Jeff,
Your curiosity and excitement to play JN's design at Ferry Point is well founded.
Myself, Brad Klein and Brian Chapin were fortunate to walk it a few weeks back and it blew us away. Not one of us could admit that had we not known the history of the project, no way we'd recognize it immediately as a JN design. The holes are smartly routed across the wind and views with unique and interesting aiming points (i.e. Freedom Tower, large local cemetery cross, several church spires and steeples and the northern abutment of the Whitestone Bridge). The course flows very nicely out, across, across again and back.
The fairways are wide and receptive, corridors of holes aren't defined by typical trees and bushes. Instead, they are slightly mounded with low-lying fescue and heather, designed to be maintained thin and eminently playable. Elevation, while slight and artificial feels just right and the course could not possibly be more walkable. Green sites vary in size, are well-shaped with a few "Lionsmouth-style" centerline bunkers. The greens surfaces are wavy and fluid, hardly typical Jack, but do not approach Doak'ian madness either. It's a very unique work by Jack that most definitely evokes lessons learned from his earlier forays at Dismal.
At present, 10 holes are fully ready for golf and another 4-6 are grassed in and growing nicely. The 16th-18th were almost done shaping and are expected to get seed this fall. I'd say it'll be ready to debut mid-to-late next summer.
No question it's going to be a winner for NYC public golf. Even if Trump manages it as a CCFAD, it's tee sheets will be chock full of golfers coming from Westchester, LI, and all the boroughs. As for cost-analysis, lets just say the it can never make sense nor serve as a model for a successful municipal golf development model. Maybe HBS will use it as a model for how not to go about it on the way to producing a fine product!
For example, the on-course bathroom complex is rumored to have cost nearly $2MM!!
Lastly, I think it will prove quite interesting to the governing bodies, from the Met through to the USGA, as a venue for big-scale events. Ping me if you want to meet out there sometime.
Mark,
The corridor hillocks are indeed 100% manufactured...as is 100% of the rest of the site. Nothing other than a waste-dump site and it's subsequent remediation are beneath it. It belongs in discussions with the likes of a Shadow Creek, Bayonne, Chambers Bay, Whistling Straits, Harborside Int'l, Glen Club or Liberty National....all manufactured. What's really different and positive here is the subtlety and restrained heights of these mounds....just enough IMHO to segregate the holes and border the green sites.