Formation | established 1996 |
---|---|
Founder | Adam Green |
Type | Nonprofit |
Legal status | 501(c)3 |
Purpose | Empowerment of young people in the South Bronx |
Location |
|
Coordinates | 40°49′05″N73°52′59″W / 40.8181°N 73.8831°W |
Website | https://rockingtheboat.org |
Rocking the Boat is a non-profit organization under 501(c)(3) in The Bronx, New York City. They run educational programs for high school students, teaching boat building, environmental science, and sailing, with the goal of empowering economically disadvantaged young people in the South Bronx. An annual fund-raising event features rowing around Manhattan.
Rocking the Boat was founded in 1996 by Adam Green, and is a non-profit organization in the South Bronx which runs STEM-based educational programs for local high school students. They are most well known for boatbuilding, but curricula also include environmental science and sailing. Their motto is, "Kids don’t just build boats, boats build kids". [1]
Originally located in an East Harlem junior high school, the group's first project was to build an 8 foot (2.4 m) wooden dinghy, with the school's indoor swimming pool serving as a testing tank. The organization is currently located in a converted warehouse on Edgewater Road in the Hunts Point section of The Bronx, adjacent to Hunts Point Riverside Park on the Bronx River. [2]
As part of their environmental programs, Rocking the Boat does water quality testing in the Bronx River, measuring pathogen levels. [3] In 2002, Rocking the Boat worked with New York City Parks and The Bronx River Alliance to plant Spartina alterniflora (salt-marsh grass) along the shore of the Bronx River. [4]
Rocking the Boat draws students mostly from the surrounding Hunts Point neighborhood, in the lowest income congressional district in the country. Green told the Daily News, "Rocking the Boat empowers young people challenged by severe economic, educational and social conditions to develop the self-confidence to set ambitious goals and gain the skills necessary to achieve". [2] [5]
As of 2019 [update] , approximately 850 students had graduated the organization's educational programs. [6]
Rocking the Boat runs an annual fundraising event, known as Rocking Manhattan, in which participants row wooden Whitehall rowing gigs around the island of Manhattan. The 30-mile (48 km), 8-hour course starts at Pier 40 on West Houston Street, circumnavigating the island via the East River, the Harlem River, and the Hudson River. [7] [8] Recent events have included 12 boats and over 100 rowers. [9]
Inwood is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, at the northern tip of Manhattan Island, in the U.S. state of New York. It is bounded by the Hudson River to the west, Spuyten Duyvil Creek and Marble Hill to the north, the Harlem River to the east, and Washington Heights to the south.
Inwood Hill Park is a 196 acres (79 ha) public park in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. On a high schist ridge that rises 200 feet (61 m) above the Hudson River from Dyckman Street to the northern tip of the island, Inwood Hill Park's densely folded, glacially scoured topography contains the largest remaining old-growth forest on the island of Manhattan. The area is also known as the Shorakapkok Preserve, shorakapkok meaning 'the sitting place' in the Munsee language used by the Wecquaesgeek tribe who inhabited the area for nearly 700 years. Unlike other Manhattan parks, Inwood Hill Park is largely natural and consists of mostly wooded, non-landscaped hills.
Marble Hill is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Although once part of Manhattan Island, it has been cut off from the island since 1817. The Bronx surrounds the neighborhood to the west, north, and east, while the Harlem River is its southern border.
The Harlem River is an 8-mile (13 km) tidal strait in New York City, New York, flowing between the Hudson River and the East River and separating the island of Manhattan from the Bronx on the United States mainland.
The Bronx River, is a river that is approximately 24 miles (39 km) long, and flows through southeastern New York in the United States and drains an area of 38.4 square miles (99 km2). It is named after colonial settler Jonas Bronck.
Hunts Point is a neighborhood located on a peninsula in the South Bronx of New York City. It is the location of one of the largest food distribution facilities in the world, the Hunts Point Cooperative Market. Its boundaries are the Bruckner Expressway to the west and north, the Bronx River to the east, and the East River to the south. Hunts Point Avenue is the primary street through Hunts Point.
