Park Hotel-YMCA: Axis of Gentrification?

I couldn't help but wonder if there are dots to connect between Assemblyman Jerry Green's effort to shut down the Park Hotel and recent changes at the YMCA.

I have always marveled that Plainfield has been able -- in spite of radical changes in membership patterns -- to maintain a viable local YWCA and YMCA. This must surely be an outstanding acheivement, when you think that very large Ys, such as Newark's, have had to merge to stay viable.

But viability hasn't come without its costs: These present-day incarnations bear little resemblance to the Ys of yore, which were supported by membership fees, residential rental income and generous 'alumni' and board members.

Today's Ys are much more likely to be dependent to a large degree on grant-driven programs aiding targeted segments of the community.

The YWCA, for example, opened a spectacular new early childhood learning center in a new addition to its historic East Front street building. It has also worked for years to build up its co-ed health club and is in the midst of refurbishing its theater space, which could make the YW a cultural destination.

At the YMCA, things have played out somewhat differently.

Over 20 years ago, the YMCA decided to take on being an emergency shelter. Through grants and fee-based services (paid by social service agencies, including the County Welfare department), the emergency shelter has become one of the most important such in Union County, part of a large network providing essential emergency housing services to County residents who are down on their luck.

The YMCA's health club seems not to have been much of an income generator, and the facilities and equipment were decidedly passé when the new executive director, Addy Bonet, arrived, replacing longtime director Ray Day.

To her credit, Bonet realized the situation with the building was critical and set about reorganizing, refurbishing and updating the facility and its equipment.

Some of the cost appears to have been covered by liquidating one of the YM's assets, a professional property across from Plainfield High School donated to it a number of years ago by a generous board member, Dr. Jerry Wolfe.

With the loss of the emergency shelter's longtime director, Roni Taylor, some are beginning to wonder if the YMCA, with its spiffy new interiors and highly visible wellness center spaces, is preparing to refocus and abandon its 'urban' service-driven format for the more 'suburban' wellness-center-driven model.

This would be an audacious gamble, given that there does not seem to be either a long-term board-developed strategic plan, or marketing or capital campaign feasibility studies.

All of this reminds me of the days I lived in Brooklyn's then somewhat grungy Boerum Hill neighborhood. With a walkup in the upper floors of a brownstone on what was called 'Hairdressers Row', I could walk around the corner to the coed health club I belonged to at the YWCA on Atlantic Avenue. If I turned left at the corner, I would pass the NYC Board of Ed headquarters at 110 Livingston Street.

Today, the kinds of people I lived among -- office workers, teachers, and social service professionals -- are long gone, priced out by the uncontrolled gentrification that overtook the neighborhood. The BOE headquarters is now very pricy upscale condos.

How will the gambles being made in Plainfield play out?

-- Dan Damon

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