PortSide NewYork is a young, innovative non-profit organization developing diverse programs about water and the waterfront. We will create waterfront access, arts and recreational boating events, jobs, historical products and policy—programs for diverse economic groups and individuals. Our chief ambassador is a 172’ repurposed ship, the coastal oil tanker Mary A. Whalen. She serves both as our office and as a mobile cultural platform.

Description and/or History:
PortSide is advancing a new vision for revitalizing New York City's waterfront by creating waterside public spaces without displacing the maritime functions essential to the city's transportation infrastructure. We advocate, and we show by doing. We promote sustainable waterfront planning that fosters the greenest form of transportation, waterborne transportation, and thinks about it in new ways, while also delivering educational, cultural, and recreational waterfront experiences in community-oriented ways.

In a less than four years, PortSide has achieved many “harbor firsts”:

9/07: first public performance in a NY-NJ containerport, a Puccini opera,
4/08: invitation to create the first live performance in the Navy Yard,
6/08: first historic vessel in Brooklyn Bridge Park,
12/08: 1st public access event in Atlantic Basin, (Whalen’s 70th birthday party)
Since 2006, we have run NYC’s first (and only) Kayak Valet

PortSide is about to grow in a dynamic way. New York City’s Economic Development Corporation (the EDC) has announced they will provide a home for PortSide in Atlantic Basin, next to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook. This will include a berth for the Mary Whalen, a pier where we can host visiting vessels of every description, and an interior space that will house programs, retail and interpretive spaces.

Visible from PortSide will be huge cruise and container ships, working gantry cranes and tugboats, along with charter, excursion and historic vessels.

In this milieu PortSide will create a year-round attraction and a functional, colorful waterfront where people will enjoy the chance to get close to authentic working boats and learn about how water affects their lives. At the same time, we will help revitalize the Red Hook waterfront in a thematically appropriate way that speaks to the needs of residents, workers and visitors.

Given the pace of waterfront change, PortSide, has from the start, structured itself as an adaptive institution that can configure its programs to suit a varied population, a changing population, and seasonal audiences.

Contact people:

Carolina Salguero, Executive Director, (917) 414-0565, (email) Daniel Goncharoff, Program Coordinator, (732) 610-9023, (email)

Address:

PO Box 195 Red Hook Station Brooklyn, NY 11231

Directions:

Directions to the tanker Mary A Whalen. The Whalen is in the “Port Authority Brooklyn Marine Terminal” operated by American Stevedoring. Use entrance at the corner of Hamilton Avenue and Van Brunt Street: 70 Hamilton Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11231 ô€,f You need a photo ID to enter the port. ô€,f it can be 10 degrees cooler than inland, especially if the wind comes up. Sweaters, hoodies, etc. recommended.