This was a place where you were stationed for two or three years until you were transferred to somewhere more pleasant. The Coast Guard abandoned the island completely in 1996. The bottom line is that it doesn't. Building on Governors Island is another step toward the disjointed, sprawling NYU society that dorms like those on Water and Lafayette streets have helped create. But there doesn't seem to be much choice either.
Manhattan is a packed city.
There's no room at the inn, darling. So it seems like the university has made a choice to find some classy, though far away, dorms rather than put up students in the barn next door.