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Lives
Cross as Yankee Changes Hands
by April Koral
Moving On
Jimmy Gallagher stood quietly in the cargo area of the Yankee pondering
the cast-iron pots, tattered 19th century books, a chess set he bought
when he cut school one day, and hundreds of other possessions around him.
Which were life’s treasures and which were junk? Outside, a moving
truck awaited his decisions.
Gallagher is the man who rescued the crumbling former Ellis Island ferry
from oblivion in 1990, had it towed to Pier 25, and lovingly restored
it. Now he’s selling the boat and moving on.
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“The road is calling,” says Gallagher, who has made the
boat his home since bringing it to Tribeca. “I have not gone
anywhere or done anything, except for one thing, for more than 12
years. Now I want to have another adventure.”
The husband and wife in whose hands he is putting the vessel’s
care are former owners of a chic furniture and home accessories
business. They have no experience with boats. But Gallagher trusts
that they will be stalwart guardians of the Yankee, which
is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.
“They are very hard workers,” he says of the new owners,
Richard and Victoria MacKenzie-Childs. “I think in some ways
they’ll do better than I did in dealing with the authorities
and having public programs.”
Gallagher says that he had intended to sell the Yankee when
it turned 100 in four years, but that the couple “persisted
and persisted.”
Before buying the boat, Gallagher led a peripatetic life, including
several years living in Bolivia. He says he wants to travel again—a
trip to southern Chile or the islands of the Indian Ocean sound
interesting to him—and then maybe settle in the Hudson Valley.
A former antiques dealer, Gallagher bought the Yankee in
Providence, RI, because it reminded him of “a great big antique.”
“Sometimes I felt like I was sailing through time,” he
recalls. “I could almost hear the voices of the people who
had ridden the ferry.”
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With the help of a rotating crew, many of them artists and actors who exchanged
their labor for a room on board, he replaced windows, decks and starboard
wood. “Our budget was zero,” Gallagher says. “We got tools
from auctions and flea markets and picked through dumpsters for wood. It
was like an ant crawling up Mount Everest.”
Gallagher used old pictures of the boat to guide him in the rebuilding,
hunting down original documents and photos of the vessel in maritime archives.
“It was like assembling a giant puzzle,” he recalls. “We
found bronze radiators from other boats to match the Yankee’s.
It took a carpenter one year to replace the benches on the deck, though
that may have been because he was drunk most of the time.”
Gallagher, who would not disclose the boat’s price, says he has not
“sugar-coated” what life on the Yankee will be like for
the buyers—the wakes that rock the boat unmercifully, the winter storms
that crash the vessel against the pier, the pipes that break or threaten
to freeze.
“I’m getting rid of hundreds of headaches and heartaches and poverty,”
he says. “But I love this boat from the bottom of my heart.”
Jimmy Gallagher’s last day on the Yankee is Nov. 18.
“I miss it already,” he says.
Moving In
Victoria MacKenzie-Childs looks around the galley of the Yankee,
brimming with excitement. “I’ve been cleaning and cleaning!”
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Two workers are busy painting the walls, scrubbing the door knobs,
and polishing the bronze radiator. The shelves have already been
stocked with the stuff of the MacKenzie-Childs’ former life—handpainted
enamelware, dishes, bowls, teapots, and a casserole that sold for
$600 in the store they once owned on Madison Avenue. “After
the kitchen, I’m going to start on the bathroom,” Victoria
gushed.
The business that Victoria and her husband Richard, both artists,
founded in their name in 1983 once employed over 300 people who
produced furniture and accessories of their design. Now, the couple
have moved into the Yankee, the historic steamboat on Pier 25.
They are starting over.
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The couple lost their once
successful business after they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection
three years ago, $18 million in debt.
Pleasant Rowlands, founder of the Pleasant Company, makers of American
Girl dolls, acquired the company from the bank that was their chief
creditor.
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The Yankee is a far cry from the couple’s last home,
which is now for sale—an estate in New York State’s
Finger Lakes region with such amenities as a sun room with
heated, custom-designed brick flooring, a kitchen with an
Italian glass chandelier, and a master bedroom with custom-ordered
Indonesian matting lining the walls.
“We have butterflies like when you go on stage, but they’re
the kind that make you alert,” Richard says about their
new lives on the Yankee. “That’s the thrill of a
new adventure.”
The MacKenzie-Childs have restored several turn-of-the-century
buildings, including the barn that housed their factory, and
seem undaunted by the challenges of boat life. “The only
difference is that this is floating,” Richard
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says. “We must learn what it means to keep it secure and tight
in high winds.”
“Every day I ask Jimmy [Gallagher] questions,” Richard says.
“How does this work? How do you pump out the septic tank? Where
does the water come from? How do you tie the boat to the pier?”
(The couple are planning to eventually hire two full-time crew members
to live aboard.)
The MacKenzie-Childs started looking for a vessel for their “atelier”
two years ago, Victoria says. Eventually they knocked on the Yankee’s
door. “We asked him if he was interested in selling.”
Now they say they want to start a business making objects related
to New York’s parks and designing them on the boat. They also
want to rent the boat for corporate meetings. (The couple are Christian
Scientists and will not allow alcohol to be served on board.)
The MacKenzie-Childs have already started thinking about the pier
as their front yard—and how they would like to fix it up.
Richard daydreams about the gardens he will design facing the boat;
Victoria imagines a shallow pond on the end of the pier where children
can rent toy boats and sail them.
“It’s like an artist,” Richard says. “The next
canvas is always blank until you create it. That’s what the boat
will be for us.”
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