On Saturday, November 19, just five days after the Greenpoint ferry made its triumphant return to the India Street pier, ferry riders were faced with yet another ferry-related struggle.
It appears that Lendlease, the development company that owns the pier, did not inform its weekend security team that the ferry was back, and thus the security guard did not open the gate leading to the pier. When ferry riders showed up on India Street trying to access the pier, the guard told them that the ferry was not running, which was inaccurate.
Ferry rider Brad told Greenpointers that “the security guard appeared to not be informed about the ferry being opened for a week.”
Brad said that the guard “smugly argued with me and other passengers asking how we knew the ferry was coming.” The guard also said, “the app was wrong.”
“Then, six boats came and went, and multiple people per boat climbed the fence and/or missed their ferries,” Brad explained. Yet, the security guard still did not open the gate, when the ferry was clearly stopping at Greenpoint and passengers were exiting the boats. “He said he couldn’t open the gate and told us to call someone,” Brad told Greenpointers.
Brad ended up jumping over the railing next to the fence alongside two other passengers to make the 8:55 a.m. ferry. Brad explained that he and the other passengers built a step from the construction barricades to make it over the railing and access the pier.
When the ferry riders jumped over the railing, the security guard “scowled” according to Brad, who also said that “everyone was yelling at him.”
“At this point people were coming off boats,” Brad said, insinuating that it was clear that the ferry was running and the security guard had been misinformed. But the security guard “just looked on and denied the existence of the ferry,” Brad said baffled, “even as people appeared from thin air at the end of the dock.” Brad told Greenpointers that he thinks the guard was probably worried about getting in trouble.
“It was a temporary early morning misunderstanding with the security team but was quickly resolved and the pier was reopened,” said Tom Reller, Head of Communications at Lendlease.
The gate opened around 10 a.m., and was closed for only about an hour and a half, “but after 16 months of this goofiness, someone locking the ferry when it was running was sending the passengers into a a bit of a bad mood,” Brad said.
Brad told Greenpointers that he is part of a group that fishes near the India Street ferry pier, so he has interacted with the security guards there frequently and they usually are friendly with one another. Brad had never interacted with the particular guard who was there on Saturday morning, so Brad opined that he may be new. “All the others do seem to be aware of the ferry schedule,” Brad said about the other security guards he has encountered.