AS GATEWAYS go, Georges Island is rusting and hanging halfway off its hinges. The 30-acre entrance to the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area needs a new pier and floating docks worthy of welcoming tens of thousands of annual visitors.
The island is awash in history, including its stint as the Civil War training ground for Union soldiers at Fort Warren. But the 1950s-era dock is at the end of its useful life. The central portion is barely adequate for able-bodied ferry passengers and a real hazard for parents with strollers and people in wheelchairs who must struggle to get up and down a steep gangway. The southern section of the pier is rotted and unusable. And the northern portion is degraded, with working slips for just a few pleasure boats.
The need for a new, handicapped-accessible dock is paramount. State officials estimate the cost at $6 million to $8 million. But upgrades to Georges Island should also include a public marina like the one at Spectacle Island that can accommodate dozens of recreational craft. If Georges is to serve as a true hub, it must work for day-trippers, campers who seek reliable shuttle service from Georges to islands in the outer harbor, and boaters looking for a place to tie up at reasonable cost.
"We need to build a dock of the future," says Bruce Berman of Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, a nonprofit harbor advocacy organization. "The front door ought to be accessible to everyone."
Success will depend, in large measure, on the ability of the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, which owns the island, and the National Park Service, which oversees the 34-island park system, to raise sufficient funds to make the improvements. The Park Service got off to a good start recently by securing a $100,000 federal grant to review the environmental impact of a new dock. Hope now rests on DCR's success at securing a $575,000 design grant from the Federal Transit Administration.
Although it enjoys the status of a national park, the Harbor Islands depend heavily on private fundraising. The nonprofit Island Alliance, for example, has committed to raise up to $1.5 million toward the construction of a new $3 million visitors' center on Georges Island. But the public sector needs to step up in timely fashion when transportation safety is at stake. The Federal Transit Administration, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the grant-making Seaport Advisory Council are logical sources of construction funding for a secure dock and convenient marina at Georges Island.
Entryways make important statements. Right now, the one at Georges Island reads "bottom-rung."
