The City Wants to Demolish a West Village Recreation Center

Photo: Dean Moses/AMNY

Keith Haring had just one day to paint a mural above the outdoor pool at the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, then named the Carmine Street Recreation Center. It was a sweltering day in 1987 — “one of the hottest days of the summer,” he said — and Junior Vasquez DJ’d a dance party while people swam in the pool. Haring painted freehand from a ladder, and by the end, there was a 170-foot-long blue and yellow mural of mermaids, dolphins, and people being eaten by fish that’s still there today. Soon, the painting and the pool it frames might be the only thing left standing.

In July, the Parks Department announced that it was considering demolishing the recreation center on the corner of Clarkson and Seventh Avenue because it had become too expensive and too difficult to repair. “We determined that extensive and costly capital work would be needed to restore structural integrity to the building,” a Parks Department statement read. It’s news that was a long time coming; the department first closed the center at the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020 and then found it needed intensive repairs. The reopening date kept being extended as the department discovered more and more structural issues. (The building’s roof is currently being held up by shoring from the inside.) Residents were steamed this year when the city announced that the center — and its outdoor pool — would be closed for the fifth summer in a row. Some even questioned whether Parks was doing any repairs at all. As one person told the New York Post: “Years and years go by and nothing happens. Each summer it looks worse.”

An estimated $4 million budget for repairs reportedly ballooned to $20 million. (Gothamist reported that another $20 million would be needed just to keep the building upright.) The Parks Department said that the total budget for Tony Dapolito is $100 million, which would support the replacement of the center and any related needs, but would not clarify how much it would cost to restore the building outright. Kelsey Jean-Baptiste, a Parks Department spokesperson, said in a statement that even if the city did bring the building up to code, it would “result in a loss of recreational programming space.” The department pointed out that the center’s indoor pool, gym, and basketball courts don’t meet modern-day standards — the pool is just three lanes wide and the courts aren’t regulation size. At a community board meeting in mid-July, city reps said they were looking instead into installing a new rec center at 388 Hudson, an affordable housing project that is planned across the block. The Tony Dapolito Recreation Center would be torn down, but the city has cautiously offered that there would be some effort to keep the Haring mural and outdoor pool, in discussion with the Keith Haring Foundation, which has financially supported efforts to preserve the mural for the past 30 years. It’s unclear what would go in the rec center’s place.

Photo: Dean Moses/AMNY

But some community members don’t agree with the proposal. Sure, the structure itself is quite old; it was built in 1908 and was originally used as a public bathhouse before Parks took it over in 1938. Claudette Brady, executive director of Save Harlem Now, says she remembers people coming from all over the city to play at the courts in the 1980s when she was growing up. “We’d all hang out in the Village and then go watch the basketball games at Carmine,” she said. “Nobody really cared” that they weren’t regulation size, she added. In the meantime, lap swimmers would line up at 6:30 a.m. to get a lane.

Preservationists are also pushing back on the destruction of what they see as a beloved landmarked building. A letter to local politicians from the Preservation League of NYS pointed out that the building had been specifically carved out by the Landmarks Preservation Commission for inclusion in an extension of the Greenwich Village Historic District in 2010, and therefore it must approve the demolition for it to go forward. “There’s no reason to demolish a perfectly good building that’s been sitting there rotting for the last 40 years because the city hasn’t done the repair work,” Andrew Berman, director of Village Preservation, said. He also pointed out that the mechanics for the outdoor pool are housed in the building, so even if something were to replace it, it would still have to serve that function if the pool remains.

At the community board meeting in mid-July, the board ended up passing a resolution supporting the inclusion of a recreation center in 388 Hudson, while punting on any vote regarding the potential demolition. Some people were openly in favor of the idea. “As much as we’d love to save it, in my opinion it’s unsaveable,” David Gruber, a board member, said. Another member put it more succinctly: “Demolish it, please. Please get rid of that.” Some saw the site as a money pit and the 388 Hudson plan as a way to get a full-size recreation center.

But other longtime West Village residents questioned whether the building was actually unsaveable. “The last day the pool was open, I was there,” one local said in the meeting. “I never thought it was substandard. I don’t think anyone who used it felt that.” Mar Fitzgerald, a board member, said, speaking only in her capacity as a neighborhood resident, “I’ve watched my neighborhood change dramatically over the last 50 years. This is an easy opportunity to repair instead of destroy.” She told me she grew up going to the pool, and that it was a safe place kids could go hang out without their parents. Some people fear the city will sell the rec center land to a developer or that a rec center in a privately owned building like 388 Hudson will limit public access. Fitzgerald also worries about a potential selloff. “I’m sure they’ll keep the Haring mural,” she said. “It’ll be a great asset to whatever luxury condo goes there — that’s what I see happening.”

Still, there’s a long road ahead before anything is final. The city has yet to issue RFPs for 388 Hudson and there will be many more community board meetings before a demolition is approved. In the meantime, the neighborhood continues to be without a public place to swim and exercise. (Perhaps, desperate locals asked at the community board meeting, the city could lease the closed New York Sports Club across the street?) As one resident put it: “Why are we trying to move this rec center to a building that hasn’t been built?”