A recent morning at a Staten Island shipyard found workers diligently repairing the Cuauhtémoc, a Mexican Navy sailing ship that tragically collided with the Brooklyn Bridge in May, resulting in two crew fatalities. Nearby, another vessel presented a different kind of predicament: the Staten Island Ferry belonging to comedians Colin Jost and Pete Davidson.
The John F. Kennedy, a majestic 277-foot ferryboat, once transported over 3,000 daily commuters between Staten Island and Manhattan. Today, it remains docked in the Kill Van Kull tidal strait, its future as unclear as the murky waters surrounding it.
Proud Staten Island natives and former “Saturday Night Live” colleagues, Jost and Davidson acquired the decommissioned ferry almost four years ago for $280,100.
Upon seeing this 2,100-ton behemoth of metal, they envisioned a vibrant floating event venue, complete with two restaurants, six bars, a concert hall, and luxurious hotel rooms featuring private sundecks. However, with years passing and their grand $35 million vision no closer to reality, it appears they might have overpaid significantly.
Jost, 43, candidly admits the purchase was “the dumbest and least thought-through” of his life. Davidson, 31, describes it as “a lifelong problem for me and Colin.”
Adding to their woes are legal troubles. Titanic 2, the limited liability company formed by Jost, Davidson, and their business partners, faces a lawsuit for unpaid fees from the law firm hired to manage docking and towing contracts.
Filed in June at the Supreme Court of the State of New York, the lawsuit by Nicoletti, Hornig, Namazi, Eckert & Sheehan alleges that “Titanic 2 has failed and refused to pay its outstanding obligations” totaling $13,500. Val Wamser, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, confirmed via email that no payment or response to the lawsuit had been received to date.
From Heritage Park, a scenic waterfront area on Staten Island’s north shore, the bright orange John F. Kennedy is clearly visible on the brackish expanse. Unable to move under its own power due to engine fire damage incurred before its sale, it now passively floats in the harbor, accumulating substantial docking fees.
Steve Kalil, president of the Caddell Dry Dock & Repair shipyard, wouldn’t disclose the exact monthly fees Jost and Davidson pay, but suggested a reporter’s estimate of $10,000 was “on the low side.” He noted that it’s uncommon for a vessel to remain dormant for so long without repairs. Kalil has no idea when the John F. Kennedy might finally depart. “I’d like to say soon, but who knows,” he remarked. “The hope is that they will eventually succeed in their dream. And we would be part of that.”
Anyone who has tackled an ill-fated home improvement project can empathize with Jost and Davidson. They made an impulse purchase at an online auction—a relatable scenario for many.
However, seasoned mariners understand that a boat is a unique financial drain, especially a 60-year-old vessel larger than a superyacht, requiring extensive repairs and prime dock space in one of the world’s busiest and most regulated harbors.
The Auction Begins
The Department of Citywide Administrative Services manages the disposal of New York City’s obsolete inventory. This can range from Nortel office phones (6 units) to face masks (12 cases) or outdated Webster’s New World Dictionaries (9 copies). To offload these items, the little-known agency regularly conducts public auctions.
The agency also handles larger assets, including decommissioned ferryboats, typically sold for scrap. This was their expectation for the John F. Kennedy when it went up for sale on January 12, 2022.
Larry Siegel, the city employee who managed the auction, initially valued the ferry’s scrap worth at $60,000 to $100,000. However, considering its history and unique nature, he set the opening bid at $250,000.
Now retired, Siegel’s objective was to maximize city revenue. When the boat initially garnered no interest, he employed a classic sales tactic: he halved the price.
Concurrently, agency staff attempted to generate buzz on social media. A few posts, by city government standards, went viral. One user even tagged NBC, home to “Saturday Night Live,” urging them to alert Davidson and Jost. This might be how Staten Island’s celebrity sons discovered the unusual opportunity. (Jost’s representatives did not respond to interview requests, while a publicist for Davidson indicated he preferred to “speak on it closer to completion.”)
Launched in 1965, the John F. Kennedy was the oldest vessel in the Staten Island Ferry fleet. The auction listing made no attempt to sugarcoat its condition, stating the boat was in “poor condition” and had been “decommissioned due to mechanical issues on the propulsion end.” In short, it was going nowhere.
Yet, during the weeklong auction, Jost messaged Davidson: “Split it?”
Both men shared a deep affection for the Staten Island Ferry. Jost regularly commuted on it to Regis High School, a private Catholic institution on the Upper East Side. In his 2020 memoir, “A Very Punchable Face,” he humorously yet affectionately described it: “Riding the ferry was not a ‘yacht life style.’ The ferry is known for its amazing views of the Statue of Liberty, but it’s also a great place to watch a raccoon eat a passenger’s leftover meth.”
