CB 2 Endorses New Rec Center Plan While Tony Dapolito Demolition Still Undecided

No concrete resolutions were made concerning the demolition of the Tony Dapolito rec center following Community Board 2’s July 18 meeting, but the board did unanimously vote to endorse the creation of a new rec center at a yet-to-be built housing development at 388 Hudson across the street. It seems all decisions are pointing to the abandonment of saving the Tony Dapolito rec center, despite emphatic pleas from locals.

The Village Preservation, which is pushing to save the outdoor pool, a colorful Keith Haring mural that was painted on a long wall adjoining the pool and the entire landmarked rec center, is urging residents to put pressure on local politicians to save the building that sits squarely at a major intersection of the Greenwich Village Historic District.

“Some proponents of demolition have engaged in the fiction that the building isn’t landmarked, it just happens to fall within a historic district,” Village Preservation argues. “This is disingenuous and misleading at best.

”Every building in a historic district is landmarked, though it’s true that some can be considered of no historic or architectural significance, and therefore potentially OK for demolition with a suitable replacement.” Village Preservation argues. “That’s clearly not the case with the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center though, which was landmarked in 2010 (at the urging of Village Preservation) as part of an expansion of the Greenwich Village Historic District that specifically focused on immigrant history“

Community Board 2, which presides over Hudson Square where the Tony Dapolito rec center is located, wrote a letter to Steve Simon, the Chief of Staff to the Manhattan Commissioner of the Parks Department, following the July 18 meeting.

The letter outlined the board’s ideal resolution for the potential demolition. They request a “modern, full-service, multi-story public Recreation Center at 388 Hudson St. with the potential for regulation-sized facilities that have been unavailable at the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center.”

They also ask that the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) “create protocols for public safety at and maintenance of the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center site while it is closed,” and that the DPR prioritizes the preservation of the Haring mural and the outdoor pool because the development of an outdoor pool at 388 Hudson is impossible.

These requests suggest that the Tony Dapolito rec center will not be completely renovated and reopened, but rather eventually demolished and replaced with a rec center at 388 Hudson with perhaps a pool and a shower/dressing room the only survivor.

Local organization Village Preservation has adamantly protested both the destruction of the Tony Dapolito rec center and the development of a rec center at 388 Hudson in part because it the Parks Dept could ultimately sell of the valuable parcel to a non Parks developer.

In a newsletter sent out to subscribers, Village Preservation wrote:

“Several key members of [Community Board 2] have publicly and privately expressed great enthusiasm about non-Parks uses going into the Tony Dapolito site...City Councilmember Erik Bottcher, who will have a large say over what happens here, has only said that the city should include “some” recreation facilities at 388 Hudson Street, but has taken a wait-and-see approach about demolishing the Tony Dapolito Rec Center and what, if anything, its potential replacement might be.”

Other locals are equally frustrated at many political figures’ vague attitudes toward this big decision, with some speaking out at the latest Community Board meeting:

“I think it’s obscene that they would even think of getting rid of this landmark,” said attendee Angela Manno during the meeting.

“It’s a part of our Parks system, it’s a place where people have been able to affordably recreate, swim, take classes, and I’m tired of seeing these public places become privatized. I don’t believe what they say that it’s more affordable to knock it down and build something else, I think that’s not true. I’d like to see the numbers on that and I’d like to see them fact-checked.”

Many agree with Manno that replacing the Tony Dapolito rec center with one at 388 Hudson would make the center’s resources much more inaccessible. Although the new development is a city-owned affordable housing complex, it would be less clear that the resources offered at the potential rec center would be public and open to all.

Community Board 2 acknowledged this in their letter to DPR, requesting “further clarification regarding ownership, investment funding, perpetual public access and maintenance expense protocols when the new DPR recreation center is constructed in the building at 388 Hudson St.”

The board stressed in its letter that its support of a new rec center at 388 Hudson is not mutually exclusive with the renovation and re-opening of the Tony Dapolito rec center. The Parks Department, however, originally proposed the idea of a rec center at 388 Hudson to replace Tony Dapolito.

For now, it is unclear what the future holds for the facilities of Hudson Square as both supporters and protestors of a new rec center and the demolition of Tony Dapolito wait on a decision from the Parks Department and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. More will come when that decision is released.

The rec center began as a bathhouse that was expanded over the years with additions into a full scale recreation center with a big gymnasium. The Landmarks Preservation Commission still has to weigh in on any plan to demolish it.