SNL’s Pete Davidson and Colin Jost’s Staten Island Ferry boat is being looked at as a possible attraction at NYC’s South Street Seaport during the World Cup, sparking concern among community members that a “six-story nightclub” could soon be floating in their midst, the Daily News has learned.
Details of the under-the-radar plan are sketchy at this point, with reps for Davidson and Jost, as well as City Hall, not returning calls.
But the Daily News has learned that an effort is underway to try to fast-track bringing the John F. Kennedy, the two comics’ 300-foot-long decommissioned Staten Island Ferry boat, to the Seaport for both the five-week-long FIFA soccer tournament — which kicked off Thursday — and the America250 celebrations in early July.
According to a source, Mayor Mamdani is very much behind “putting the boat in in a hurry” at the Seaport, specifically at Pier 15 — and the World Cup is the driving force behind the rushed plan.
“There’s a level of expedience here that’s surprising,” the source said.
It’s no secret Mamdani is a huge World Cup booster, having appointed a “World Cup czar,” raffled off 1,000 $50 game tickets and even created a Midtown traffic plan for the eight local match days, among other things.
The ferry group’s lobbyist — Ariel Palitz, the city’s first “nightlife mayor” from 2018 to 2023, who now heads Venue Advisors — also did not respond to questions from The News.
In 2022, the two “Saturday Night Live” stars, along with comedy club owner Paul Italia and a fourth partner, bought the 60-year-old ferry for $280,000 at city auction, in hopes of turning it into a floating event and party space. Since then, though, the tangerine-colored, former transport vessel has sat at a dry dock on Staten Island.
AP Photo/Mark Lennihan
The Staten Island Ferry John F. Kennedy is pictured in 2016. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
The hulk has made it to the Seaport once — in September 2024 when it was towed to Pier 17 for a Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Week event. One weekend last November it was tugged around the harbor wrapped in a pink Nike ad. But a promotional presentation for the vessel a few years ago — with the tagline “A Look at 6 Decks of Food, Drink and Entertainment” — clearly stated the owners’ dreams for it.
However, the South Street Seaport Museum says the comedy duo’s big “party boat” is the wrong fit for the landmarked historic district. Meanwhile, the chairperson of Lower Manhattan’s Community Board 1 says the ferry team has yet to make their plan public.
A design rendering, created just a few weeks ago and obtained by the Daily News, shows the powerless ferry berthed on the north side of Pier 15, tucked in behind the replica schooner Pride of Baltimore.
Tammy Meltzer, the CB 1 chairperson, said the ferry group first reached out to the board only last month, after which she met virtually with Italia and lobbyist Palitz. In March, the city’s Economic Development Corporation told the board it was in “exploration conversations” with the ferry team for use of Pier 15, though offered few details.
According to Meltzer, the JFK has a stated capacity of 3,500 — and could possibly hold up to 5,000.
“There are very few event spaces in New York City that can hold 3,500 people,” she said, “and this has the capacity to be bigger than that.”
The hope is the ship would be more than merely a massive event space with bars and restaurants, but could also offer public space and programming, she said.
“If you’re going to bring something that’s equal to a seven-story building to the waterfront, you should have a plan before you park it (here),” Meltzer told The News. “I think there should be community engagement.”
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The South Street Seaport in Manhattan. (Shutterstock)
Jost, in an interview in April on “SmartLess” on Sirius XM, said of the ferry: “I thought in a real estate way… if you put that on a dock in Manhattan, you’ve suddenly got basically a building on the waterfront.” He added they might be close to securing a “permanent dock” for the colossal-sized craft.
Meltzer said the ferry group is saying it wants to nail down a deal with the city first before presenting the plan to locals. She has invited them to the CB 1 Executive Committee meeting on June 18, but they’ve been “noncommittal.”
Jonathan Boulware, president and CEO of the South Street Seaport Museum, which operates Pier 16, where it berths four vintage ships, said he “vigorously opposes” the ferry plan. He said it would be out of context with the historic location, visually overwhelming the museum’s ships — even potentially putting them at risk should the huge ferry break loose from its moorings.
“It would be right across from the Wavertree, built of 1885 riveted wrought iron. It will dwarf the Wavertree,” he said. “The city has invested millions of dollars to make that vessel stand out. The ferry is as long as the Wavertree, twice as high, almost twice as wide. It’s just gonna be a giant structure popping up there.”
“It’s not New York’s oldest neighborhood, but it’s the birthplace of New York,” Boulware said of the Seaport and Lower East Side waterfront. “Having a performance venue next to a museum ship,” he said, “(and) a venue of that scale just plopped in the East Side waterfront is not a good use of that realm.”
