CB1’s Dilemma: Which ‘Y’ for Downtown?

by Ronald Drenger

The 92nd Street Y or the YMCA of Greater New York? Community Board 1 can’t decide.

After multiple presentations and proposals from both institutions over the past six months, the board was still stumped last month over which one it wants as a partner in its push to put a $40 million community and cultural center Downtown.

Some CB1 members feel the YMCA excels at recreational programs, like this swim class at the Vanderbuilt Y on East 47th Street, but others favor the 92nd Street Y for its expertise in cultural programming.
Some CB1 members feel the YMCA excels at recreational programs, like this swim class at the Vanderbuilt Y on East 47th Street, but others favor the 92nd Street Y for its expertise in cultural programming. Photo: Allan Tannenbaum

Last month, after one more pitch from both groups and another long discussion, the board’s Executive Committee remained divided and, for the second time, put off a formal vote.

“This has not been easy for us,” CB1’s chair Madelyn Wils reported to the full board last month. But she added that the community was in an enviable position by having two major institutions eager to come Downtown.

Wils said the committee would seek input from more board members and from others in the community before taking up the issue this month.

The Executive Committee is almost evenly split between those who prefer the YMCA, partly because they believe it has stronger recreation programs, and others who consider the 92nd Street Y a better pick for its expertise in cultural programming.


At the committee meeting last month, executives from both institutions tried to show their strengths on both fronts.

Paul Custer, the YMCA’s vice president of operations, said that many YMCAs have cultural programs, such as the “Writer’s Voice” literary series at its West Side Y on 63rd Street, and that the organization planned to hire an experienced cultural programmer. He also said the Y hoped to create a coalition of arts organizations to run programs or make their homes at a “cultural campus” Downtown.

“We really do have the capacities and processes to make a project like this work,” he said.

Both groups emphasized that they would work closely with the community to create the facilities and programs that were most desired.

In a discussion that followed, board members expressed differing priorities and seemed to have different interpretations of what each organization was offering.

“I look at the Y’s schedule up there and I’m envious,” Bruce Ehrmann said of the 92nd Street Y’s cultural offerings.

“I think it’s easy to find culture in New York but it’s harder to get a recreation center,” responded Nancy Owens, saying she believed the YMCA would offer better recreation programs.

Wils disagreed. “They run one of the best day camps in the city,” she said of the 92nd Street Y, “and both do pretty identical things in the recreational area. Both will know what they’re doing and will work with us to figure out what our needs are.”

In some cases, personal experience was a critical factor.

“My kids are part of the program at the 92nd Street Y and they do amazing things,” said Marc Donnenfeld. Owens, on the other hand, said she had grown up using a YMCA and would love to see one Downtown.

A couple of committee members said they were uneasy about the 92nd Street Y’s perceived religious tilt as a Jewish institution, while others said it was a non-issue. The Y’s Upper East Side facility shuts many of its programs on Saturday, but Sol Adler, the organization’s executive director, said that a Downtown branch would be open on whatever days the community desired.

In an informal poll taken at the end of the meeting, five members voted for the YMCA, and four for the 92nd Street Y, but several of the voters said they could go either way. In a similar poll two months earlier, the committee voted 5-2 in favor of the 92nd Street Y.