Coast Guard Era
When the Army left Governors Island in 1966, the installation became a United States Coast Guard base. The Coast Guard saw the island as an opportunity to consolidate and provide more facilities for its schools, and as a base for its regional and Atlantic Ocean operations. This was the Coast Guard's largest installation, and for them as the Army, served both as a self-contained residential community, with an on-island population of approximately 3,500, and as a base of operations for the Atlantic Area Command, their regional Third District command, Maintenance and Logistics Command, various schools relocated from New London CT and the local office of the Captain of the Port of New York.
It was also homeport for several U.S. Coast Guard Cutters including USCGC Dallas (WHEC-716), USCGC Gallatin (WHEC-721), USCGC Morgenthau (WHEC-722), USCGC Tamaroa (WMEC-166) and USCGC Sorrel (WLB-296).
In the thirty years they were here, the Coast Guard began a long, slow process of upgrading facilities and infrastructure that had been little improved upon since the 1930s. This effort also prompted a recognition of the island's military heritage by having 92 acres (370,000 m2) recognized as a National Historic Landmark on February 4, 1985, recognizing its wide range and representation of Army fortification, administrative and residential architecture dating from the early days of the nation.
During this time, Governors Island has served as the backdrop for a number of historic events. In 1986, the island was the setting for the relighting of the newly refurbished Statue of Liberty by President Ronald Reagan. On December 8, 1988, along with Vice President and President elect George Bush, President Ronald Reagan held his final meeting as president with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachevin the Commanding Officer's quarters. In July 1993, the United Nations sponsored talks at the South Battery Officer's Club to help restore democratic rule in Haiti resulting in the Governors Island Accord, signed between Haitian political leaders.
Like the Army 30 years before, the U.S. Department of Transportation the parent of the Coast Guard was compelled to cut costs as other federal agencies in the early 1990s. Because of its high operating costs and remote location from most of its activity in Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, the Governors Island base was identified for closure in 1995. The closure was an agency initiative and not part of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) process that impacted numerous Department of Defense installations at that time.
With the departure of the Coast Guard almost two centuries of the island's use as a federal military reservation concluded.
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