FISA Rowing Tour Rows Around Manhattan

The 2007 FISA Rowing Tour USA makes a stop in New York City today by rowing around the isle of Manhattan. The last leg of the week-long rowing tour is a "Row Around New York" where participants will row 30 miles around the island. The boats began at 6 am today at Pier 40 (Houston St. and the Hudson River) and should finish there at around 5 pm. Participating rowers, there are 70 of them, hail from 17 different countries with ano additional 50 rowers from the New York area.

Here's what's left of the schedule. All times approximate:

The boats will continue up the East River and gather at Socrates Park in Queens at 9:30 am. The rowers will then travel to 96th Street and FDR Drive, arriving at 10:00 am. By 11:00 am they will pass Roberto Clemente Park, marking the last time the boats will be in plain view until they reach Inwood Park at 2:00 pm. By 2:30 pm they will pass Dyckman Street and Riverside Drive. At 4:00 pm rowers will pass Pier 84 at 44th Street and will finally return to Pier 40 at approximately 5:00 pm.

Because participating in the event wasn't hard enough, the rowers will probably be splashed by water (possibly ingesting it too) in the East River, Harlem River and Hudson Rivers as well.

Lest you be concerned for their safety, participants won't be in traditional rowing shells, but in historic Whitehall boats. The "Row Around New York" is the last stage of the 2007 FISA Rowing Tour USA and the first time the event is in New York. The first stage was from Bellows Falls, VT to Essex CT and the second was from Avery Point to Mystic, CT.

FISA is working with Floating the Apple which seeks to restore access to the public waterways and reintroduce the public to rowing and sailing.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By tien mao on July 28, 2007 9:53 AM

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WeWereNewYorkers51

The FISA Rowing Tour in 2007 around Manhattan follows a race that was undertaken annually by New York City and Hoboken rowing clubs. These races ocurred for many years, before and after 1900.

I derive the following story from rowing news clips in the New York Times. A group of boathouses stood between 132nd and 140th on the west bank of the Harlem River. These boathouses served the Speedway rowing course, a mile-long course, that could be could be lengthened to 1 1/4 mile. The Speedway was the rowing venue on the Labor Day weekend of the New York Regatta Association. The course was the scene of the Middle Atlantic States Regatta in 1904 and was visited by all the New York City area rowing clubs and famous still-existing clubs from Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Canada.

The writer for The Times, reported in an article about one race that there was growing concern among rowers that they would lose rowing in the waters around Manhattan. That article and other accounts indicated that they had had long frequent interuptions by towed barges, tempests that drove away large crowds and waterfront development that was starting to threaten removal of their boathouses.

A solution was discussed generally about a "national race course" in Pelham Bay. Some of the design recommendations match the Orchard Beach rowing course that is the current home of the NYAC. "National" race courses around the Country spring from this idea, at Lake Saratoga, the Hudson River off Poughkeepsie, the Atlanta Race Course, one in Los Angeles and the 'Night racing' couse in Oklahoma City.

The FISA Tour may have left from the original location of the Waverly Boat Club. The New York Times, from that period, reported the Waverlys as sponsors of transportation by a Fulton Fish Market fishing boat and a fleet of tugs to a rowing race in the Kill von Kull, where the race was "Upset" by a Gale. My Grandfather was a competitor in some of these races in the Rosedale Boat Club Four Oared Barge. The Rosedale Boat Club was on the Hackensack River, on the river bank opposite the town of Secaucus, NJ.

My notes, here, are by no means the most authoritative remarks concerning club rowing at the beginning of the twentieth century. I refer you to a graduate thesis done by Elizabeth MacCormack at NYU, circa 2000. You could Google her name and "NYC rowing"

John Rehm, Salem, Oregon. Original member of the Lafayette College Crew Club 1971 and Co-Founder of the Western Oregon Crew Club, Monmouth, Oregon.