Halloween is a great time for fun... and fundraising.  Next weekend beloved island institutions Island Kids and Main Street Theatre and Dance Alliance (MSTDA) are offering up an extra special night of spooky mischief to raise support for vital programming that benefits Island youth and adults alike.

Nikki Giovanni and Kristi Towey, Executive Directors of Island Kids and Main Street Theater and Dance Alliance (MSTDA), wish their events weren’t conflicting, but we all know how busy October gets. On Saturday, October 26, both events will take spooktacular fun to the next level while asking community members to open their wallets to help these m...

The Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation board voted unanimously at their last meeting to place a dog run in the northeast corner of Blackwell Park, squeezing it into an already congested area abutting the big kids playground, the basketball courts, and the pending bike path.

In November of 2017, David Kramer, president of The Hudson Companies, announced that the Southtown dog run would need to move make way for construction of two new residential towers, Southtown buildings 8 and 9. (Hudson Related will pick up the costs for relocating the run as part of the company’s construction obligations.)

 The former Southtown dog run, now...

Last Saturday, October 5 saw the Roosevelt Island’s first ever Main Street block party sponsored by Hudson Related, the master lease holder of 90,000 square feet of retail across 25 stores on Roosevelt Island’s Main Street. 

The block party highlighted local businesses by bringing them outside offering food, art, festivities and fun. Each shop opened their doors to showcase their business through one-day only experiences. 

It raised public awareness about the importance of shopping local. Businesses such as RIVAA Gallery, Wholesome Market, Nisi, Liukoshui, Roosevelt Island Nails, and the new Island Om, a wellness studio founded by yoga and fitness...

Last week, over a year after its abrupt closure last August, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) re-opened Octagon Field and re-naming it Jack McManus Field in honor of the recently retired Chief of the Island’s Public Safety Department (PSD).

Former chief, Jack McManus, second from left on the field bearing his name, and new chief, Kevin Brown, far right

“We decided to name the field after Jack for two reasons,” explained Susan Rosenthal, President of RIOC to a crowd largely comprised of the PSD, members of McManus’s family, RIOCs leadership and staff, and a dozen or so Island kids and their parents, many of whom held soccer balls o...

Despite the summery weather, with temperatures in the 80’s, the Island celebrated its Fall for the Arts festival last weekend. The festivities included the unveiling of the Island’s first Book Birdhouse, live music, art, activities for children, and at the end, the annual Kite Flight for Peace at Four Freedoms Park. 

The Book Birdhouse

A jazz concert in the RIVIVA gallery on Friday evening kicked off the weekend. On early Saturday, the Book Bird House, located underneath the shade of a Golden Rain Tree was unveiled at 9:00am. 

iDig2Learn's, Christina Delfico officially unveils the Book Birdhouse, alongside RIOC's Susan Rosenthal, members of the loc...

After a summer hiatus, both the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, and the Roosevelt Island Residents Association held their first meetings last week. RIOC’s was rife with updates on the tram elevator, coming, Blackwell House, opening soon, and the soccer field, scheduled to open later this month.

RIOC welcomed familiar face, Gretchen Robinson, back to RIOC as General Counel and Vice President, a role most recently held by Jacqueline Flug. Robinson was first at RIOC starting in 2015, as the Compliance & Internal Controls Officer for RIOC. In 2018, she left to become Senior Counsel to the Empire State Development Corporation’s Division of Min...

Happy Labor Day, Roosevelt Island! It’s been another summer of change on Roosevelt Island, and at The WIRE. 

You didn’t hear much from us this summer because it’s been a tumultuous summer for me personally, culiminating with my family’s very Roosevelt Island international move off Roosevelt Island. My husband, three children and I are moving to London for a few years.

The WIRE will still be around and we are in the process of building our new team. 

Stories we were following this summer:

The new members of the RIOC board. Who are they? (Besides Jeff Escobar, we know him pretty well.) What are their views and goals for Roosevelt Island? How did they...

When she’s not teaching children’s ballet and dance classes at Main Street Theater and Dance Alliance (MSTDA), Canadian born Haley Ostir is deeply entrenched in the life of a triple threat Broadway actress. Currently cast in the role of rehearsal swing for the Jersey Boys Tour Company, Ostir must learn all three female parts of the show, and like an understudy on steroids, jump in to play any one of them as needed.

"It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing…" and the same holds true for a Broadway show’s rehearsal swing. Rehearsal swing is a particularly demanding position—essentially as a pre-production understudy...

Next week launches the final week of the enormously popular Broadway Boot Camps at Main Street Theatre Dance Alliance (MSTDA), and there is still time to register. Broadway Boot Camps are an exciting new intensive workshop experience created by MSTDA assistant director Kimbirdlee and Jonathan Fadner in which children can learn and explore musical theater. This July, Jonathan directed the first boot camp to focus on kids creating an original musical from scratch.

Starting with pencils and notebooks to create characters and a story line, Jonathan led the charge as the group refined the script and brought it to life on the Howe Theate...