A new math gets applied to local school budgets

New lease in hand, Frying Pan looks to next year

By Lawrence Lerner

Chelsea may have been without its beloved Frying Pan this summer, but after months of arduous lease negotiations between its owner and the Hudson River Park Trust, the popular barge will once again be open for business, beginning in May of next year.

John Krevey, who in 1996 brought the U.S. Coast Guard lightship to Pier 63 before opening for business the following season, finally signed a lease with the Trust in late July and has started securing the necessary permits to get his ship up and running again after a forced year-long hiatus.

“It will feel good to reopen,” said Krevey. “It will be nice to provide public access to the Hudson River once again.”

The Frying Pan thrived as a restaurant/bar, danceclub, host of a summer classic night film series, and kayak storage space for the Hudson River water community until late last summer, when the Hudson River Park Trust shut down Chelsea’s Pier 63 during the height of the season and fenced off access to Krevey’s boat to make way for the park’s construction.

In April of this year, the barge was moved north to Pier 66, between 26th and 27th Streets, after months of speculation and doomsday predictions that the beloved boat would be put out to sea, never to return to the Chelsea shoreline.

But with the move came only the offer of a permit to occupy the new spot, but not a lease that would allow Krevey to open for business at Pier 66, despite his many attempts to get one signed with the Trust.

“The Trust was feeling pressure from contractors and wanted the barge out of Pier 63 quickly to make way for construction. Both of us did,” he said. “And though the permit to move showed good intent on Trust’s part, since there was no rent involved, getting a permit strictly forbade us from opening until a lease was negotiated. So, we could move, but we couldn’t operate.”

When that happened, the writing was on the wall, says Krevey: Once the Trust got him out of construction’s way, they had little motive to push along lease negotiations in time for the Frying Pan’s 2007 summer season, he insisted during an interview with Chelsea Now last week.

“It was a golden opportunity, to move to Pier 66: I’ve had my eye on that spot for six years. But I also knew—and it proved to be true—that if the Trust got us out without any pressure to have to negotiate a lease, we wouldn’t open this summer. And that’s exactly what happened,” Krevey said. “But they’re the landlord, and we’re the tenant. You do what you have to do.”

Krevey finally signed a five-year lease this summer, in late July, after nearly a year of negotiating. One of his supporters, Trust member Julie Nadel, who has frequently been critical of her board, had a front-row seat during the entire affair.

“This lease could have been signed last spring or summer, when they moved John. And if the Trust had just given him a lease at the beginning of this year, he could have had a full six months to negotiate with the various agencies for permits so he could open for the 2007 season,” said Nadel. “But the lease negotiating meetings dragged on and got unnecessarily complex.”

Nadel cited the 500-page lease Krevey signed, saying that the Trust treated him as an “unknown quantity” when, in fact, he had a history with HRPT.

“My impression was that the Trust wanted to delay or bar him from opening,” Nadel said. “If there were a will, the barge would have opened this past summer.”

With no lease in hand, Krevey was not about to sink substantial money into securing permits all the while, although he did go after those that were less costly and, therefore, presented little financial risk, in order to save time in the long run.

“We started on the DEC permit two years ago and got it about 11 months ago, and we went after our Army Corps of Engineers permit as well, starting about a year ago, and got it two weeks after signing the lease,” said Krevey. “But we need many more permits, which we’ll get over the course of this year.”

Those include a liquor license, a permit for food service and public assembly permit from the Department of Buidings, among others.

Then there is the question of pubic access to the Hudson River from the Frying Pan and the Lackawanna railcar barge to which it is attached. The pair had served as an epicenter of maritime activity for numerous vessels and groups for many years, serving as a home base for boating organizations such as the Manhattan Kayak Company, New York Outriggers, New York Polo and the Hudson River Paddler’s Guild.

However, the boat and barge, which provided storage for 150 kayaks as well as a launch site from the boat itself, no longer can accommodate these human-powered vessels and are prohibited by the new lease from letting kayakers launch from their dock. (The Trust has built a boathouse on Pier 66 that holds 50 kayaks.)

“Before, you could just take your kayak from the rack, push open the door, throw your kayak on the dock and launch into the water,” said Krevey. “Now you’ve got to lift your kayak up out of boat, go up a flight of stairs, over some roadway and down to Pier 66. The kayak community was outraged when they found out.”

While at Pier 63, the combo also provided dockage for myriad boats, including historic vessels like the John Jay Harvey fireboat, which pumped water for four days during the aftermath of 9/11; a yacht owned by renowned sailor Reid Stowe, which hosted a community education program; water taxis and various pleasure boats.

“The new lease allows no overnight dockage of any motor- or human-powered boat, so public-interest boats such as the Metropolitian Water Alliance’s boat can no longer stay the night,” said Krevey. “But boats that produce income for us, such as dinner or other charter boats, are allowed. And water taxis are still allowed to come in for brief stops. Problem is, we were a maritime community. That was our mission, which has now been diminished,” added Krevey. “We hope someday to get that back.”

This summer, while the Frying Pan sat idle waiting for a new lease on life, Krevey used his time by opening another waterborne restaurant, Pier 1, in Riverside South Park near 70th Street. And while that has been welcomed by wholeheartedly by Upper West Siders, he longs to get back to his first love in Chelsea.

“We missed a golden opportunity to open this summer,” said Krevey, “but we’ll be back next year.”