Friday’s Headlines: Staten Island Ferry Dinner Theater Edition

Could this be the big break that our old man editor, and Off- Off- Off-Broadway (the Broadway in Bushwick, that is), producer has been waiting for?

News broke yesterday that the city had sold its decommissioned Staten Island Ferry boat, the John F. Kennedy (NY Post), but then the news was later re-broken to reveal that the buyers were none other than “Saturday Night Live” castmates and Rock natives Colin Jost and Pete Davidson — and they want to turn it into some kind of floating comedy, music, dining venue (Vulture).

This has been our old man’s dream, minus the boat, for 20 years. Ever since he produced the award-winning “SUV: The Musical!” and the award-winning “Murder at the Food Coop” at the NYC Fringe Festival, all he’s been talking about is giving up his award-nominated journalism career to find a venue (or boat!) to turn into a dinner theater/community center/comedy room/New Wave moviehouse/bar/apartment.

So now his dream is only one phone call (from Jost or Davidson) and a few Dramamine pills away! Mayor Adams obviously wants this to happen (see photo, right), so let’s hope some people are working the phones today.

Until then, here’s yesterday’s other news:

• Speaking of ferries, daily ferry service starts on Monday to Governors Island. (Brooklyn Paper)
• We’d been working for more than a week on our big story about the challenges facing Gov. Hochul’s “Interborough Express” (aka the Bi-Boro), but then the governor and MTA Chairman Janno Lieber scooped us by revealing many of those very challenges (NYDN). The Post, the Times, Gothamist and amNY played it straight.
  • Our story, by Dave Colon, had details no one else had.
• As we have been pointing out for weeks, Council Member Erik Bottcher of Hells Kitchen is emerging as a leader on garbage. (amNY)
• DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez was on NY1’s Inside City Hall last night and he didn’t make news — and that should tell you something. Rodriguez talked about creating more bike lanes, more pedestrian space, and reusing public space previously seized by drivers … and it felt normal, not some radical vision like it did when the former mayor took over in 2014. So that’s nice.
• One reason more and more people are realizing we have to change is because more and more kids are being hurt and killed. On Thursday, a Queens boy was badly injured when a driver struck him on Thursday (amNY). And that incident happened four days after a Park Slope man and his 9-year-old daughter were gravely injured by a driver on Eighth Avenue. That crash was just a few blocks away from where hero nanny Celi Muschamp was killed last month as she saved a child from the path of a pickup truck.
• In addition to the stuff Dave Colon wrote about on Thursday, Gov. Hochul’s budget proposal also freezes any transit fare hikes this year. (NY Post)
• Our old man editor was featured in a sad look back at the demise of Buzz-a-Rama, the slot-car racing institution in Kensington, which closed last week. (Time Out)