NYCHA's "NextGen Neighborhood" Towers & the Fate of the "White House"

      In a previous post I discussed the city's plan to demolish the LaGuardia Bathhouse building, one of the oldest public baths in NYC, an attempt in-part to save face in the wake of the recently unveiled plans to raise the East River Park. I anticipate similar news for the "White House", the former Rivington Street Public Baths, which sits squatly in the middle of the Baruch Houses, maybe a 15 minute walk from the LaGuardia Bathhouse building. 

      A short history: At 118 years old, the Baruch Bathhouse building is not only the oldest public bathhouse in the city, but also the first of its kind to be opened in New York. It's namesake, Dr. Simon Baruch, was an Eastern European Jew who moved to South Carolina in 1855 (at 15 years old) to live with, and work for, a wealthy German-Jewish family. After receiving his medical degree in 1862, Baruch served as a surgeon in the f*cking Confederate army (even treating soldiers for weeks after the defeat at Gettysburg). After traveling to New York to work at clinics throughout the city in the years following the Civil War, Baruch eventually moved his family to Manhattan in the 1880's, becoming a pioneer in hydrotherapy practices -- eventually getting the State to pass a law mandating free public baths for any city with a population greater than 50,000. In 1901, the first free public bathhouse was opened at what was then 326 Rivington Street. Baruch went on to help open numbers of other bathhouses throughout the city, with the Rivington Street Public Baths continuing to operate for decades afterwards. By the late 1960's the bathhouse had been converted into a recreational and community center, until it was closed by the city in 1975 with the promise to reopen it when they could afford it. 

      For the 44 years since the building was abandoned, the city has maintained their inability to re-open or convert the space, and in 2001 sent in a team of inspectors which, unsurprisingly, declared the building beyond repair and suggested it be demolished. The building has remained standing despite this condemnation, and in March 2018 the city began working with CB3 to collect proposals for the re-development of the former bathhouse. This past October the parks department met again with the community board to discuss these plans; however, I cannot find any information on the outcome of this meeting or on progress since then. 

      To provide some background, in the beginning of 2013, Bloomberg's last year in office, the city announced their plans to raise funds by leasing "unused" NYCHA land (ya know, like playgrounds and parking lots) to private developers for the purpose of constructing luxury housing, 80% of which would be at market-rate. Three of the original sites for this "mixed-income" housing were in the LES; within or next to the Smith, LaGuardia, and Baruch Houses. In 2015, NYCHA officially announced its "NextGen Neighborhoods" plan for public housing in the city –– part of the new DeBlasio administration's 10-year re-imagination of public housing in the city, largely a continuation of the previous administration's vision. While the city has moved forward with "NextGen" towers at other NYCHA sites, it was only on March 1, 2018 that NYCHA released a "Request for Proposals" for the first of the sites on the LES, encouraging developers to submit their plans for a new luxury tower  in the LaGuardia Houses complex, adjacent to the Little Flowers Playground (the same playground next to which the LaGuardia Bathhouse sits).

      This next part is purely conjecture; however, I feel I must point out the relationship between the city's recent impetus to demolish the LaGuardia Bathhouse and its project of transforming LaGuardia Houses for the "NextGen" ––  if the demolition of the LaGuardia Bathhouse is in part preparation for this "mixed income" redevelopment, than does the fate of the Baruch Bathhouse serve as a similar indication for the long-floated plans for a luxury tower at the site of a parking lot at the North edge of Baruch Houses? In my mind, whether the "White House" is demolished, restored, or redeveloped, I fear it may become a bargaining chip in the dispossession of public land.