Do Arts at Governors Island Need Governing?

Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times

EDWARD ROTHSTEIN There are two phrases that Leslie Koch, the president of the Trust for Governors Island, has used to explain her vision of how culture can make this peculiar and beautiful place more integral to the lives of New Yorkers. She has spoken of the island as a “playground for the arts” and she has talked about its character as a “summer vacation with irony.”

JON PARELES Ed, you’re extrapolating way too far here: And those visitors, “must represent the diversity of the surrounding city. So culture here must be popular; it must be talked about; it must represent many different tastes. It must be, in other words, democratic and undemanding.”

CHARLES ISHERWOOD My experience of Governors Island as a cultural destination this summer was probably a little different. I saw “The Demons,” part of the Lincoln Center Festival, which as many probably know was a full-day marathon production. We got on the ferry at 10 a.m. and off it at somewhere around midnight. In between was nine hours of theater and a couple of meal breaks.

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