City Wants to Demolish Tony Dapolito Recreation Center and Redevelop Site (But Won’t Say For What)

At Wednesday’s Community Board 2 meeting, the city announced it intends to pursue demolition of the beloved historic Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, a well-used public space built in 1906–08 and expanded in the 1920s, landmarked in 2010, and listed on National Register of Historic Places in 2013. With virtually no proof, the city claimed it would be too time-consuming and expensive to repair and restore the center, and — implausibly and without evidence — claimed that including a new recreation center in the planned new development at 388 Hudson Street would be less expensive and quicker. This is in spite of the fact that public recreation centers of the same age or older across the city have been restored and brought up to code. The new development at 388 Hudson Street would be built by a private developer that the public wouldn’t be able to control like a public project, and large, complicated projects like 388 Hudson Street frequently experience substantial delays and cost overruns, and take many years to build (the city’s best-case scenario estimate of the time frame for construction is a very optimistic five years — see more below).

Instead of making necessary repairs (the building clearly does need repairs — as most old buildings eventually and even many new buildings do), the city has kept the center closed for over four years, and done almost no repair work in the interim. The city says it wishes to demolish the building, but keep the adjacent outdoor pool and Keith Haring murals. The city refuses to say what it would seek to develop on the incredibly valuable land where the center now sits.

Such a plan would require public hearings and the approval of the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Village Preservation is extremely skeptical of this plan, and alarmed by the sudden rush to destroy a beloved local landmark, replacing it with who knows what, waiting an unknown number of years for the construction of a new center. The idea that just because a building needs repairs — especially a landmarked building — it should be demolished rather than fixed and restored has deeply troubling implications, and the claim that including a new center at the 388 Hudson Street development would be quicker and cheaper lacks evidence and strains credulity. We are concerned that what’s actually motivating this plan is a desire to develop the land upon which the Tony Dapolito Center sits. We are pushing back on this plan, and urge you to as well.

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July 12, 2024