Bard High School Early College (BHSEC) is a series of early college schools with multiple campuses in the United States, enrolling approximately 3,000 students across all campuses. The schools allow students to begin their college studies two years early, graduating with a Bard College Associate in Arts degree in addition to their high school diploma. Students complete their high school studies in the ninth and tenth grade, after which they begin taking credit-bearing college courses under the same roof. Unlike some dual-enrollment programs, students stay on the same campus for all four years, and both high school- and college-level courses are taught by the same faculty. Teachers at the Bard High School Early Colleges are both certified public school teachers as well as experienced academic scholars, often holding terminal degrees in their areas of study.
The High Bridge is the oldest bridge in New York City, having originally opened as part of the Croton Aqueduct in 1848 and reopened as a pedestrian walkway in 2015 after being closed for over 45 years. A steel arch bridge with a height of 140 ft (43 m) over the Harlem River, it connects the New York City boroughs of the Bronx and Manhattan. The eastern end is located in the Highbridge section of the Bronx near the western end of West 170th Street, and the western end is located in Highbridge Park in Manhattan, roughly parallel to the end of West 174th Street.
The geography of New York City is characterized by its coastal position at the meeting of the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean in a naturally sheltered harbor. The city's geography, with its scarce availability of land, is a contributing factor in making New York the most densely populated major city in the United States. Environmental issues are chiefly concerned with managing this density, which also explains why New York is among the most energy-efficient and least automobile-dependent cities in the United States. The city's climate is temperate.
The Urban Assembly New York Harbor School, also called the Harbor School, is a public high school located on Governors Island. This school is unique in New York City, which has 538 miles (866 km) of waterfront, in that it attempts to relate every aspect of its curriculum to the water. The school is part of the Urban Assembly network of 21 college-prep schools in New York City.
The Manhattan Waterfront Greenway is a waterfront greenway for walking or cycling, 32 miles (51 km) long, around the island of Manhattan, in New York City. The largest portions are operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. It is separated from motor traffic, and many sections also separate pedestrians from cyclists. There are three principal parts — the East, Harlem and Hudson River Greenways.
Wolfgang Busch is a multiple-award-winning documentary filmmaker, director, producer, cinematographer and editor. He was inducted into the Queens Business Hall of Fame for his company Art From The Heart Films for "Best LGBT Business" and into the LGBT Music Hall of Fame. For his social and artistic activism for the Black and Hispanic LGBT Ballroom community, aka Harlem Drag Ball community, Wolfgang received a Humanitarian award for his documentary How Do I Look, and the "Keep The Dream Alive" Martin Luther King Humanitarian award from the straight Black community.
The West Harlem Art Fund, Inc. is a public art and media organization based in the City of New York, founded in 1998. Savona Bailey-McClain is its Executive Director and Chief Curator.
Row New York is a non-profit organization based in New York City focused on empowering youth through the sport of rowing.
New York Sun Works, founded in 2004 by Ted Caplow, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that uses hydroponic farming technology to educate students and teachers about the science of sustainability. Their Hydroponic Classroom program was inspired by NY Sun Works' first project, the renowned Science Barge, a prototype sustainable urban farm and environmental education center previously docked on the Hudson River and now located in Yonkers under different ownership.
Success Academy Charter Schools, originally Harlem Success Academy, is a charter school operator in New York City. Eva Moskowitz, a former city council member for the Upper East Side, is its founder and CEO. It has 47 schools in the New York area and 17,000 students.
Penn Station Access (PSA) is a public works project underway by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City. The goal of the project is to allow Metro-North Railroad commuter trains to access Penn Station on Manhattan's West Side, using existing trackage owned by Amtrak. Metro-North trains currently terminate exclusively at Grand Central in Midtown Manhattan.
Graham Windham is a private nonprofit in New York City that provides services to children and families. It was founded in 1806 by several prominent women, most notably Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton. Since 2015, the organization has gained renewed attention because of the success of the Broadway musical Hamilton, in which the character of Eliza Hamilton describes the orphanage as her proudest achievement.
The Village Community Boathouse is a Manhattan-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting rowing, boat building, environmental stewardship and human-powered recreational boating on the Hudson River and the New York Estuary.