Neighbors around NYU have discovered that the
university surreptitiously demolished part of a wall of the historic
Provincetown Playhouse, which it was attempting to preserve while
building a new structure around it. The project supervisors Andrew
Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for
Historic Preservation, and Scott Stringer, Manhattan Borough President,
are irate.Alicia Hurley, NYU vice president for government and community engagement, blames the debacle on a lack of communication. She says her office messed up, and that she only found out about the removal last Thursday. And it took her how long to tell Berman and Stringer? Oh wait... she didn't. Hurley justifies the partial demolition by saying the wall was composed of rubble and was therefore unstable. Sounds like someone's been watching too much Destroy Build Destroy.
The demolition has larger implications than simply the preservation of a historical building, which, by the way, is where Nobel laureate Eugene O'Neill put on his plays in the early 20th century. Berman and Stringer are saying that NYU lied to them. Again.
“Since the adoption of the planning principles, NYU has embarked on a new path of transparency and dialogue with neighbors,” Stringer says. “The question for NYU now is — do you want to go back to the old NYU or continue on the new path where transparency is part of the lexicon?”
Berman had some choice words of his own: “What’s unfortunate and clear is that NYU has yet again been caught in a lie, the lie that they would preserve the walls of the theater in their entirety.”
It's a drama O'Neill would have been proud to write.
anonymous
