“They have a lot of issues,” said City Council Member Gale Brewer, who has been an advocate for the Boat Basin community and is helping broker the latest round of talks between the residents and Parks.

“They want to have more boats year-round, they want to make sure that when they have to plug into the electrical grid, the Parks Department is not taking an administration fee. The biggest issue is with their permit fees,” Brewer said. Currently, the permit fees for the year is $196 per linear foot of a boat. Boats vary in size, but many that are large enough to live on full-time are around 40 feet, meaning that an average yearly fee is around $7,840, or $653 a month. While that’s a bargain rate for rent on the Upper West Side, some boat owners also pay mortgages on their boats, and many residents are retired and on fixed incomes. Parks has proposed raising the permit fees, to $225 per linear foot, bringing the example average up to $750 a month, a 15 percent increase. Parks also plans to raise rates for parking, storage and some other services.

“Certain fees are being increased in high demand service areas that will help pay for the costs of operating the marinas, including structural repairs and maintenance,” said Parks Department spokesperson Phil Abramson. “Marina fees have not been increased over the last four years and will remain far lower than the rates charged at privately owned marinas.”

The new rates would go into effect in May 2013.

Several current residents of the Boat Basin declined to be interviewed for this article, citing the ongoing negotiations with the Parks Department over the fees and other issues. Famed civil liberties attorney Norman Siegel has been representing the Boat Basin tenants for several years, winning victories in the past when residents pushed for better protection from ice floating in the river and restoring several slips to be made available for permanent residents. Prior to the 1987, there were over 100 boats docked at the Boat Basin full time, but the Parks Department stopped issuing permits for permanent residents in Boat Basin Café and a longtime Upper West Side resident, said that he remembers when the neighborhood wasn’t safe and the Boat Basin was in terrible condition.

“I’ve lived in a rent-stabilized apartment for 40 years,” O’Neal said. “This area was packed with drug addicts. We were sort of pioneers, and those people [at the Boat Basin] were part of it.”

Even now, he said, when the fees are a comparative bargain for the neighborhood, it’s not all easy living.

“It’s an extraordinary place that inspired me to become a naturalist and a science teacher and a nature writer,” said former resident Leslie Day, who lived at the Boat Basin for 36 years before moving recently to an apartment on solid ground in Washington Heights. Day and her husband raised their son there and still keep their boat docked and go back during summer days.

“When my son was born in 1980 … it was a wonderful live-aboard community,” Day said. “The community is nowhere near what it was when it was such a thriving and wonderful place, and that’s sad.”

The decline in year-round boaters is partly due to older, longtime residents leaving; it’s no constant party to live on a boat.

Jill Baker, an artist and writer who set her novel at the Boat Basin, lived there in the ’80s and remembers it as a feisty community of artists who had to bear a lot of negatives to enjoy the benefits.

“The river is really rough in the winter— it has a lot of ice and cold, cold wind,” Baker said. “I can remember walking down to the boat with a big canvas for a painting, and it acted like a sail and I almost didn’t make it. It was whipping around and trying to blow me back.”

“There was a nor’easter in December 1992 where it rained for three days and the river actually came up over the West Side Highway,” Day remembers. “Many boats sank that night, the ones tied to the pilings of the fixed dock. People lost their homes. That was terrifying.”

Now some are afraid of losing their homes to other outside forces, like creeping rates and poor conditions at the Boat Basin. One of the biggest needs there is for dredging the Hudson River to clear away the silt build-up that makes it all but impossible to maneuver watercraft except during high tide. The analysis of the project alone, which would require the cooperation of state and federal environmental agencies, would cost several million dollars, and the actual dredging would be much more. Much of it is out of the hands of the Parks Department, which has been making other improvements over the past several years, said Abramson, the agency spokesperson.

“Parks has invested significantly in the wholesale upgrade of the 79th Street Boat Basin in the past eight years, including floating docks and electrical and plumbing complete line replacements as well as upgrades in the outer wave wall and ice protection systems,” he said. “Most of these improvements were in direct response to the concerns of boaters who use the facility.”

Now those boaters await their fates as they try to negotiate with Parks to keep their beloved community livable.

As Ed Bacon, a longtime resident who runs a charter yacht company and publishes the Boat Basin Bulletin, wrote in his inaugural 2008 issue of the newsletter, the assembled drifters at the Boat Basin have become a group of bonded Upper West Siders who want to keep their way of life afloat.

“This community has become like the suburbs,” Bacon wrote. “Instead of neighborhoods and cul-de-sacs, we have mooring fields and docks.”

Baraonda
This Upper East Side eatery dishes up an authentic Italian menu with a side of modern elegance. Dine inside or alfresco (the outside café seats 60) and have your way with hefty, moderately priced dishes like the Spaghetti Lobster or the Mediterranean Orata—then head over to the Sunday night party where dancing comes after dinner at midnight.
1439 2nd Ave. (at E. 75th St.), 212-288-8555.

Some infamous late-night action at Hudson Terrace.

Boat Basin Café
Despite a habit of attracting wholesome buttoned-up types, there’s something about this place that lures us back each summer. Perhaps it’s the readily available snacks, the huge-for-New-York space or the view of the setting sun burning off the toxic Jersey air—whatever it is, it’s worth the trip.
West 79th Street & West Side Highway, 212-496-5542.

