The youth and education committee of Community Board 1 voted Tuesday to support a plan to build a gym and theater over dog run on Warren street in TriBeCa, according to an article yesterday by Julie Shapiro at DNAinfo.com
The facilities are supposed to be an extension of the Downtown Community Center next door, which is part of Manhattan Youth, an organization of which Bob Townley is the executive director, the article said.
The dog run would remain in place, and the new structure would exist over it, Townley said, the article said, adding that "the new building between Greenwich and West streets would have room for a multi-purpose gym and a theater that would measure about 70 feet by 40 feet," and it "could not be any bigger because it is sandwiched between P.S. 234 and the co-op at 200 Chambers St."
Mr. Townley told the committee that the gym and theater are needed because of the area's growing population: "The need in this neighborhood is tremendous....The need in seven years will be stupendous. It will be off the charts."
Mr. Townley "particularly wants the new space to serve local teenagers, who often get forgotten amid all the efforts to serve downtown's younger kids," the article said, adding that it could also contain classrooms for the perennially overcrowded P.S. 234.
"The project still requires many city approvals," the article continued," because Manhattan Youth would have to buy air rights, and Townley also has to win over neighborhood dog owners and the residents of 200 Chambers St. Townley said the dog owners were on board because the sheltered dog run would be warmer in the winter and protected from the rain, and because in the course of the construction, workers would be able to improve the run's drainage.
The article said that Mr. "Townley has also spoken to the co-op board at 200 Chambers St., and he said they liked the idea of having a new building in between the noisy dog run and their windows. Manhattan Youth does not have a cost estimate for the project, but it could run in the millions of dollars."
The facilities are supposed to be an extension of the Downtown Community Center next door, which is part of Manhattan Youth, an organization of which Bob Townley is the executive director, the article said.
The dog run would remain in place, and the new structure would exist over it, Townley said, the article said, adding that "the new building between Greenwich and West streets would have room for a multi-purpose gym and a theater that would measure about 70 feet by 40 feet," and it "could not be any bigger because it is sandwiched between P.S. 234 and the co-op at 200 Chambers St."
Mr. Townley told the committee that the gym and theater are needed because of the area's growing population: "The need in this neighborhood is tremendous....The need in seven years will be stupendous. It will be off the charts."
Mr. Townley "particularly wants the new space to serve local teenagers, who often get forgotten amid all the efforts to serve downtown's younger kids," the article said, adding that it could also contain classrooms for the perennially overcrowded P.S. 234.
"The project still requires many city approvals," the article continued," because Manhattan Youth would have to buy air rights, and Townley also has to win over neighborhood dog owners and the residents of 200 Chambers St. Townley said the dog owners were on board because the sheltered dog run would be warmer in the winter and protected from the rain, and because in the course of the construction, workers would be able to improve the run's drainage.
The article said that Mr. "Townley has also spoken to the co-op board at 200 Chambers St., and he said they liked the idea of having a new building in between the noisy dog run and their windows. Manhattan Youth does not have a cost estimate for the project, but it could run in the millions of dollars."
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
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