Rowing for More in 2024

Harlem River Community Rowing is a volunteer-run nonprofit organization committed to getting New York City adults out on the water and sharing our love for rowing. The City has great opportunities for high school students (through Row NY) and high-caliber athletes (through the NY Athletic Club), but we are the only group open everyone and accessible by public transit. Our programs are free and we welcome adults from 18 to their 80s, at all levels of experience and fitness.

There’s huge demand for rowing in New York, from experienced rowers but even more from adults who want to learn the sport. Our resources limit how many people we can serve. For safety reasons, one coach can only work with two shells at a time, because the coach must be near all the rowers at all times. Elsewhere, rowers typically train at dawn, but because we depend on public transit, and because we don’t have a boathouse or showers, we can’t do this;  there isn’t time to get to Inwood, row, go home, shower, and get to work on time. We row weekday evenings when the days are long enough (May through August), and weekend mornings, but there is too much traffic on the Harlem River to row weekend afternoons. So the best way to get more people rowing is to have two coaches out at once.  That’s our project—“Rowing for More in 2024” will expand our capacity by purchasing a second coach’s launch and providing funds for additional coaching time. With two coaches on the water at once, more rowers can join us. It’s that simple.

• As soon as funds are available, purchase the coach’s launch, motor, and associated equipment (primarily safety gear). 
• Begin scheduling two practices at the same time, enabling more people to participate.
• Allocate funds for additional coaching time. Some of our coaches can afford to volunteer, but others depend on what we can pay them in order to coach a sport that they love.
• Purchase a three-level rack to store our eight-person racing shell (now on blocks) and two additional boats. This will let us bring the club’s two single (one-person) shells to Muscota and row them. (They have been stored elsewhere since COVID.)
• Add the two single shells to the fleet of boats out on the water this summer.  They are only used by advanced rowers, but moving advanced rowers out of the eight and the quad will leave more space in those boats for basic rowers and novices.

New York is a stressful place to live, especially for people in the northern Manhattan neighborhoods near where we row.  Rowing helps people deal with the challenges of life here. It’s a great low-impact exercise, suitable for people of any age or build. Beyond that, it’s good for mental health and relaxation. The sport calls for coordination and balance, and for working in absolute unison with the others in the boat. The concentration and focus it requires take us away from our everyday concerns and reduce our stress. In addition, being out on the water lets us experience our environment in a new way. Being out in nature, even on an industrial river like the Harlem, gives us a new appreciation for the city. We’re no longer limited to pounding the pavement and descending into the subways; now we can look back at our island from the water that surrounds it, and have a whole new way of experiencing the place we call home. 

HRCR is committed to helping more people share all of these benefits. With your support, we will be able to expand our programming further into the community, adding joy to the lives of the people around us.