The NYC Department of Parks and Recreation continues to stonewall and obfuscate on demands that they preserve, repair, and reopen the landmarked Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, and we are calling on Mayor Mamdani, Borough President Hoylman-Sigal, and City Councilmember Wilson — all of whom have voiced support for preserving the Center — to intervene. 

In early August, Village Preservation and Save the Public Recreation Center Downtown (SPRCD) met with the Parks Commissioner, the Borough President, and Councilmember Wilson to discuss plans for the center under new-Mayor Mamdani, who had pledged when running for office to preserve it. The Commissioner made clear she was planning to move ahead with former Mayor Adams’ demolition plan, admitting doing so was simply more convenient for the Department, rather than because the Center could not be preserved, repaired, and reopened. Village Preservation and SPRCD publicly called out the Parks Department on this, demanding they move ahead with restoration. Weeks later, they have finally responded, continuing their stonewalling and obfuscation, with false and misleading claims that making the Center disabled-accessible would reduce usable space to unusable proportions (it won’t), and that the building is so structurally compromised it’s beyond repair (the structural system supporting the building, the innovative Guastavino Tile system, supporting hundreds of buildings from Grand Central Station to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, is renowned for never failing). 

In light of this ongoing refusal by the Parks Department to address the real issues at hand, and to repair the building, we are calling on Mayor Mamdani, Borough President Hoylman-Sigal, and Councilmember Wilson, all of whom will play a role in determining if this dangerous, precedent-setting demolition plan would move ahead, to intervene to finally get the Parks Department to fulfill its obligations to repair and restore the Dapolito Center — READ OUR LETTER HERE.

TO HELP: