thing in my life has been a bargain,” she said.
A vulnerable Republican is accused of self-dealing
Democrats hoping to flip Representative Mike Lawler’s seat are focusing on whether his payments to a political consulting firm he once owned raise ethics concerns.
Lawler is considered the most vulnerable Republican in New York’s congressional delegation. In the past few months, as he tries for a third term, he has held town halls that have turned raucous. He was elected to Congress in 2022, representing northern Westchester County and the lower Hudson Valley, after serving two years in the Assembly in Albany.
Lawler sold his stake in the consulting firm, Checkmate Strategies, in 2023, but not before it took in more than $720,000 from entities that have connections to him, including his own campaign and the Rockland County Republican Committee.
My colleagues Jeffery C. Mays and Grace Ashford write that the arrangement, first reported by Politico, does not appear to violate the law.
But the idea that he used his political influence to draw business to his company has been seized on by watchdog groups and by Democrats seeking to reclaim Lawler’s seat. He won it by beating a five-term incumbent, Sean Patrick Maloney, who was also the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which called Lawler a “corrupt self-dealer” in a news release last week.
Battleground New York, a pro-Democrat super PAC, has asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate.
Lawler founded Checkmate Strategies in 2018 with Chris Russell, who bought out Lawler’s interest in 2023. Russell denied that Lawler had done anything improper. He said that Lawler “has followed, and often gone above and beyond, the guidance of House Ethics, the F.E.C., and state regulators every step of the way.”
METROPOLITAN diary
Under cover
Dear Diary:
On a false-spring afternoon, my boyfriend, Luis, and I went to the wine bar around the corner from my Williamsburg apartment. We were sitting at the bar having a private conversation when I asked Luis for the time.
“It’s 7:30,” a blond woman beside us said before he could answer.
She turned toward us with the bright, urgent expression of someone who had already decided we were all having a drink together. She was drunk, her mascara intact, but only just.
“What do you guys do?” she asked.
I told her I was a first-year teacher in Queens. Luis said he would be graduating in the spring and was looking for a job in marketing.
She studied us for a moment with theatrical longing, and then she leaned in so far that her shoulder nearly touched mine.
“I have a secret,” she said, beaming. “You can’t tell anyone.”
We promised.
She glanced toward the open windows, then back at us.
“I have my second interview with the C.I.A. tomorrow,” she whispered.
Luis and I looked at each other.
“If anyone asks,” she added, “tell them I’m interviewing with the Culinary Institute of America.”
A few minutes later, we paid our check, wished her luck and promised not to tell a soul.
— David Reyes-Mastroianni
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.
Lauren Hard, Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
James Barron writes the New York Today newsletter, a morning roundup of what’s happening in the city.
The post Getting New York’s Piers Ready for the ‘Semiquin’ on July 4 appeared first on New York Times.
