‘SNL’ comics Jost, Davidson buy Staten Island Ferry boat

NEW YORK (AP) — “Saturday Evening Stay” comics Colin Jost and Pete Davidson have bought a decommissioned Staten Island Ferry boat for $280,100 with plans to show it into New York’s hottest membership.

Jost and Davidson teamed up with comedy membership proprietor Paul Italia on Wednesday’s profitable bid for the John F. Kennedy, a 277-foot (84-meter) vessel that shuttled commuters between the New York Metropolis boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island from 1965 till it was taken out of service final August.

“The Staten Island Ferry is unquestionably one thing iconic,” Italia, an actual property investor and co-owner of the restaurant and comedy membership The Stand, stated Friday. “We wished to determine a method to put it aside and to do one thing particular with it.”

Italia stated remodeling the two,109-ton ferry into an leisure venue will price tens of millions of dollars and received’t occur anytime quickly.

“It’s actually early phases right here,” he stated. “You may have an important thought and also you’re engaged on executing it and step one is the acquisition of the boat, and I believe that that’s the story proper now. We had been profitable in buying the boat and ensuring it didn’t go into the scrapyard just like the final two.”

Messages searching for remark had been despatched to representatives of Jost and Davidson, who each grew up on Staten Island and sometimes joke about their residence borough and its best-known mode of transport.

Named after the thirty fifth U.S. president, the John F. Kennedy was the oldest ferry within the fleet when it was decommissioned final summer season.

The brand new homeowners have 10 enterprise days to safe a spot to dock the vessel and tow it there. “We’re engaged on that,” Italia stated.

The boat was auctioned by New York Metropolis’s Division of Citywide Administrative Companies, and different metropolis departments should log off on working it as a floating nightspot.

It might assist that town’s new mayor is on board. “I really like this concept. What a good way to present an NYC icon a second life,” Mayor Eric Adams tweeted Friday.

Adams, who took workplace on Jan. 1 and was portrayed by Chris Redd on “Saturday Evening Stay” on Jan. 15, added, “Tell us how we will help and we’ll be there for the maiden voyage.”