NEWS

Boys’ Club says gentrification
is forcing clubhouse’s closure

By Lincoln Anderson

Once the teeming Lower East Side could support two Boys’ Club of New York clubhouses. Now, due to the changes brought about in the neighborhood by gentrification and the economy, it can support only one, according to the Boys’ Club.

The Boys’ Club plans to sell its Milliken Clubhouse at E. Houston and Pitt Sts. and consolidate its programs on the Lower East Side at its E. Tenth St. Clubhouse on Avenue A.

A May 15 letter to Community Board 3 from Silas R. Anthony, Jr., the Boys’ Club’s board of trustees president, and Brad Zervas, executive director, announced their intention to cease programs at the E. Houston St. site on Aug. 15, noting that, due to circumstances, it was “simply not possible for us to maintain two clubhouses in such proximity.”

A shuttle bus service will be provided to take people up to the E. Tenth St. Clubhouse.

But Councilmember Margarita Lopez feels strongly that the Boys’ Club either should stay or give the facility to another local organization that serves youth, such as the Lower East Side Girls’ Club, which needs a clubhouse, or Loisaida, Inc., which runs programs for teens, or the Henry St. Settlement.

Above all, Lopez opposes the sale of the building to a developer, noting that the Boys’ Club, in 1985, received a large parcel of land at the site virtually cost free from the city to build an extension and Olympic-sized, 25-yd.-long pool.

Lopez said she understands the building’s glass-block north wall is in bad repair, but if that’s the case the Boys’ Club should have reached out to her.

“If they are thinking of selling that building in return for some luxury housing to be built there…,” she said. “That building is not to be used for some profit-making venture. It should be returned to the people of the Lower East Side. If they can’t run that program they can give it to the Girls’ Club of the Lower East Side. If they can’t fix that wall, why didn’t they come to me to get capital dollars?”

However, Zervas noted that the Boys’ Club has never solicited funds from the city, state or federal government.

“This is a 127-year-old organization. It’s run the way it’s run,” he said.

Asked if anybody had contacted the Boys’ Club about the building’s reuse, he said the L.E.S. Girls’ Club was the only one so far and that he had a brief phone conservation with someone from the Girls’ Club.

“Our ultimate goal would be to see that building serving youth,” he said. “There are no guarantees — but that is our intent in making that happen. At the end of the day, that would be a wonderful thing. Ultimately, we’ve got to do what’s in the best interest of the Boys’ Club and its mission.

“Regarding the disposition of the property, we have an agreement that we signed with the city and we met that agreement and we will continue to meet that agreement,” he added. The agreement, according to Zervas, “is to use the property in what we feel is in the interest of the Boys’ Club organization.”

Asked if they would sell the site to a developer, he said, “I can’t rule anything out right now.”

Messages left on the Girls’ Club’s recording machine and cell phone of Lynn Pentecost, the Girl’s Club’s executive director, were not returned by press time.

Martha Danziger, Community Board 3 district manager, said Pentecost “sounded interested” when she spoke to her about the Milliken Clubhouse.

“Lynn said there was an actual number they were asking. My memory is $6 million, but I don’t know,” said Danziger. The board will be considering the matter, Danziger said.

At the clubhouses, boys take after-school education and literacy classes in addition to participating in recreational activities.

About 175-200 boys use the Milliken Clubhouse each day, while a bit more use the E. Tenth St. Clubhouse, Zervas said. Both clubhouses have seen the number of their users drop 50 percent in the last 20 years, he said.

“The Lower East Side is not what it used to be — it has really changed fundamentally,” he said. “And to have 50 percent of [our] assets tied up in an area that is so small; it makes sense to consolidate our services [at the Tenth St. Clubhouse] and expand later somewhere else.” The Boys’ Club has three other clubhouses in the city and a camp in New Jersey.

Zervas said the “catchment area” for the clubhouses is between First Ave. and Avenue D, from 14th St. to just below Houston St. and that one clubhouse can handle the whole area.

He said the 10th St. building was in “great shape” whereas the Houston St. building’s north wall does need repair.

Lopez disputed that the neighborhood no longer needs the facility and that gentrification has caused major population changes.

“That is not true,” she said. “In our neighborhood we have an increase in the population. The children’s population has not diminished.”

In fact, she said that there are more needy children living around the Milliken Clubhouse area compared to the E. Tenth St. Clubhouse, noting that there is a low-income Section 8 building right near the Milliken Clubhouse and the many housing projects located in close proximity.

“I dare them to prove me wrong,” Lopez said.

She said the Boys’ Club just needs to do more outreach in the area.

Told about the shuttle bus service that will be offered, she said, “That is baloney.”

“I don’t believe this,” she said of the Boys’ Clubs arguments for the sale’s justification. “And I believe that this is making money off a building they have no right to make money off. If this building is going to suddenly disappear, then let’s give it to the Girls’ Club. If the mission of the Boys’ Club is to serve the children, shouldn’t they give it to the Girls’ Club to use?”

Told of Lopez’s position, Phil La Lumia, a past president of the Boys’ Club’s Alumi Association, noted that the L.E.S. Girls’ Club has site control of a site on Avenue D and has received federal funding from Rep. Nydia Velazquez to build a clubhouse. He thought that the Girls’ Club also wouldn’t be able to pay for the maintenance of the Milliken Clubhouse.

“I think that this building [Tenth St.] can accommodate those kids [from Milliken]. And they’re going to run a shuttle bus,” noted La Lumia, a lifelong East Villager and former Community Board 3 member.

The Boys’ Club has been a presence on the Lower East for 128 years, La Lumia noted, recalling some of the illustrious alumni of the E. Tenth St. Clubhouse — parts of which date from 1901 — from the 1920s and ’30s: Louis Lefkowitz, former New York State attorney general; the Kreindler brothers, former owners of 21; tobacconist Nat Sherman; and Judge Bernard Newman.

La Lumia said the Boys’ Club is getting ready to open a new clubhouse in a few months in Flushing, a neighborhood of immigrant Chinese and Pakistanis.

“I heard a rumor where they’re looking to open another location,” he said. “They may be looking for a location in Brooklyn — where the kids really need it.”