Swindler Cove Park is also home to New York Restoration Project’s (NYRP) magnificent Peter Jay Sharp Boathouse – a floating oasis on the Harlem River designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects. The culmination of six years of planning, construction and fundraising, this state-of-the-art facility was opened to the community in June 2004 and is the site of the annual Peter Jay Sharp Head of the Harlem Regatta, which draws thousands of spectators and more than 300 participants from area high schools, colleges and rowing clubs each year.
The Peter Jay Sharp Boathouse also introduced disadvantaged youth to the art of rowing, which once flourished on the Harlem River – providing at-risk youth with a sense of pride, motivation and life skills that often lead participants to college, many on rowing and academic scholarships. Additional programs offered at the Peter Jay Sharp Boathouse reinforce local residents' comfort level with the waterway, provide practical water and safety skills, and engender a greater respect for and understanding of the river.
The idea for a recreational community boathouse first came to NYRP Founder Bette Midler when – upon her return to New York City in the mid-1990s – she saw local college and university rowing teams practicing on the Harlem River. Not long after, she also learned that many academic and athletic scholarships being made available to Upper Manhattan high school students who participated in rowing programs were being unused due to the lack of such local programs. When, in 1996, she inspected the polluted Harlem River site that would become Swindler Cove Park, Bette knew that the spot was ideal to fulfill yet another vision. As a result, in 1998, NYRP engaged celebrated architect Robert A.M. Stern to design the Peter Jay Sharp Boathouse – the first community boathouse of its kind on the river in over 100 years.
Designed to sit atop a 300-ton barge – not only to avoid harming fragile inter-tidal habitats, but also as a legacy to earlier boathouses once located nearby – the unique structure was built with lead support from the Peter Jay Sharp Foundation. The barge was constructed in Vancouver, Canada, while the boathouse was created and panelized in Maine. When finished in 2003, both pieces were trucked to Norwalk, CT, where the firm of Foglietta & Son worked for another year to complete assembly. Armand LeGardeur, a former architect with Robert A.M. Stern Architects, shepherded the boathouse through this complex process and contributed some of his renowned Victorian designs to the structure’s graceful aesthetic. Once completed, the boathouse made an epic journey along New York’s major waterways – traveling to the East River via Long Island Sound and floating around the tip of Manhattan, up the Hudson River and through the Spuyten Duyvile – finally ending up in its Harlem River home.