Boys Club Lists Harriman Clubhouse For $32M Despite Community Ire

EAST VILLAGE, NY — The Boys' Club of New York has listed its East Village clubhouse for $32 million after more than a century of serving the neighborhood's youth — and local elected officials are furious.

Community activists and residents recently rallied outside of the famed Harriman Clubhouse building at 287 E. 10th Street demanding the Boys' Club postpone the sale and engage with the community, but the non-profit has moved forward with plans to sell the property and listed the lucrative lot with commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield.

Three elected officials who advocated against the sale of the Harriman Clubhouse called the move a disappointment. State Senator Brad Hoylman slammed the Boys' Club listing as "woefully out of touch with the needs of the community."

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"They haven’t even conducted and shared a needs assessment, their enrollment figures, the impact the closure would have on the community — it’s nothing short of irresponsible in my opinion to plow ahead on a sale without a sincere attempt to participate in a wider conversation with the East Village," Hoylman told Patch in a phone interview.

"There were a number of community officials who spoke out wanting to meet with the Boys' Club and to ignore that offer and proceed with that sale is very dismissive of their role in the community and the tremendous history they’ve helped build," Hoylman added.

The seven-story, 50,000-square-foot East Village clubhouse has served nearly one million boys with a slew of programming since it opened its doors in 1876. It was built specifically for the club and named for the group's founder Edward Henry Harriman, who was a railroad executive.

After mulling over the decision for years, Boys' Club officials aim to sell the Harriman Clubhouse and use the funds toward new programming in other underserved parts of the city including Brownsville and East New York in Brooklyn and the South Bronx.

The Boys' Club has pushed back against community outrage at the planned sale of the building by citing low membership. A top Boys' Club official says membership levels at the clubhouse are well below those seen in the 1980s and 90s and that less than half the boys live in Lower Manhattan, according to Edward Rappa, the chairman for the Boys' Club's board of trustees.

"I understand that those who know and love the clubhouse are upset by this change," said Rappa. "The area around the clubhouse has transformed dramatically in recent decades ... The sale will help us continue to serve our Harriman members and expand our mission to new areas of New York."

The Boys' Club has not publicly released its enrollment data or shared it with local leaders.

Its services won't disappear from the East Village entirely, instead the club will relocate to a smaller yet-to-be-determined facility in the area.

Boys' Club officials recently met with the Henry Street Settlement in the Lower East Side to “discuss concrete ways we can work in partnership to expand opportunities for young people from both organizations," according to Boys' Club Executive Director Stephen Tosh in a September letter to elected officials. The group aims to meet with additional organizations going forward.

Yet elected officials remain unconvinced that enrollment is dwindling at the East Village site.

"They don’t really have any proof that there is such under-enrollment going on," Assemblyman Harvey Epstein told Patch over the phone. "So this idea that they’re selling it without the demand seems really without merit."

In minutes from a 2015 board of trustees meeting obtained by Patch, the records note that the "Harriman clubhouse has experienced a 47% growth in attendance in the 5 years since Stephen [Tosh] came to BCNY."

The minutes also highlight "If theClubhouse were to be sold and a new clubhouse established in East New York or the South Bronx, BCNY would be leaving these boys behind." Tosh told the Daily News that the spike in growth occurred only after significant investment in the clubhouse.

The local City Council member hoped that despite the Boys' Club's listing, that it will work with the community going forward to find alternatives.

“While we are disappointed to see the Harriman Clubhouse officially listed this week, we hope that the Boys’ Club leadership has been paying attention to our recent public rallies and petitions that clearly show that this neighborhood still has a serious need for community services," Councilwoman Carlina Rivera told Patch in a statement. "The Boys’ Club must work with neighborhood leaders to find partnerships as alternatives to this sale."

Photo courtesy of the Boys' Club of New York