Midtown AA Clubhouse Forced Out By Construction Noise, Founder Says

MIDTOWN, NY — Eddie Baca founded the 46th Street Clubhouse as a way to help New Yorkers get and stay sober. Its walls are covered with Alcoholics Anonymous and New York theater ephemera.

Amid the relics, he pointed to a sign emblazoned with a line from AA founder Bill W.'s "The Big Book."

"This one is my favorite," Baca, who is 37 years sober, said.

The sign reads: "the result was nil until we let go absolutely."

But thanks to the noise from a massive, 1,000-foot-tall tower capped by an amusement park-style ride at 740 Eighth Ave., Baca said he must let go absolutely of the place where he says thousands have started and maintained their journeys to sobriety.

The excavation noise from the site is "horrendous," Baca said, and totally prohibits the Clubhouse's intimate and vulnerable AA meetings essential to many sober journeys.

He even asked Extell, the owners of the site, if they could help find a solution for the Clubhouse to remain.

Extell, a megadeveloper known for kicking off the "Billionaire's Row" of skyscrapers in Midtown, did not respond to a request for comment regarding the 46th Street Clubhouse.

"You know, that's the thing that I find the most troubling is that: isn't this supposed to be a priority?" Baca said.

"Especially in Times Square, now that it's so dangerous, and there's so many mentally ill people, and there's so much crack, and there's so much meth being used right out on the street," he said, "shouldn't this be a need that should be protected?"

Journey to recovery

The 46th Street Clubhouse has been on the third floor of 252 West 46th St. for 16 years. Prior to 2020, the Clubhouse was hosting over 70 meetings a week.

About 150 people came through the Clubhouse doors every day, Baca said, attending all sorts of addiction support meetings, dinners and other events centered around sobriety.

But like addiction, the Clubhouse was never a strictly formal arrangement with regular working hours — it was also known for being a welcoming refuge for people needing help.

Baca would regularly hear knocks on the door — even when the clubhouse was closed — from people just desperate to get off the streets, looking for someone to talk to.

"If I look through the peephole and I have a sense I can trust the person on the other side," he said,"I'll let them in and talk with them for hours."

After re-opening from the state-mandated pandemic closures in 2021, Baca knew people were eager for a place to meet in person again, though new rules about masking and vaccination cards made the clubhouse's own road to recovery specifically arduous.

"It's a difficult group to work with — the addicts and alcoholics," Baca said, "self-centered to the extreme, and then you tell them you gotta show your vaccination card and wear their masks — all that politics... that was a big problem."

"But what a luxury that'd be today," Baca said.

'Unreal' noise

About a year ago, the Clubhouse was starting to rise back from the depths of the pandemic.

"There was a period where we had reopened, before the construction had started, when our attendance was good," Baca said.

By September 2022, the Clubhouse recovery was graining steam, hosting about 50 meetings a week.

But suddenly, the excavation work at a major work site immediately next door — a massive 1,000-foot-tall tower capped with a controversial amusement park-style ride — made the Clubhouse's recovery nearly impossible.

"We were caught by surprise with the hotel," Baca told Patch.

"When they really went into full gear, that's when all of us realized what we're going to have to be living with," he said. "That noise is just unbelievable."

The disruptive noises from workers and machines pummeling through shale and granite bedrock, Baca said, made it totally impossible to facilitate the quiet setting and intimacy needed for the one-at-a-time vulnerable sharing that typifies an AA meeting.

His two neighbors in the building, a ground-floor Irish pub and a tattoo parlor, both closed shortly after the work started due to the noise, Baca said.

"It was like there was a jackhammer in here," he said. "The noise was unreal."

Word traveled fast that the Clubhouse was not a conducive place to meet, Baca said, and suddenly, the Clubhouse was closed once again.

That's what we do here

But nearly 40 years of sobriety taught Baca to never give up. And for the Clubhouse, he never did.

When the 46th Street Clubhouse shuttered once again, he started to look into soundproofing the walls facing the construction site.

"Whatever prudent reserves we had in our bank account, we used it to soundproof the place," Baca said.

The drywall was taken down and replaced, and new, heavy-duty soundproof windows were installed.

"It makes the room comfortable, but it doesn't make it quiet," he said of the work, which cost around $40,000. "It's possible to have some kind of activity, but when it's just one person speaking and sharing," typical of standard 12-step AA meetings, "it doesn't work."

Eventually, Baca figured out the site's work schedule and was able to hold meetings on Wednesday afternoons and on Sundays when the construction was quieter— about 11 total per week.

That hasn't been enough to keep the Clubhouse afloat.

"We're self-supporting through our own contributions," Baca said. "Going from 70 meetings a week to 11 — there's just not any revenue. So we kept falling further and further behind."

The landlord has been understanding and patient, Baca says, but he's six months behind on rent and was told to move out by Oct. 31.

A farewell party a week earlier in the month was "packed," Baca said.

"People love this place," he said.

Still not one to give up, Baca says he's working with a pro bono legal team to try to figure out a solution with their loud neighbor.

So far, none has been found.

"In our program, we do believe in miracles," Baca said.

Even with the doom and gloom on the horizon, the Clubhouse is still helping those most desperate to get and stay sober.

Like a man who Baca said recently came out from California to care for his dying mother in a Manhattan hospital, spending nights sleeping on the floor of her inpatient room until she died just a week ago.

He's also newly sober, Baca said, and was referred to the clubhouse as he struggled to remain that way during a difficult time.

Now it's where he now spends most of his time while in New York City.

"He's a really nice guy, he's counting days," Baca said, "he's got about 32 days now."

"We've always had people just come in to get off the streets," Baca said. "That's just what we do here."