Fore! Giant Golf Ball Might Land In Tribeca

By Ronald Drenger

Bob Townley, the man who brought beach volleyball, Boca Burgers and a 40-foot-long iguana to Tribeca’s Pier 25, has another big idea for the waterfront.

A giant golf ball.

The fiberglass ball, 15 feet in diameter, that he hopes to one day bring here was a roadside icon at a Texas driving range for almost 15 years and now sits disassembled in an artist’s studio in Austin.

Townley proposes to truck it north, rebuild it and accessorize it with a happy face (whitewall tires for eyes, perhaps, a molded plastic mouth, and a perforated aluminum crown, à la Lady Liberty or El Teddy’s), and install it on or near Pier 25, which he leases from the state. "It will be goofy, funny, big and joyous," Townley said recently. "It will make people happy and will make kids smile." Not surprisingly, Texas artist Bob "Daddy-O" Wade is behind the idea. Known for oversized art installations like a pair of 40-foot-tall cowboy boots and a 70-foot-tall saxaphone, Wade created the giant iguana that stood watch near the pier gate for 18 months in 1997 and 1998. In a phone interview, Wade said he wanted to bestow a gift on Lower Manhattan. "I wanted to do something with the theme of the pier, and I thought of the mini-golf," he said. "I remembered having seen this giant golf ball on the highway, and I was able to track it down at a driving range in Waco." Wade bought the ball, which had been dismantled for repairs, from the facility’s owner, Will Pikett (see "Praise the Lord and Pass the Golf Ball"). But landing the dimpled orb in Tribeca may be no easy shot.

For starters, Townley needs permission from the Hudson River Park Trust, the public agency that controls Pier 25 and most of the Hudson River waterfront between Battery Park City and 59th Street. The Trust wants an engineer’s report showing that the ball won’t tip over or break in bad weather.

"We’re working out our position on it," said Alex Dudley, a spokesman for the Trust. "I guess the question is, is it art? It certainly is big."

The requested report is being prepared, slowly, as Townley is relying on an engineer’s donated services. He will also have to win over fellow Community Board 1 members.

"This is stupid," said Jim Gallagher in response to Townley’s presentation before the board’s Waterfront Committee. Gallagher, who owns and lives on the historic ferry Yankee, moored at Pier 25, said he didn’t particuarly want to look at a grinning, oversized golf ball on a daily basis.

Neither did CB1’s assistant district manager, Judy Duffy, who lives at West Broadway and North Moore Street. "This is my view corridor," she said. "I see this out my window every day, and it’s not what I want to see instead of the water."

"Why don’t we put it up and see how it looks?" Townley asked. "I think the kids would love something like this."
"What about the rest of us human beings?" responded Linda Roche, the committee’s chair and a member of Manhattan Youth’s board of directors.

G.G. Weisenfeld rallied to Townley’s support. "This is just for fun," she said. "Everyone is always so serious."
Gallagher, for one, wasn’t buying.

"Its humor value is gone already, and it’s only been a few minutes," he said, pointing to a sketch of the golf ball that had been passed around the table. He also expressed concern for his business, renting out the Yankee for functions.

"We host weddings and parties, and the golf ball will become the atmosphere on that part of the pier," he said. "It’s going to dominate our little skyline on the water. It isn’t appropriate."

But Townley was unrepentant. "It’s not meant to hide," he said. "It’s a giant Texas golf ball. I didn’t bring you some chump-change project."

The committee voted, 4-2, to approve the project for six months, provided it can go in the miniature golf area. And Townley had to promise that if the board objected once the ball was up, he would remove it.

He eventually will have to win over the full board, but he later said that putting the ball next to the miniature golf course might be too complicated and expensive. Townley prefers to put the ball on the roof of the trailer that serves as an art shack, which still has some of the hardware used to fasten the iguana.

"Now I know how artists feel about pushing the vanguard with their art," Townley quipped. If the big ball goes up one day, he added, he hopes that people "will see it for what it is, a lighthearted moment for Lower Manhattan."