I cringed when I saw the cover of Taylor Swift’s new album soiling the pristine brown of a UPS truck this morning. But not all branding is evil. Take those trippy Stranger Things buses rolling around town. And this! Tuesday through Thursday of this week, there’ll be free, non-stop ferry service between Greenpoint and downtown Manhattan, with gratis coffee, donuts and popcorn to boot.
You heard right. Mozilla is promoting its new “ridiculously fast” browser by teaming up with Hornblower to offer expedited rides between Greenpoint Terminal in Brooklyn and Pier 15 in Manhattan. Since the service will be non-stop, it’ll take just 12 to 14 minutes each way, i.e. 10 minutes less than the usual East River route. Plus, there’ll be free coffee and Doughnuttery donuts during the mornings, complimentary popcorn during the evenings, and notebook giveaways aplenty.
By notebooks we mean paper notebooks, not laptop notebooks– Mozilla isn’t being that generous. But they are offering guided meditation on some rides from Greenpoint (the 4pm on Tuesday, the 10:15am on Wednesday, and the 8:45am on Thursday), and live music on another (Brooklyn’s own Calamity Janes will be turning the 7:15pm ferry from Greenpoint into a hoedown).
The free ferries will run from 7am to 11am and 4pm to 7pm each day.
Update and correction: This post was revised to add the name of the donut provider and to clarify that NYC Ferry is not involved in the promotion; also, the ferry will go to/from Pier 15, not 11.