Davidson’s fond memories were evident in “The King of Staten Island,” a 2020 comedy loosely based on his life. In the film’s moving climax, the protagonist, on a Manhattan-bound Staten Island Ferry with the woman he’s meant to be with, shares a poignant kiss as an aerial camera captures the iconic orange boat set to stirring music.
As the 2022 auction approached its final hours, city employee Siegel observed a sudden surge of bids from new accounts. “I was, like, ‘Oh, this is different,’” he recalled. “‘We have breached the scrap metal industry!’”
The winning bid came from Paul Italia. Upon discovering Italia was a co-owner of The Stand, a Manhattan comedy club, Siegel initially suspected a practical joke.
However, the purchase was neither a prank nor a whim: Italia was part of the group, which included Jost, Davidson, and Ron Castellano, a New York architect slated to oversee the transformation of the dilapidated vessel into a spectacular hospitality complex.
“Everyone who came together on this has a sincere motive to see the right thing happen, to restore a piece of New York,” Italia told a major newspaper after securing the winning bid.
On a chilly day shortly after the auction, Davidson visited the St. George Ferry Terminal on Staten Island, where the Department of Transportation was holding the inoperable boat.
Clad in a puffy brown coat, wool cap, and sunglasses, he recounted to a local reporter tales of riding the ferry as a budding comic heading to perform stand-up in Manhattan. Gazing at his new acquisition, he appeared slightly bewildered. “It’s sick,” he declared, seemingly approving.
The very next day, during a “Weekend Update” segment on “Saturday Night Live,” Jost and Davidson publicly acknowledged the news that had dominated headlines.
“We bought a ferry — the windowless van of the sea,” Davidson quipped with a smirk.
“Yes, it’s very exciting,” Jost added. “We thought the whole thing through.”
Rough Sailing Ahead
New York City explicitly states it holds no responsibility for the delivery of its former property, whether a filing cabinet or a ferryboat. This meant Jost and Davidson had a mere 10 days to collect their new acquisition.
Without a functional engine, the ferry required towing. This was an easy fix, with roughly 30 tugboat companies in New York Harbor offering to transport a ship for about $1,700 an hour. The real challenge, however, was finding a place to tow the ferry to in a city where even parking spaces are a premium.
Only a handful of private shipyards operate along the city’s waterfront, and space is extremely limited. Docking at a public pier on the Hudson or East rivers would necessitate official approval from a complex array of city and state agencies.
Italia meticulously examined satellite images of New York Harbor and contacted anyone with waterfront property. The initial 10-day deadline passed without a resolution.
In February, Mayor Eric Adams’s administration extended the deadline, yet the vessel remained at St. George Terminal well into April.
Jost finally enjoyed a sort of “victory cruise” on April 11, 2022, when the John F. Kennedy was towed three miles to a Staten Island shipyard. His father, Daniel, a retired schoolteacher, joined him for the journey.
Five months later, during a television appearance, Jost reflected on the consequences of his impulsive purchase. “This is why idiots should not be allowed to do things,” he lamented. “Pete and I bought this boat and then, like, there’s so many immediate decisions you have to make.”
One such decision was choosing a name for their limited liability company. They quickly discovered that their chosen name, Titanic 2, was not well-received in the business world.
“Suddenly, we’re looking for insurance, which we have to buy, because it’s a giant deathtrap boat,” Jost explained. “And then every insurance company is like: ‘It’s called Titanic 2?’”
Months turned into a year. Yet, the world didn’t forget Jost and Davidson’s expensive escapade. During talk show appearances and red carpet events, they were consistently pressed for updates.
Even Jost’s wife, actress Scarlett Johansson, couldn’t escape the topic. During a June 2023 talk show appearance, host Mark Consuelos began, “I heard that your husband, Colin Jost, and Pete Davidson bought a — ”
“The Staten Island Ferry!” Johansson interjected, closing her eyes and shaking her head. “Yeah.”
She recalled her husband’s “secretive phone calls” in the days before he texted her with news of their ferryboat ownership. Asked for her reaction, Johansson confessed, “I guess surprised. I was like: ‘What are we doing with this?’”
On June 5, 2023, at the New York premiere of a major film, Davidson was asked by an entertainment reporter if he would host an after-party on his boat.
“Yeah, if it’s not sunk!” he replied.
