Assembly Member Grace Lee joined a coalition of Downtown organizations gathered in Greenwich Village Sunday afternoon to call on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to “renovate, not demolish” the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, a beloved local landmark and outdoor swimming pool that has been long shuttered due to structural issues.
The rally, led by grassroots non-profit Village Preservation, also saw groups release government records obtained through a year-long Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request, which protesters alleged undermined city claims that the center is beyond repair.
Around 100 local residents joined Sunday’s protest outside the center, located at 1 Clarkson St., joining community organizations such as Downtown Independent Democrats, SoHo Alliance, Village Reform Democratic Club and several others.
Photo by Shane O’Brien.
The city has proposed demolishing the long-shuttered recreation center – designated a city landmark in 2010 – as part of a broader $164 million plan to revitalize the Clarkson Street corridor.
The city’s plan -introduced by former Mayor Eric Adams – calls for building a modern outdoor pool complex on the site as well as a separate indoor recreation facility across the street at 388 Hudson St., within a new affordable housing development.
An aerial rendering shows the city’s proposed $164 million revitalization plan for the Clarkson Street corridor, including a new outdoor aquatics facility on the site of the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center and an indoor recreation center across the street at 388 Hudson St.Photo by NYC Parks
Over a dozen local community groups have long opposed the demolition, however, describing the Dapolito Rec Center as a “much-beloved” local landmark.
On Sunday, over a dozen community groups called on Mamdani to “follow through” on a campaign promise to support the renovation of the site. City Hall has not yet responded to a request for comment.
However, Parks Department officials said the city had allocated approximately $100 million to reconstruct the recreation center and bring it into a state of good repair.
NYC Parks conducted multiple rounds of investigative probes which revealed multiple serious structural issues. Ultimately, the city determined that it bringing the current space would result in “significantly less usable space,” according to officials.
Restorative work would result in the reduction of the size of the pool from three lanes to two and leave the center with a non-regulation-sized basketball court with no spectator seating and a non-ADA accessible indoor track, according to Parks officials.
Officials also maintain that other structural issues were likely to surface throughout the restoriation, stating that any renovation to bring the building up to code would result in a loss of essential programming space and a cost that would exceed the value of the building.
But Andrew Berman, executive director of Village Preservation, said the city records that the organization has obtained through FOIL have contradicted the city’s claims that the center is beyond repair.
“It revealed is that it’s all repairable,” Berman said. “It’s the most common thing in the world to say you have an old building that needs some repairs. It’s like saying sometime this year it’s probably going to rain. But what they’ve been contending is that the repairs can’t be done. And what this found is that their own experts and engineers said it’s imminently doable, and here’s the plan for doing it.”
Berman added that the mayor has “not done anything good or bad” in relation to the center since taking office but added that the “clock is ticking” for renovation work to begin.
“The longer he waits, the harder it’s going to be to repair the building,” Berman said. “So we’re going to hold him to his word, and we want him to move soon.”
Andrew Berman called on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to save the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center. Photo by Shane O’Brien.
The center has been closed to the public since the Covid-19 pandemic due to structural issues, while the outdoor pool facility adjacent to the center closed in 2019 for similar reasons.
The city initially planned to renovate the space, but renovations soon stalled. Instead, the city unveiled its plan for the Clarkson Street corridor, stating that the plans had been shaped by local feedback.
Lee, who represents New York’s 65th Assembly District, told the crowd that the center is “worth preserving,” stating that efforts to save the site are reflective of the “soul and spirit of the community.”
“It’s unfathomable to me that city officials have repeatedly claimed that the facility could not be saved, while failing to produce any supporting documents to provide to back that up,” Lee told protesters Sunday afternoon.
Lee also noted that the recreation center is designated as parkland and that the city needs the permission of the state legislature to rezone public parkland.
“I’m here to say that we will continue to protect this property as protected parkland,” Lee said. “We are calling on Mayor Mamdani to honor his commitment to repair, not demolish.”
Mar Fitzgerald, Democratic district leader for the 66th Assembly District, including Greenwich Village, East Village and part of Chelsea, described the center as a place where children learned to swim, took classes and gathered with friends.
“It wasn’t just a building. It was a second home for every village kid,” Fitzgerald said. “It was a foundation and a place where generations of young people found support structure and belonging. “
Mar Fitzgerald speaks at Sunday’s rally. Photo by Shane O’Brien.
But several protesters also asserted that the center plays an important role for local adults, with adult swimming meets providing an opportunity to gather and socialize.
“There’s an Equinox right over there… but we have nowhere for the middle and working-class to swim,” said local resident Elizabeth England, who used the pool for rehab while recovering from an injury in the 1990s. “There’s nothing like this (nearby).”
“You would meet everyone here,” she said.
Hank Dombrowski, a swimmer at the Hamilton Fish Recreation Center who attended Sunday’s rally dressed in a swimming hat and goggles, said he would often compete with adult lap swimmers at the Tony Dapolito Rec Center, stating that the pool would serve as an opportunity for people to reconnect with each other.
“You don’t see people like all winter long. You come back and you just feel the community. It’s like a pub.”
Hank Drombrowski attended Sunday’s rally in swimming cap and goggles. Photo by Shane O’Brien
England said the center stands as a “bastion” of a previous era amid the gentrification of the neighborhood.
“This is just a place where everyone could go and afford to rub elbows with each other,” she said. “Particularly as you age, getting together is super important.”
Berman similarly believes that the center represents the working-class roots of Greenwich Village and said efforts to landmark the center were partially related to its significance to working-class immigrants.
“Part of the reason why we fought to get it landmarked is because it was built in the early 20th century as a bath house for poor and working class immigrants in this neighborhood who didn’t have indoor plumbing,” Berman said. “It eventually evolved into a public recreation center and it continued to be a place where people from every socioeconomic background, racial background, every part of the city came and mixed because it was it was free or low cost.”
The recreation center opened as a bathhouse on May 6, 1908, but has been repurposed and renovated several times since.
The Parks Department said the center later became a “year-round hub for many in and around the neighborhood.”
In addition to providing fitness facilities, it hosted youth and adult athletic leagues, after-school programs, a summer day camp, fitness classes and many other activities.
The center also includes an 18-foot-long Keith Haring mural, dedicated in August of 1987, that both parks and community advocates want preserved.
Berman said the city’s plans for the Clarkson Street corridor are “not what the community wants or asked for.”
He welcomed plans to build a recreation center across the street from Tony Dapolito but said it must not come at the expense of landmarked site. He added that the city’s plans “make no sense.”
“Everybody agrees that some new recreational facilities in the new building is great, but everybody says they want this building repaired, restored, renovated. There is no excuse for doing anything other than that,” Berman said. “Mayor Mamdani said he’s looking at everything with fresh eyes. He’s got to look at this with fresh eyes as well.”
Photo by Shane O’Brien.