Cavatappo Wine Bar
Corks off to Cavatappo for giving us a wine bar that doesn’t intimidate the varietal-challenged. With at least 75 wines (labeled under easy-to-understand headings like “Soft, Supple and Easy Drinking”), Italian cheeses, meats, finger sandwiches and a small outside seating area that accommodates 12, Cavatoppo is a full-bodied taste for wine enthusiasts or beer pongers trying to upgrade their style without donning dress shoes and a tie.
1728 2nd Ave. (at E. 90th St.), 212-426-0919.

Central Park Boathouse
You’re going to need to go here eventually, either for drinks with out of towners or some sort of event that requires a tie. You might as well get used to it now and stop in for a glass of white and some seasonal snacks.
Central Park, enter park at East 72nd Street & Park Drive North, 212-517-2233.

Firehouse Tavern
If you don’t want to burn through your budget, frequent this Upper West Side tavern (with sidewalk seating for 25) for cheap margaritas, tap and bottled beers, and a selection of quesadillas, sandwiches, gourmet-style pizza and Buffalo wings. A fun firehouse-themed décor (sans live Dalmatian) welcomes everyone from pint-sized patrons to New York’s Finest.
522 Columbus Ave. (at W. 85th St.), 212-787-3473.

Hudson Beach Café
If you closed your eyes, you’d swear you were at a neighborhood barbecue, with better service and better tasting food. Part of the P.D. O’Hurley’s chain, the outdoor Café is perfect for appetizers or entrées from sea or land, while watching New Yorkers get their sport on in Riverside Park.
Riverside Park, enter park at West 103rd Street & Riverside Drive, 917-370-3448.

Hudson Terrace
Now open for its second year, Hudson Terrace will be hosting more than just its infamous late-night action. The rooftop club will have a summer full of theme nights—hello, Taco Tuesdays and Beer Garden Fridays—underneath its new retractable roof, insuring that your gluttony won’t be ruined by rain.
621 W. 46th St. (betw. 11th & 12th Aves.), 212-315-9400.

Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden
Escape the tourists milling about the Metropolitan Museum of Art and take the elevator all the way to the roof. In addition to the Big Bambú installation, you’ll find a great view and a small bar that serves margaritas, mojitos, mixed drinks and ice cream.
1000 5th Ave. (at E. 82nd St.), 212-535-7710.

P&G
It’s time for another summer of basking in the sun outside this Upper West Side bar. P&G might have lost its iconic neon sign when it moved, but the current location is bigger and, with an upgraded terrace, better for the warm weather.
380 Columbus Ave. (at W. 78th St.), 212-874-8568.

The Pier i Café
Take in scenic Hudson River views while enjoying burgers, freshly squeezed blueberry lemonade or fresh fruit sangria in this alfresco café. For a full day, time your visit with any number of summer events happening in the ever-improving Riverside Park South.
Riverside Park, enter at West 70th Street, 212-362-4450.

The Private Roof Club and Garden
The Gramercy Park Hotel is glamorous and supposedly impenetrable, but the rooftop boite, featuring a retractable roof and food prepared by Nick Anderer, the executive chef of Danny Meyer’s Maialino, is actually open to the public. Still, try dressing up if you don’t want to be turned away.
2 Lexington Ave. (at E. 21st St.), 212-920-3300.

Prohibition
The only thing illegal at this Upper West Side restaurant (with live music) is not having a good time. Enjoy live rock, blues, jazz and hip-hop (with no cover), menu selections that accommodate the serious diner (try the grilled salmon in a balsamic glaze) or the casual sampler (mini cheeseburgers). Dine inside with a 1920s swagger or on the 22-seat sidewalk café. The backroom, with pool table, can be booked for private parties of up to 70 people.
503 Columbus Ave. (at W. 84th Street), 212-597-3100.

Rare View Chelsea
Starting this Memorial Day, get your kicks looking down on Chelsea from the new rooftop bar of the Fashion 26 Hotel. Unfortunately, no one from below can see how stylish you look sipping a frosty, fruity cocktail and gazing longingly at the awesome view of the Empire State building and the grit of this part of Broadway.
152 W. 26th St. (at 7th Ave.), 212-807-7273.

Reif’s Tavern
Tradition trumps trends at Reif’s Tavern. Drink beer, play pool, throw darts, or if you call ahead, you can BYOM—Bring Your Own Meat—for the outdoor grill on the backyard patio. The tight-knit regulars welcome a new face but it might be wise to keep your Red Sox shout-outs to yourself at this sports bar.
302 E. 92nd St. (betw. 1st & 2nd Aves.), 212-426-0519.

The Tangled Vine
If more than 160 bottles of mainly sustainable and organic wine doesn’t excite you, the rich food menu and airy bar table seating will. Open only for a few months, this new wine bar will soon feature an outdoor café to add to the luxury of summer tippling.
434 Amsterdam Ave. (at W. 81st St.), 646-863-3896.

The Underground Lounge
A reasonably priced menu features fresh Turkish-style hummus, Corona-battered fish ‘n’ chips and paninis. Get gritty with live comedy shows with no cover, an after-work Latin Party, and live musicians and bands. The outside café seats about 30 but remember, what happens underground stays underground.
995 West End Ave. (at W. 107th St.), 212-531-4759.

Uptown Restaurant and Lounge
Get down at Uptown with a live acoustic band on Monday nights, a three-piece jazz trio on Tuesday nights, or DJs on Fridays and Saturdays. Select from a diverse menu that includes coconut shrimp and goat cheese pizza, while you enjoy daily happy hour specials in a cozy nook or on the sidewalk café for about 20 people.
1576 3rd Ave. (betw. E. 88th & E. 89th Sts.), 212-828-1388.