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You can hitch a ride to Rockaway Beach on a Ramones-themed NYC ferry
By
Ryan Kailath
Published Aug 15, 2024
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Photo by Roberta Bayley/Redferns
By
Ryan Kailath
Published Aug 15, 2024
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It’s not hard, not far to reach; you can hitch a ride to Rockaway Beach … this weekend, on one of three Ramones-themed rides on the NYC ferry system.
Select ferries leaving from Wall Street/Pier 11, Sunset Park and Rockaway at midday on Friday and Saturday will play music by the seminal Queens punk band, host raffles for Ramones prizes from Rhino Records, offer free samples of Rockaway Soda and give out stickers celebrating the 50th anniversary of the band’s first CBGB show.
“We’ve been bringing a lot of folks out to the beach this summer, and these local partnerships are important to get people going to the Rockaways to connect with the neighborhoods there,” said NYC Ferry's Executive Director James Wong.
The Ramones formed in Queens in 1974 and played the groundbreaking Bowery venue CBGB on Aug. 16 of that year. “Punk” magazine co-founder Legs McNeil was at the show.
“They looked so striking. These guys were not hippies. This was something completely new,” PBS quoted him saying in its materials for a 2005 documentary.
The band and venue became emblematic of New York City's punk and new wave scene. For decades, artists from the Sex Pistols to The Clash to Nirvana to The Donnas would owe a debt to the Ramones’ signature sound.
The Ramones partnership is the latest in a series of brand activations meant to generate revenue for the heavily subsidized ferry system, Wong said. The NYC Ferry operates deeply in the red, with taxpayers covering most of the cost of any given ride. Other efforts to shore up the ferry system's finances include a price hike that will take effect this September. NYC Ferry declined to share figures for advertising and sponsorship revenue.
Previous special rides have included a ferry takeover for Madonna’s recent “Celebration” tour, Hogwarts-branded rides in partnership with “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” on Broadway, and multiple Taylor Swift events including an onboard listening party for the release of “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).”
The Taylor Swift event was especially successful, with 3,500 people showing up – more than 10 times the actual capacity of a ferry ride, Marketing Brew reported.
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Ryan Kailath
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