New York City officials created a boat-naming contest for second graders as part of the city’s new ferry service, reports WNYC. Some winning names were recently announced.
One group of students that got to participate was Michelle Goh’s second-grade class at P.S. 170 in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. The students voted to select the winning name: “Lunchbox.” The name was thought up by fellow classmate, Ali Rabah, upon looking at the lunchboxes in a classroom’s cubbies, reports WNYC.
But the whimsical selection by the students actually has a lot of logic behind it. The reason is as follows: “You can put different foods in a lunchbox, and there’s different people from different countries in New York,” P.S. 170 student Jannat Moughal told WNYC. Therefore, if you put different people together on a ferry boat, “you make a lunchbox.”
New York City second graders typically learn about the history of New York during the school year, which is why they were picked to be part of the ferry-naming contest. The schools selected were also located either near existing or soon-to-be-completed ferry landings, reports WNYC.
“We learned about the Native Americans and how people from other countries came to explore,” Goh told WNYC. “Recently we were just learning about people coming to New York for a better life. So we had a lot of that connected to the lunchbox idea.”
The names will be displayed on the sides of the ferries and officially registered with the U.S. Coast Guard.
“I feel stupendous that I won,” Mohamed Almesri, part of the Lunchbox class, told WNYC. “I feel like I want to see the stars right now.”
Other winning names include “Sunset Crossing,” from P.S. 971 School of Math, Science and Healthy Living in Sunset Park West, Brooklyn; “Urban Journey,” from P.S. 69 Journey Prep in the Bronx; and “Waves of Wonder,” from P.S. 15 Roberto Clemente on the Lower East Side, Manhattan.
For more information about tickets and schedules for the new ferry service, beginning May 1, visit ferry.nyc.
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Main image: A rendering of an NYC Ferry near the Manhattan Bridge.
Courtesy NYC Ferry
