Hi friends! I hope you all had a great weekend. The weather here was perfect!! It’s finally starting to seem like fall is coming, it’s not miserably hot so you can be comfortable in shorts and a tank. Each weekend, Jon and I are trying to plan something fun and new to do, which gives me something to look forward to during my long week at work. One morning last week we were looking at a map on the subway thinking of places to go and we decided on Governor’s Island. This island is reachable by ferry and is less than a mile from lower Manhattan. Jon had been with work, but I’d never been so I was excited!
The island has a pretty neat history because it was the birth place of New York. It was used for military purposes during the Revolutionary War, held confederate prisoners during the Civil War, and was a training site for soldiers in WWI and WWII. Governors Island was a home to the Coast Guard until 1996, and then converted to a public park in 2005. The National Park Service offers tours of the fort and castle on the island, but we didn’t get a chance to attend yet.
To get to Governor’s Island, you have to take a ferry from Battery Park and it cost $3 a person round trip. The ride was about five minutes and had great views of the Statue of Liberty and the NYC skyline. The ferry goes to the island from Manhattan about every twenty minutes on the weekend, but it only comes back every hour after 6pm.
Our first stop was Fort Jay and hopefully one day we will be able to come back and get a tour and history lesson about the area. This was used to hold prisoners during the Civil War. We only got to look around for a little bit, but it was still very cool!
We walked around for a bit afterwards, I loved being able to see the Freedom Tower!
Jon and I needed a pick me up so we stopped at Melt for some cookie ice cream sandwiches. There are little food trucks around that you can get a quick bite from and two small restaurants on the island.
Our next stop was the Hills which is a man-made hill with giant stones you can climb to the top, there’s also a walking path to the top for those not able to climb. It’s a quick climb, but the views are the top are incredible!
This is the best view of the Statue of Liberty by land in my opinion and an equally amazing view of lower Manhattan. This was my absolute favorite part of Governor’s Island.
I loved how open and green this area was! It’s such a nice break from the concrete jungle across the river 🙂
We took a ferry back to the city, there’s one every hour on the way back so be careful with your time or you might be waiting a long time to get back. We had such a nice afternoon on Governor’s Island! There’s also no cars on the island so it was a nice escape from all of the honking in the city! We want to go back again to get a tour of the castle and fort, so stay tuned for a part 2 🙂
I will have to explore that area of NY! Those ice cream sandwiches looked YUMMY!!!
It was really nice, I’d recommend going if you want a nice relaxing day 😀 they were delicious!
The best years of growing up, was on Governors Island as a Coast Guard brat. We lived on GI from the summer of 1967-1969. Some of my siblings were bussed to PS 104.