Princetonians: On the Waterfront

ON THE WATERFRONT: In the mid-’90s, Rob Buchanan ’81 got involved with an afterschool program that built Whitehall gigs, large traditional rowboats, for public use in New York City harbors. For the last 20 years, the former magazine writer has fashioned a second career out of pairing boat-building with education. Today, Buchanan, pictured above with students William Winters and Michael Mongiello, works for the Billion Oyster Project, overseeing an afterschool boat-building program and helping to restore the oyster reefs around New York. He says: “If we’re serious about taking care of [the harbor and its estuary], we need to have more access to them. Building boats is just a simple, very literal way to get to that goal.”  

READ MORE about Buchanan’s work in a Tiger of the Week feature