“The torch is finally going back up,” remarks an approving Li Wei. She wears a blue windbreaker, which is fluttering along with her black hair as the electric ferry glides past the scaffolded Statue of Liberty. The city is removing the enormous red ball cap and giant gold-plated sword that the MAGA people once welded to the raised arm of the colossus. Wei, who hid from the regime for years so that her children wouldn’t go motherless if she were deported, is glad to see Lady Liberty restored to its original form.
I am accompanying Wei to Governors Island, where she will begin a two-week intensive course in hyperlocal construction methods. “Distance-Mapping Build,” as it’s called, is training thousands of unemployed New Yorkers in the art of construction with reused and locally sourced materials. For many, like Wei, this training portends a new beginning as the city continues to emerge from the storms of the 2030’s.
Water splashes as the ferry reverses its motors and we near the island’s main dock. We can see the industrial park along South Brooklyn with gleaming white wind turbines lined up. A few medium-sized windmills tower overhead. Governors Island welcomes us with its lush green color.
The majority of the island was man-made. Excavated material from the New York subway system was packed into the bay. But the island has long been a significant presence on the harbor—once used by the Lenni Lenape for hunting and foraging, it was given the name Paggank (“Nut Island”) for its bounty of Chestnut trees. Later, it became a military base and then a park. But today it again provides food for the city, and more than that. It has become the leading repository of critical knowledge to meet the recent supply chain crisis.
Wei, who hid from the regime for years so that her children wouldn't go motherless if she were deported, is glad to see Lady Liberty restored to its original form.
Along with about fifty other trainees, we deboard the ferry and file down the walkway, which is lined with blackberries. We head toward the gleaming façade of an innovation hub constructed in the 2020s. Back then, it was meant to give New York top investors easy access to the world’s cutting-edge green technologies.
The dream of a smooth transition from fossil fuel capitalism to green capitalism hit a hiccup with Trump’s second term—he clawed back federal monies and destabilized the green energy economy generally, delaying construction until the storms of 2032 fully derailed the original vision. However, an audacious design choice made 20 years ago has kept the island more relevant than ever.
That audacious plan was called The Living Building Challenge—meaning, in essence, that the island was to be self-sustainable. This meant all the energy used on the island was offset by solar canopy, a geothermal system was installed to heat the buildings, and wastewater was treated. It meant that forever chemicals were banned from the Island, and rainwater was collected. In addition, part of the island was planted with highly efficient permaculture crops.
But Distance Mapping was the most consequential principle. Distance Mapping means that building materials can’t come from afar—no cement floating in from China, not even wood studs trucked in from across the US. The architects behind the hub’s design answered this challenge by repurposing bricks from the existing military base buildings. The new construction met passive house levels, which means highly insulated walls and a sealed envelope. Heat stays inside in the winter and cool in the summer, requiring little energy.
The first ship sank the day Trump's 'Peace of Paradise Village and Golf Course' broke ground in Gaza, but they continued even after MAGA fell. When over 500 container ships were sunk on a single day in August 2040, the entire supply chain was thrown into chaos, and the era of degrowth was ushered in.
Distance Mapping means that Wei will be trained not only in efficiently cleaning off brick, sanding down steel for reuse, and quality testing old electric wiring. The next two weeks will be an immersion into “network building” methods for tapping into the local resale markets that have sprung up recently. Obtaining material isn’t as easy as before, but it’s much more efficient.
Almost 20 years ago, the MAGA regime threw the island’s original investment plan off-schedule, but that proved to be a blessing in disguise. It meant the most profit-minded of the hub’s backers got impatient, took out what they could, and moved on. That left a committed group of environmentalists, designers, farmers, scientists, and funders to more carefully develop the project. The dream of a self-sustaining system in the middle of a metropolis came into being. No one understood then how critical the knowledge produced would become.
The picture only became clear when the attacks began on the contained ships.
Along with about fifty other trainees, we deboard the ferry and file down the walkway, which is lined with blackberries.
The attackers used cheap, hard-to-trace drone subs, and they were highly effective. The first ship sank the day Trump’s “Peace of Paradise Village and Golf Course” broke ground in Gaza, but they continued even after MAGA fell. When over 500 container ships were sunk on a single day in August 2040, the entire supply chain was thrown into chaos, and the era of degrowth was ushered in.
A small group of instructors stands at a small table outside the hub, checking in course participants. Li is handed a packet which includes a tablet, a toolbelt, and an island-grown lunch of fruit, salad with nuts and cheese, and a piece of fish. In a yard near the building, I see piles of building materials in various stages of processing—some of it appears to be the same storm-rubble that can be seen piled in areas of the city. Li will learn to build passive house structures with this material, and someday, she could become a contractor and earn a significant salary. I’ve agreed to let Lia get settled in the program for the first week and return to report in detail on the Distance-Mapping building methods next week. Stay tuned.