Click here for a PDF of this sign-on letter in support of the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, sent to NTC Mayor Adams on July 22, 2025.

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

On February 14, the League joined colleagues at the New York Landmarks Conservancy, Village Preservation, Save Harlem Now!, and Landmark West! in a joint letter to NYC Mayor Eric Adams, NYC Department of Parks and Recreation Commissioner Sue Donoghue, NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission Chair Sarah Carroll, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, City Councilmember Erik Bottcher, and Manhattan Community Board 2 Chair Susan Kent, to express our strong opposition to the proposed demolition of the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center. The body of the letter is below. Click here for a PDF of the signed letter.

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Re: Potential demolition of the historic Tony Dapolito Recreation Center (1 Clarkson Street, Manhattan), as presented to Manhattan Community Board 2 on February 5, 2025

Dear Mayor Adams, Commissioner Donoghue, Chair Carroll, Borough President Levine, Councilmember Bottcher, and Chair Kent:

We write in strong opposition to the proposed demolition of the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, as presented by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation at the February 5, 2025, joint meeting of the Community Board 2 Parks & Waterfront and Landmarks Committees. The proposal to demolish this historic, city-owned, landmarked building is unnecessary, harmful to the neighborhood, environmentally unsound, and would set a dangerous precedent.

The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation has not provided any information that would justify or necessitate the complete demolition of this historic building. Their primary argument, that the building was constructed in three phases and thus cannot be adequately repaired, is spurious and runs counter to evidence and experience with buildings that have been restored under similar circumstances throughout our city.

As historic preservation advocates, each of our organizations reviews numerous proposals undergoing review at the Landmarks Preservation Commission every month. The vast majority of these projects involve buildings at least as old as the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, many of which were also constructed in phases initially, or have had new additions introduced over time. These buildings are often coming forward for new structural work, such as the introduction of rear yard and rooftop additions, and sometimes for extensive gut renovations of their interiors. None of them are beyond repair or adaptation. Our historic buildings can be renovated, restored, and preserved.

The Tony Dapolito Recreation Center should likewise be repaired, restored, and modified as needed to suit a modern purpose. Its three street-facing facades, where most original materials and Colonial Revival-style architectural features remain, including the red brick and limestone details at the exterior (and the original Guastavino tile-arch system throughout the interior), should be retained during future renovations to the extent feasible. With this in mind, the building can be repurposed to fit a whole range of potential new uses. Many creative solutions are plausible here.

However, the Parks Department’s claim that they will “honor history and preserve historic elements where possible” is vague and entirely insufficient for a contributing building to a historic district. It offers no commitment, and implies perhaps embedding disembodied fragments of the existing building into a new one. This is an unacceptable solution.

Our city contains a great many buildings that are older than the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, built in as many or more sections over time, and subsequently altered and used for different purposes while their historic materiality has been retained, and often even substantially restored. Just a few prominent examples located near the Center include the Jefferson Market Library (built in 1874-77 as a courthouse, significantly altered in 1967), Westbeth (built c. 1860 as the Bell Telephone Laboratories Complex, altered in 1896-1903, 1924-26, 1929, 1931-34, and 1968-70), and the Astor Library (built in three phases between 1849-53, 1856-59, and 1879-81, and saved from demolition and adapted for use as an immigrant processing center and then as a theater), among many other cases. The city has an opportunity to now similarly preserve this original turn-of-the-century bath house, which was transformed into a recreational center in 1938, and further adapt it to serve as a modern community facility.

The Parks Department has also indicated that the wall of the recreation center’s cellar vault is approximately five feet away from a subway tunnel, citing this as a barrier to preservation of the building. But countless extant 19th and early 20th century buildings throughout New York City are impacted by subway tunnels in this way, including in historic districts such as the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District, where many of the sizable commercial buildings feature underground vaults adjacent to subway routes.

Regarding Parks’ argument that the Guastavino tile system at the recreation center’s interior is too fragile, it should be noted that Grand Central Station, the Queensboro Bridge, and Manhattan’s Municipal Building (which for most of its 110 year lifetime has had heavily trafficked Chambers Street running directly underneath the building), are just three examples of high-traffic historic structures that also utilize a Guastavino tile system, and have experienced significantly greater structural stress than the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, yet remain intact and fully functional.

