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Vision Becomes Reality On Warren Street
“I’d have a vision of how people were going to sit,” Townley recalled, “how the flow of people was going to be, what the programs were going to be.” Over the past 20 years, Townley has envisioned much for Downtown youth that has come to be. Afterschool programs and a basketball league, a day camp and open space at Tribeca’s long-neglected Pier 25. And now, this 28,000-square-foot community center, which opens April 10 on 120 Warren Street. “I was never very good at art so what I like to do is paint portraits of harmonious space and places,” Townley explained, as he showed a visitor around the three-level center last month. “Instead of rearranging paint, I rearrange people, how they meet, their social interactions. The community center is a blank canvas right now. The question is what will it become?” Get Townley started, which isn’t hard, and the plans begin to flow. First, he reels off his ideas for the pool. “We’ll have swim lessons, open swim, mommy-and-me swim. We’re going to give kayak lessons. We’ll have rock and roll swim and disco swim night.” Townley sees teens passing their weekend evenings in the recording studio, hanging out in the teen lounge, maybe doing art. In his mind’s eyes, seniors will be playing bridge, drinking coffee in the cafe, making CDs to send to their children. (“We want to raise enough money to have a bus go through the neighborhood so that at night the teens and the seniors can be taken home.”) He talks of adult cooking classes, tai chi, pilates and painting and sculpture. “Afterwards, they can sweat it out in the steam room and go for a swim,” Townley says. None of this can happen without team effort, said Townley. And he plans to drive that point home at the April 10 opening when the staff, he said, will don football jerseys. “We have a great team,” he said. “And this is our Super Bowl.” Jim Hopkins, Campaign director: When Jim Hopkins looks up at the artfully angled ceiling and skylight above the pool, he can see expenses that seem to go through the roof. “We came in one day and there were cracks in the ceiling,” he recalled. “They figured out it was caused by the vibrations from breaking through concrete upstairs. We had to redo the ceiling and that cost money.” Hopkins’ job is all things money and he has a long list of unanticipated expenses. Like the new cement floor that had to be laid under the pool deck to fix its slope. Or the wrong size pipe that needed replacing. “We think we’re down the home stretch and a whole new set of problems come up,” said Hopkins. “There’s a bumper sticker I won’t quote but the last word is “happens.” Hopkins is a former bassist turned development director who raised money for a variety of institutions before coming to Manhattan Youth almost two years ago. He can tell you precisely where the big money has come from to pay for this $12.8 million project: $5.4 million from the city; $3.15 million from the state, $400,000 from Lower Manhattan Development Corp., $200,000 from Moody’s, $100,000 from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. (Manhattan Youth gets the space for $1 a year, the result of an agreement between the city and developer of the residential tower, 200 Chambers Street, where the center is housed.) Now it will have to rely on fund raising and contributions from the community to help pay its bills. “We haven’t spent years building a board of directors of powerful movers and shakers in the financial industry,” Hopkins says. “That’s not a criticism of the board, which is very good. But it’s a community-based board.” The solution, Hopkins says, has been to be frugal and only spend the money hey have. (“Facilities like this sometimes run 50 percent over budget,” he noted.) That means the center will not be finished when it opens this month. Except for the first floor and the dance room, the floors are still concrete. There are no cabinets in the “culinary center.” The pool office lacks a ceiling. Most rooms are unfurnished. And the list goes on. For better or worse, watching the center grow from the ground up is an education, Hopkins says. “Sometimes it’s been hair raising, but it’s always been a great deal of fun.” It also has caused him to look at buildings very differently. “Recently I went to a concert at Lincoln Center and as I was sitting in my seat, I was wondering: Where do they put the duct work for the HVAC system?”
Just two weeks before the community center opened, these were just a few of the items on Alex Roche’s to-do list: Install a phone in the elevator. Make regulation pool signs. Find an engineer to sign off on the kiln. “You learn a lot when you have to use words on Thursday that you didn’t know on Tuesday,” Roche said. Roche came of age with Manhattan Youth. He worked as a counselor at Downtown Day Camp beginning in high school and through college. After graduation, 10 years ago, he came back to Manhattan Youth full time, and eventually became assistant director, in charge of the pool and basketball programs. “There are all different kinds of community centers,” Roche said, “and Bob and I have spent a lot of time talking about what kind this would be.” “This will not be a membership-based center where you can drop in and take a class. We don’t want to be a health center and put in 20 exercise machines. There are other places in this neighborhood that do that.” The community center will revolve around programs. This spring, Roche explained, the only programs will be toddler/parent and senior swim programs. In the fall, classes will probably include dance, ceramics, photography and adult physical education. “We want to test drive the center,” Roche said. “We don’t want to start with a lot of programs and half won’t be successful.” In addition, the center will also be home to Manhattan Youth’s afterschool programs and, during the summer, and its Downtown Day Camp. As Roche strolled through the center, he stopped to check out the fire alarm system (needed a cover), the elevator (motor too loud) and the pool drains (had to be changed). “People look at the space and say, ‘It’s so amazing’ or ‘it’s remarkable,’” Roche said. “But when I walk around, I still think, “This is supposed to be this or that. I just know that it’s not perfect...not yet.” Maria Reidelbach, art director:
Her arm sweeps along one bare wall. “We’ll have an ice maker here, a restaurant dishwasher that can do a load of dishes in four minutes, and deep restaurant-style sinks.” Then she spreads her arms out wide. “The kitchen island will be over here. And we’ll also have tables that can be raised and lowered for the kids.” Reidelbach’s official job is to design ads, brochures and other graphic materials. But that doesn’t begin to describe what keeps her busy at the center. Whether it’s adjusting the height of the new hanging light fixtures or telling a worker he had painted a wall the wrong color, along with the rest of the tiny staff, she’s wears many hats. Take the kitchen sinks. “I noticed that all the real estate ads in The Tribeca Trib had Gaggenau kitchens,” recalls Reidelbach, who oversees the culinary center with Mona Lombardi, Manhattan Youth’s registrar.
A construction worker walks by the kichen. “Hey, why haven’t they put cabinets up?” he asks. “We don’t have the money yet,” Reidelbach tells him. “Ask my boss,” he suggests. “He’s a good guy. Or at least he’ll donate the labor.” Reidelbach gets the boss’s number and puts it in her phone. “I’ll give him a call,” she says, smiling. For more information on the Downtown Community Center go to www.manhattanyouth.org or call 212-766-1104.
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