City Planning to Demolish Tony Dapolito Rec Center in Village After Years of Delayed Repairs

The Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, a West Village landmark first built in 1906, appears a step closer to being demolished following a Community Board 2 meeting on July 10.

The rec center has been under renovation since 2020 and closed to members since 2021 due to structural issues. The outdoor pool, one of downtown Manhattan’s only outdoor public pools, has been closed since 2019 under the guise of construction repairs and yet virtually no progress has been made.

The Parks Department reported that, given the building’s antiquated structure and the $100 million it would cost to completely repair and upgrade it, they plan to demolish the rec center entirely, saving only the outdoor pool and the expansive Keith Haring mural displayed above it.

Their decision is partially contingent on the proposal that a new recreation center will be built across the street, at the base level of the incoming affordable housing development 388 Hudson. The Parks Department claims this endeavor will be cheaper and faster than repairing the Tony Dapolito rec center, despite its projected timeframe of at least five years.

District 3 Councilmember Erik Bottcher told Straus News that, “despite what the Parks Department and HPD may suggest, no decisions have been made regarding the future of the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center or what facilities may be built at 388 Hudson Street.”

“I look forward to working with Community Board 2 and other stakeholders to determine a path forward,” he said.

Local nonprofit society Village Preservation is adamantly against both the destruction of the rec center and the development of 388 Hudson, which could be up to 355 feet tall, a height which the society feels will disrupt the architectural aesthetic of Greenwich Village.

Those against the rec center’s demolition believe the city is merely giving up on saving a historic landmark and looking for a way to free up the prime real estate the center sits upon.

“Demolition of the building should be out of the question,” said the Executive Director of Village Preservation Andrew Berman.

“The repairs needed to allow the building to reopen are long overdue and hardly unique for a building of this age at some point in its lifetime, and often for those that are considerably younger,” he continued.

“The idea that simply demolishing the building and moving all of its services into an as-yet-unbuilt new development at 388 Hudson Street would be cheaper and quicker than repairing the building strains credulity. Worse, it would make the new 388 Hudson Street development—which is already well behind schedule, and has a long way to go before it will reach completion—either bigger than it’s already planned to be, which is already too tall, or it would eliminate much needed affordable housing from the development.”

The city’s plans of destruction cannot move forward without the approval of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which designated the Tony Dapolito rec center a landwark in 2010. It was also listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013, cementing its presence in the West Village as a historic national landmark.

The Village Preservation Society started a campaign to protest the center’s imminent demolition, which includes a letter to Mayor Eric Adams detailing the fallacy that a new rec center at 388 Hudson is a better idea than repairing the one at Tony Dapolito. The group argues that a new development project such as 388 Hudson, particularly one with a private developer, will be subjected to considerable delays and by no means guarantee speed.

Supporters of repairing the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center say it has long been forsaken by the city, whose final act of neglect may be destroying it. Updates are to come as the Parks Department awaits approval for demolition from the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and protestors continue to fight back.