2 SNL Stars Plunk Down $280K for Staten Island Ferry

Pete Davidson, Colin Jost, and real estate agent partner will turn vessel into live entertainment venue
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 21, 2022 1:05 PM CST
Pete Davidson Just Bought a Staten Island Ferry
Comedian Pete Davidson, right, and his sister, Casey Davidson, are seen at an NBA game between the Brooklyn Nets and the New York Knicks on Nov. 30, 2021, in New York.   (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Pete Davidson is making headlines again, but this time it doesn't involve Kim Kardashian. Instead, it's about a big purchase the Saturday Night Live comic has made, along with fellow SNLer Colin Jost and real estate agent/comedy club co-founder Paul Italia: a decommissioned 277-foot-long Staten Island ferry, for which they paid just over $280,000, Italia tells NBC News. The three investors plan on using the John F. Kennedy as a live entertainment venue.

Davidson and Jost, who are both from Staten Island, and Italia scooped up the vessel at a weeklong auction that began Jan. 12, per the NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services. As of Tuesday morning, no one had yet placed a winning bid on the ferry, commissioned in 1965 and decommissioned recently due to mechanical problems, per the DCAS. But by Wednesday evening, the department had an update. "SOLD: $280,100," it tweeted. "The rest of you will not be owning a Staten Island Ferry boat. Sorry."

"The idea is to turn the space into a live entertainment event space, with comedy, music, art, et cetera," Italia, who co-founded The Stand comedy club, tells the New York Post. "We're in the early stages, but everybody involved had the same ambition—not to see this thing go to the scrapyard." Before it was retired last summer, the John F. Kennedy was the oldest boat in the Staten Island fleet, reports NY1. Davidson and Jost have 10 days from this coming Wednesday to somehow retrieve the boat from a DCAS terminal. Italia says they'll use a tugboat to drag the ferry to a nearby shipyard. (More Pete Davidson stories.)

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