2 Jail Barges To Be Closed And Removed

Abstract

The two barges, the Bibby Venture and the Bibby Resolution, will be sold or leased, said Milton Mollen, the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety.

Col. R. M. Danielson, the Corps's commander in the New York District, said in a letter to Mayor David N. Dinkins dated Feb. 7 that he would ask the Justice Department to begin legal proceedings unless the barges were removed by early March. He said he regretted having to take "such extreme action" as a suit but added that the city had "broken commitments" to move the barges.

One barge, the Bibby Venture, is berthed in the Hudson River at Houston Street and the second, the Bibby Resolution, is docked in the East River at Montgomery Street. Each can house 380 inmates but all prisoners aboard the Bibby Venture were transferred in December because the barge was in need of repairs.

More than four years after they opened as a temporary measure, two jail barges docked off Lower Manhattan will be removed, city officials announced yesterday, in response to a threat of a lawsuit by Federal authorities.

The two barges, the Bibby Venture and the Bibby Resolution, will be sold or leased, said Milton Mollen, the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety.

The floating jails have been highly unpopular with their neighbors in Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side since plans for docking them there were first announced in the late 1980's. The Army Corps of Engineers, which has jurisdiction over use of the nation's rivers, has not thought highly of them either.

The Corps never issued the city a permanent mooring permit and has been prodding officials for two years to remove the barges.

Mr. Mollen announced the decision to remove the barges after United States Representative Ted Weiss and State Senator Manfred Ohrenstein disclosed yesterday that the Corps of Engineers was preparing a suit to compel the removal of the vessels.

Col. R. M. Danielson, the Corps's commander in the New York District, said in a letter to Mayor David N. Dinkins dated Feb. 7 that he would ask the Justice Department to begin legal proceedings unless the barges were removed by early March. He said he regretted having to take "such extreme action" as a suit but added that the city had "broken commitments" to move the barges.

Peter H. Shugert, a spokesman for Colonel Danielson, said yesterday that the moorings had been approved only as temporary measure because of overcrowding in city jails in the 1980's.

One barge, the Bibby Venture, is berthed in the Hudson River at Houston Street and the second, the Bibby Resolution, is docked in the East River at Montgomery Street. Each can house 380 inmates but all prisoners aboard the Bibby Venture were transferred in December because the barge was in need of repairs.

Thomas M. Antenen, a spokesman for the Correction Department, which runs the city's jail system, said prison space was available in other facillities for inmates in the Bibby Resolution when it is closed in the near future.

The city inmate population yesterday was 21,325, or 98 percent of intended capacity of 21,868. Because of a drop in narcotics-related arrests and the opening of new jails on Rikers Island, the jail census has recently been below maximum, city officials said. Other Barges Will Remain

Mr. Antenen said another 800 beds will be added to the jail space when a new $161 million barge, the Vernon C. Bain, is opened later this month in the East River at Halleck Street in the South Bronx. The new barge is not in violation of Federal regulations.

The Bibby barges were former British troop carriers that were refitted into prisons at a total cost of more than $42 million. The Venture was opened in 1987 and the Resolution in 1988 when the city adopted the idea of maritime jails as a way to develop prison space more quickly and less expensively than on land.

Mr. Mollen said the city was "exploring the sale or leasing" of the Bibby barges. He declined to say who the prospective buyers were but other officials said Federal prison authorities and foreign governments had expressed interest.

Community groups in Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side have complained about the prison barges, saying they posed dangers to the communities in case of inmate escapes and prevented other uses of the waterfronts. No escapes were ever reported from either barge.

A plan to move the barges to Rikers Island, the city's main jail complex, was abandoned when the City Council last year refused to allocate $5 million to build the piers or support buildings, Mr. Mollen said.

In addition to the new Bain barge in the Bronx, the city will retain two converted Staten Island ferries that are used as jails at Rikers Island.