Looking Ahead

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis Union Square, no drama With Ocupy Wall Street somewhat off the front pages, it my be of interest to come back from the now famous Zuccotti Square news to our own Union Square news. The name of that downtown property brings back memories – it was the realtor John Zuccotti, former City Planning Commission chair and first deputy mayor, who in 1986 recommended that the NYC Police Academy be upscaled to the quality of the FBI Academy in Quantico, VA, and be moved from East 20th Street to the Bronx, a cheeky extravaganza that caused a betrayed community to protest until budget considerations made Mayor Edward I. Koch back off. People were reasonable, and the City Council listened to citizenry presenting cost comparisons. There is a faintly comparable strife between the community and the Parks Department that has been going on for at least five years (seems like 15) between the Union Square Community Coalition and city planners , who want to convert the beautiful Palladian style Pavilion at the north end of the Union Squire Park into an upscale seasonal restaurant. USCC has sued the city and Union Square Partnership Business Improvement District for breach of the rules that protect a landmarked property (the north end was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997.) The park was part of the grandiose city plan of 1811, that gave Manhattan its geometric avenues and side streets pattern, The park, at the meeting point of Bloomingdale and Broadway, was a concourse and trading area, with fashionable stores of the era contending for space with theatres, all dominated by a 1856 statue of George Washington. As the city moved uptown, the real estate values declined, and the north end Plaza became a rallying point for political activities and meetings; in 1861 there were rallies and parades in support of Union troops, and labor union meetings were held; on September 5, 1882 it marked the starting point for a labor union parade that gave birth to Labor Day, and May Day rallies became an annual socialist event. The pavilion, first built in the mid- 1800s, was dedicated as a Women’s and Children’s structure. Its current fine form stems back to a 1931 reconstruction and elevation, as a bandstand, and in my memory it has mainly served as a Parks Department storehouse and office, with a major public restroom, occasionally sharing labor union election campaign pulpit and gathering functions with the former Tammany Hall, near northeast corner of the park, on 17th Street. Historically, the Pavilion was important as the pulpit for May Day and other political rallies/ The Rosenbergs’ support meetings of 1953 were the most memorable, with half of the square’s population on its knees, awaiting the verdict. As Union Square deteriorated in the mid-1900s, so did the Pavilion building, until the park’s renewal in the 4th quarter of the century, initiated with the arrival of the Zeckendorf Towers building at the southeast corner, the coalition of local merchants that resulted in the 14th Street-Union Square Local Development Corporation /Business Improvement District (now Union Square Partnership), and, particularly, the Farmers Market, aka Union Square Greenmarket, in 1973. With the shrinking of the City’s funds, the Parks’ budgets had diminished, and pay-for-itself thinking started to prevail at the Arsenal, Parks headquarters. Volunteer groups arose in major parks areas (Central Park in lead), offering donated and street- market- raised funds, and stoutly objecting to excessive commercialization of the shrinking public spaces. In Union Square the Parks Departmnt /USP thinking prevailed and a restaurant contract for the Pavilion was offered to eatery enterprises, presumably prompted by the use of the Pavillion’s parkside courtyard (or amphitheatre for the bandstand) as the casual Luna Café, a pleasant interlude, before the struggles began. The park spaces were converted to expanded playgrounds, to meet the needs of the neighborhood, and the pavilion’s interior rooms were offered and , seemingly, tentatively accepted by an entrepreneur at aimpossibly huge investment and $400K annual rental. Alas, the recent economic crisis, coupled with the threat of continued USCC law suits, sent everybody back to Square One. Looking at Union Square and the park today, the upscale restaurant in the pavilion seems financially unfit and physically out of place, and the proponents should give up.There is a surfeit of elegant fulltime restaurants in the pertiphery, and a seasonal food shed would be more than adequate. The area has been Bloombergized (not a bad thing), with partial street closings, patio furniture here and there , flower pots with gian tropical red plants on the periphery, a total tourist destination. Admirers are lured by a serious Mahatma Gandhi memorial on the west edge of the Park, and a silvery pop Andy Warhol statue temporarily placed north of it, something for every taste. Besides the Greenmarket, on the edges of the park there are sellers of prints, books, tee shirts and offerers of giveaway pets/Tango fanciers practice their art to Latin rhythms on the Pavilion’s main open floor in good weather, and here are other community uses of the building(USCC wants a small Museum of Protest) . We may be a bit banal but we are peaceful, no troublemakers are wanted. Let’s leave it that way. Wally Dobelis thanks Jack Taylor.