To allow for the demolition of the landmarked Tony Dapolito Recreation Center would set a troubling and deeply problematic example. The Tony Dapolito Recreation Center has been under the ownership of the City of New York since it opened as a bath house in 1908. The onus has always been on the city to keep the building in good repair, but instead, the city has let it decay and continue to deteriorate for the past five years since its initial closure, not to mention in the decades prior. These years of neglect, deferred maintenance, and delayed action by the city should not be rewarded with permission to demolish the building. The Tony Dapolito Recreation Center must be preserved and reopened to serve the community, as it always has.

We also strongly urge that the Parks Department’s spoken commitment to retain this space for only parks and recreation use be made in writing and binding so that this commitment does not change as others like it have. And we urge the Community Board and elected officials to remain vigilant about the maintenance of this commitment, as we will, since its fulfillment is far from guaranteed.

Sincerely,

Jay DiLorenzo, President, Preservation League of NYS

Peg Breen, President, The New York Landmarks Conservancy

Andrew Berman, Exec. Dir., Village Preservation

Claudette Brady, Exec. Dir., Save Harlem Now!

Sean Khorsandi, Exec. Dir., Landmark West!

Sarah Carroll, Chair
Landmarks Preservation Commission
1 Centre Street
New York, NY 10007

RE: RFE 945 Madison Avenue, Whitney Museum of American Art

Dear Chair Carroll:

The Preservation League of New York State supports the Request for Evaluation, seeking Interior Landmark Designation, for the former Whitney Museum of American Art at 945 Madison Avenue, submitted by Docomomo US and Docomomo US New York/Tri-State. Although the property is located within the Upper East Side Historic District, we agree that it is significant enough to merit both Individual and Interior designation.

As a seminal work of Bauhaus master, Marcel Breuer; as the longtime home of one of New York’s most prominent cultural institutions; and as a nationally significant interior and exterior, The Whitney Museum of American Art undoubtedly deserves protection as a designated New York City Interior Landmark. Since its opening 57 years ago in 1966, the building has customarily been open or accessible to the public. Today, the recently restored interior is largely as it was originally designed.

For these reasons, we enthusiastically support Docomomo’s RFE and respectfully request that the Landmarks Preservation Commission consider protection of these unique interior spaces.

Sincerely,

Caitlin Meives
Director of Preservation

View fullsize

The Postmodern interior of 60 Wall Street, a well used privately owned public space (POPS). Docomomo US staff photo.

On Monday, March 6, Docomomo US and a coalition of advocates for the designation of 60 Wall Street (including the League) will release a letter urging the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate 60 Wall Street as an individual and interior landmark. This comes on the heals of the January 2023 vote by the Commission to allow the developer to make only modest changes to the exterior, essentially preserving the iconic colonnade and the essential nature of the building. The LPC previously noted "the building and interior POPS merit further study within the context of Postmodern commercial architecture and interiors."

Docomomo US and the coalition of advocates will meet in the POPS space at 60 Wall Street at 11:00 a.m. on Monday, March 6 to announce the letter and rally support for the designation. Please join us at the rally on Monday and urge the LPC to move forward now on the designation of 60 Wall Street before this outstanding example of architecture and history is lost.

Click here to read the letter to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Advocates for the designation of 60 Wall Street:

• Docomomo US

• Historic Districts Council

• Manhattan Community Board 1

• New York City Council Member Christopher Marte (District 1)

• New York State Assemblymember Grace Lee (District 65)

• Municipal Art Society

• New York Landmarks Conservancy

• Preservation League of New York State

• Human Scale NYC

• Tribeca Trust

• Deborah Berke

• Alice Blank 

• Adam Nathaniel Furman 

• Paul Goldberger

• Rock Herzog (Cocaine Decor) 

• Alexandra Lange

• Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen

• Robert A.M. Stern

Related press coverage:

• "A Win for Activists Fighting to Save 'Wonderful and Weird' Wall St. Atrium," Tribeca Trib, September 27, 2022.

• "60 Wall Street’s Lobby Is Weird and Ridiculous and Deserves to Be Saved," Curbed, September 19, 2022.

• "The Fight to Save New York’s Extravagantly ’80s Subway Entrance," The New York Times, July 29, 2022.

• "An Iconic Postmodern New York Lobby Is Slated for Destruction—Can It Be Saved?" Cultured, January 12, 2022.