Constructing Pallet City: Buidling on Governors Island, June 6-11

Once the pallets were prepped we had only a week to put the entire project together on the island--and unlike in the Navy Yard, where we had 24-hour access, all building on Governors Island had to be done between the hours of 8am-6pm, when the island was open. We also had to coordinate with the island and FIGMENT to get a huge U-haul truck onto an early morning ferry in advance, to deliver our pallets and a huge collection of power tools, wood stain, extension cords, etc.

Our major construction day was Sunday, June 6, where we fortunately had a great turnout of volunteers. We broke them into teams, each team working on a different section of Pallet City. In addition to building each structure, we had to stain all the wood to make the color more consistent, create and put up signs labeling each section of the "city," and many other details...but fortunately our volunteers were completely up to the task!

Some of our core construction team members: Mohammad Rajab, Jim Reed, Katherine Gressel, Jeremy Reed, Joseph Reed
The project site pre-pallets



Laying out and constructing each section--in some cases, we had to cut the pallets down to a different size.
Putting the stage together
Putting gallery and tower walls together
Constructing the play structure

Our team, at the end of day 1!

Putting up the gallery space
Joey's brilliant invention: combination roller-brush!