Re: Restoration and Reopening of the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, 1 Clarkson Street, Manhattan
July 22, 2025
Mayor Eric Adams
City Hall
New York, NY 10007
First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro
City Hall
New York, NY 10007
Re: Restoration and Reopening of the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, 1 Clarkson Street, Manhattan
Dear Mayor Adams and First Deputy Mayor Mastro:
As community and preservation organizations representing thousands of residents of Lower Manhattan and New Yorkers from across the five boroughs, we write to strongly urge you to ensure that the landmarked and much beloved Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, now closed for more than five years, is restored, modernized, and reopened. We have been deeply dismayed by the Parks Department’s ongoing effort to demolish the building.
Community support for restoring and reopening the existing Tony Dapolito Recreation Center has been overwhelming and consistent. While this community supports creating new supplemental indoor public recreation facilities in 388 Hudson Street, there is and always has been a clearly stated desire to see the existing Center repaired and reopened. That has manifested in overwhelming sentiment expressed at Community Board meetings, a community board resolution overwhelmingly opposing demolition and calling for restoration, nearly 40,000 letters sent by nearly 5,000 people to various public officials calling for the Center to be restored and reopened, and multiple letters from more than 20 downtown community groups and preservation organizations from across New York City and State calling for the same. Additionally, more than 200 people attended a rally on June 1 of this year calling for restoration and reopening of the Center, and Councilmember Bottcher has called for moving ahead with a process for designing a reimagined Tony Dapolito Center which would “retain, at minimum, the existing facades of the building, while also exploring new uses that allow for the preservation of as much of the building’s historic interior as feasible,” and that “preservation should be a foundational component of any future proposal.”
The Center’s deteriorated condition is a direct result of deferred maintenance and a failure to undertake needed repairs, upgrades, and restorations. We urge you to call upon the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to pursue a failure to maintain violation against the Parks Department to compel it to begin the process of repairing the building, as the LPC has already been called upon to do. Disturbingly, they have thus far refused to do so.
We urge you to commit to repairing, modernizing, and reopening the facility, and to putting forward a plan to do so as soon as possible. None of the issues with the building are beyond the scope of repair, and none of the updates needed are incompatible with continued use of the building for recreational purposes, even if some spaces may no longer be used for the same purposes that they have in the building’s most recent incarnation. A building is needed on this site to serve the adjacent outdoor swimming pool, and even with a new recreational facility at 388 Hudson Street, the need for a public recreation center here remains. Aside from the deep connections the Lower Manhattan community and a wide array of New Yorkers feel to this building and the need for public recreational facilities which it could serve, this structure was quite intentionally landmarked in 2010 as part of the Greenwich Village Historic District Extension II, recognizing its importance to the history of our city. To allow it to be destroyed rather than repaired and reopened would be incredibly damaging to the regulations which exist to preserve and protect all our city’s recognized historic properties.
We look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Andrew Berman
Executive Director, Village Preservation
Jay DiLorenzo
President, Preservation League of NYS
Keri Butler
Interim President, Municipal Art Society (MAS)
Peg Breen
President, NY Landmarks Conservancy
Frampton Tolbert
Executive Director, Historic Districts Council
Sean Khorsandi
Executive Director, Landmark West!
Nuha Ansari
Executive Director, Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts
Lo van der Valk
President, Carnegie Hill Neighbors
Claudette Brady
Executive Director, Save Harlem Now!
Sommer Omar
Founder, The Coalition to Save the Public Recreation Center Downtown
Richard Corman
President, Downtown Independent Democrats
Raymond Cline
President, Village Reform Democratic Club
Sean Sweeney
Director, SoHo Alliance
Mark Fielder
President, Bleecker Area Merchants Residents Association (BAMRA)
David Mulkins
President, Bowery Alliance of Neighbors
Micki McGee
Founding Member, South Village Neighbors
Patricia Aakre
Board Member, Friends of Finn Square
Pat Bates
Founding Member, Team Min
Kenny Wind
President, Grand Street Democrats
Ellen Breslow Newhouse
Founder, The Wednesday Group
Kim Beck
Co-Founder, Downtown Nasty Women Social Group
Irene Kaufman
Co-President, Village Independent Democrats
Erin Quinn Purcell
President, Westbeth Artists Residents Council
Augustine Hope
President, West Village Residents Association
Kathryn Arntzen
President, Central Village Block Association
Steve Gould
Founding Member, Christopher Street Merchants Block Association
Marguerite Martin
President and Co-Chair, West 12th St. Block Association
Maria Leao
Executive Director, Village Kids NYC
Executive Committee
Chelsea Reform
Democratic Club