NEWS: Union Square proposal; restoration contingent on restaurant?
Just to be clear, in Union Square a site associated with labor and Socialism is about to be sold under & in Richmond Hill, the Republican Club is hanging on by a thread. If History is written by the victors, who won?
From the New York Times
January 28, 2007
Union Square
For a Pavilion With a Past, Grumbling Over the Future
By ALEX MINDLIN
IN the heyday of the New York Left, the limestone pavilion at Union Square Park’s north end was a common backdrop for hundreds of Socialist, Communist and labor union demonstrations, its columned arms seeming to embrace the swelling crowds. Until the 1980s, it also served as a bandstand and an unofficial play space.
Today, the 78-year-old pavilion is meek and sooty, with chain-link fencing strung between its columns. Inside are Parks Department offices, a leaky underground storage space and a pair of legendarily dirty bathrooms, from which, workers say, the stink can’t be scrubbed.
“We try to keep it clean, but there’s nothing we can do,” said Jeff Williams, a park worker.
But the pavilion is on the verge of a renovation, part of an $18 million to $20 million project to improve the Greenmarket, ornament the park’s north plaza and add almost 10,000 square feet of playground space. The work, to begin this year, is being financed by the city and by the Union Square Partnership, the local business improvement district, which says it has committed $6 million to $7 million.
But some officials and community groups are split over a key element of the plan: the Parks Department’s proposal to put a seasonal sit-down restaurant inside the pavilion, replacing a restaurant that sits in front of it. The department plans to solicit bids for the concession.
“I don’t think the city should be treating its parks as a revenue producer,” said Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, whose district borders Union Square. Besides, he said, “there’s certainly no shortage of restaurants in the Union Square area.”
Rosie Mendez, the local City Council member, grudgingly supports the restaurant idea. But Scott Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, opposes it, and Community Board 5 has asked the Parks Department to also consider proposals by nonprofit groups that want to use the pavilion.
To make matters stickier, the Union Square Partnership has told elected officials and restaurant foes that $5 million of its contribution comes from an anonymous donor, who has made his gift contingent on the establishment of a restaurant in the pavilion.
A partnership spokesman would not confirm the conditions of the donation, but Jennifer Falk, the partnership’s executive director, said in a statement, “All of the private donor funding raised to date is contingent upon the plan going forward as structured.”
Adrian Benepe, the parks commissioner, defended the restaurant proposal, saying its purpose was to improve the park, not to make money.
“Cafes enliven parks, and they give you a way to eat al fresco while you’re not choking on exhaust,” he said, adding that the city would require the restaurant to offer “reasonably priced” take-out service and to use products from the Greenmarket. He also said that in winter and fall, when the restaurant was not operating, community groups could use the pavilion.
“In my lifetime,” he said, “Union Square Park was Needle Park, a place to walk across as fast you could. The success of the park today depends on the liveliness of its activities.” ALEX MINDLIN