“I have no idea what’s going on with that thing,” he added. “Me and Colin were very stoned a year ago and bought a ferry. And we’re figuring it out.”
Nine days later, Jost took to social media to set the record straight: “Is it worse that I was actually stone-cold sober when we bought the ferry?”
Soon after, Davidson sounded more optimistic. “There’ll be a restaurant, there’ll be a concert venue, there’ll be a movie theater,” he declared on a popular podcast, adding that the party barge would even be towed 1,100 miles to spend winters in Miami.
Amid the owners’ oscillating emotions, from elation to despair, costs continued to mount. It’s estimated that storage fees alone for the John F. Kennedy have surpassed $600,000—more than double its purchase price. This doesn’t include insurance, towing, and legal fees. According to the lawsuit, the law firm Nicoletti, Hornig charged the owners $27,335 in a single month.
Further expenses stemmed from Castellano’s design work with Persak & Wurmfeld, a New York naval architecture firm. The vessel’s renovation is proving particularly complex, as the John F. Kennedy, like many boats of its era, contains asbestos. This toxic material must be safely removed before the ferry can pass state or city inspections.
“The thing about asbestos is, it’s not an issue until you go to take it out,” explained Patrick Quincannon, president of Quincannon Associates, a New York-based ship broker. “It has to be done in hazmat gear. You’re looking at salty numbers to do asbestos remediation.”
A prime location for a floating entertainment venue would ideally be along Manhattan or Brooklyn, perhaps a pier on the East River. However, Quincannon points out that this is easier imagined than accomplished, listing several practical considerations a group of well-intentioned novices might have overlooked.
“Those ferries are big, so you would need dolphin heads to secure it,” he noted, referring to a multipoint mooring system. “On the East River, the current rips along there.”
Christopher O. Ward, interim head of the Waterfront Alliance, a New York advocacy group, highlighted another obstacle: underwater shadows.
Large vessels block sunlight, which can harm marine ecosystems and gradually destroy aquatic life, Ward explained. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has been “strident in its administration and regulation of shadow on waterfront locations,” he stated.
At this juncture, even scrapping the boat—should Jost and Davidson choose that route—wouldn’t alleviate the financial drain. Scrap markets are currently weak, according to Tommy O’Toole, a partner at Compass Maritime, a brokerage firm in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., specializing in ship sales.
Compared to ocean-going vessels, ferries are relatively lightweight and thus less valuable to recyclers. Moreover, the highest-paying ship recyclers in the United States are located far away, from Mobile, Alabama, to Brownsville, Texas. The John F. Kennedy would require a costly tow spanning that entire distance.
“Let’s say something weighed 2,000 tons,” O’Toole calculated, doing some quick mental math. “If it’s worth $150 a ton to scrap, that’s 300 grand. If the tow cost you $350,000, you’d have to pay someone $50,000.”
Kevin Hennessey, the John F. Kennedy’s former captain, offered Jost and Davidson his best wishes, though he previously revealed in 2022 that the boat had a serious cockroach infestation. “This was an impulse buy by two guys with a lot of money who don’t know anything about maritime vessels,” Hennessey commented.
In May 2025, “Saturday Night Live” featured a sketch set on a ferry, where two passengers quarrel while sitting in their parked cars during a crossing. When one character remarked on his love for ferries, Jost made a sudden cameo, shouting, “If you love ferries, would you like to buy one? Please buy it!”
To date, the John F. Kennedy has only left its Staten Island slip once: in September 2024, when it was towed to Pier 17 in Manhattan to host a Tommy Hilfiger fashion show during New York Fashion Week. Dressed in a sharp suit, Jost greeted guests, including Brooke Shields and members of Staten Island’s very own Wu-Tang Clan.
The event provided a tantalizing glimpse of the vessel’s potential. “I always had faith that it will be something really fun,” Jost said that day.
He and his partners are not the first to envision an old ferryboat’s potential. In 1966, entrepreneur Herbert R. Axelrod bought four decommissioned Staten Island Ferries, intending to convert them into floating restaurants. His ambitious plan never materialized.
Marina owner George Searle pursued the same idea in 1976, purchasing a retired Staten Island Ferry. It sat at his New Jersey marina along the Raritan River for over three decades before finally being dismantled for scrap.
Whatever the ultimate fate of Jost and Davidson’s dream boat, one truth remains undeniable. As Quincannon plainly put it: “They’re paying out a lot to have this thing just sitting there while they figure out what to do.”
Davidson, for his part, refuses to abandon hope. “We have a really good plan,” he stated in a recent podcast appearance. “It’s fun to have a dream.”