http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/nyregion/02ferry.html
Neighbors Press Goldman Sachs on Ferry Noise
Marcus Yam/The New York Times
The Yogi Berra leaving Battery Park City. Goldman Sachs pays to have ferry runs 16 hours a day.
PATRICK McGEEHAN
Goldman Sachs, which has certainly borne its share of public anger about the financial crisis, is now drawing heat for another reason: noisy ferryboats.
The boats, which have been running almost constantly across the Hudson River every weekday since Goldman moved into its new headquarters in Battery Park City, have generated frequent complaints from residents of the neighborhood. Goldman does not own the offending boats, but it is paying a ferry company to keep them running 16 hours a day between a floating terminal at the edge of Battery Park City and a dock near Goldman’s waterfront office tower in Jersey City.
The dispute about the boat noise has droned on for so long that Battery Park City officials have hinted that they might want to give the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the $50 million floating terminal, the heave-ho, saying the agency is violating the terms of its lease with the high noise levels.
In a letter he drafted to the Port Authority recently, James E. Cavanaugh, the president of the Battery Park City Authority, demanded an end to the “unreasonable noise” emanating from what he called the Goldman service.
Now, having fielded complaints for eight months, Goldman is preparing to solve the problem with its wallet. The firm is having two ferryboats built to its specifications at an estimated cost of more than $5 million, said people with knowledge of the firm’s plan who insisted on anonymity because they did not have permission to discuss it. The two boats, which would be more luxurious than the typical commuter ferry on the Hudson, could arrive before the end of the year, these people said.
Goldman intends to substitute the new vessels for the NY Waterway boats that have been plying the short route between its office towers on opposite sides of the river.
Mr. Cavanaugh said he hoped that the matter could be resolved without legal action, but he did not rule out the possibility of litigation. The draft letter he sent to the Port Authority said the “Goldman service” had “unreasonably inconvenienced and annoyed” some residents of Battery Park City. It alluded to noise readings taken by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection in April and May that exceeded the city’s legal limit of 10 decibels above the ambient noise level.
Mr. Cavanaugh blamed the problem on the use of older, noisier boats since Goldman increased the frequency of ferry runs — to every seven or eight minutes — when its employees began moving into the new tower late last year. The ferries run from 6 a.m. to almost 10 p.m.
The terminal is operated for the Port Authority by a ferry company known as BillyBey, which is named after its owner, William Wachtel, a politically active Manhattan lawyer. Goldman Sachs, in turn, pays BillyBey to run boats between the terminal and the Jersey City dock, known as Paulus Hook. The boats, which fly the NY Waterway commuter-service flag, are open to the public for a fare of $5.50 each way. But community leaders in Battery Park City say that, outside of the morning and evening rush hours, the ferries serve primarily as shuttles for Goldman employees.
Indeed, they run far more frequently than other commuter ferries do: NY Waterway boats run as infrequently as twice an hour in the middle of the day between the train terminal in Hoboken, N.J., and Battery Park City.
Privately, some Goldman officials bridle at the complaints, suggesting that the neighbors were piling criticism on a firm that has already been faulted in the public eye. They declined to discuss the firm’s plan to obtain its own boats.
But, in a statement, the firm said it had contracted with BillyBey “to provide the most efficient form of transportation for our employees to shuttle between our two buildings, while also providing a public service.” It added that the firm was “aware there have been some issues raised” and was working with the ferry operator to explore all options to address them.
A spokesman for BillyBey said the company had switched to newer, quieter boats after the complaints first arose late last year and had not received any complaints since then. But Mr. Cavanaugh said he had seen the older boats — nicknamed the Italian class because they were named after famous Italian-Americans like Frank Sinatra and Yogi Berra — operating on the route recently and had heard about other sightings by residents of Battery Park City.
“I saw those Italian-class boats well after Waterways promised not to use them,” Mr. Cavanaugh said. “That equipment continues to show up.”
For his part, Mr. Wachtel, the ferry operator, said, “We’re confident in short order all concerns will, in fact, be allayed.”
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