Go away the patriotic youngsters alone!
Metropolis Council Speaker Julie Menin put the party-loving bigwigs on the Park Avenue Armory on blast over their “ill-advised” lawsuit to evict a baby cadet group from its historic assembly place.
The Knickerbocker Greys have been headquartered within the Higher East Facet armory since 1902, when Theodore Roosevelt was president.
“The Conservancy is meant to preserve the Armory’s historical past, not chase it away,” Menin and Councilwoman Virginia Maloney stated in a scathing letter despatched Monday to Seventh Regiment Armory Conservancy President Rebecca Robertson.
The nonprofit Park Avenue Armory has obtained $25 million in metropolis cultural funds over time, the council members famous.
The armory leases the property from the state — and lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul even authorized a legislation in 2024 to forestall the Knickerbocker Greys from being evicted.
However the armory executives then filed a “tone-deaf” federal lawsuit to overturn it, the council members fumed
The Greys have been preventing eviction from their headquarters — an 800-square-foot area within the sprawling 200,000-square foot facility — because the conservancy claims it wants the area for a deliberate renovation.
“Allow us to be clear: the tried eviction of the Greys makes zero authorized or sensible sense and has sadly tarnished the Conservancy’s status,” stated the lawmakers, who each characterize components of the Higher East Facet.
The Put up beforehand reported the nonprofit has been utilizing the 146-year-old constructing to host unique affairs like trend exhibits by Giorgio Armani, Marc Jacobs and Oscar de la Renta. It has additionally been the positioning of after-parties with movie star visitor lists that embody the likes of Beyoncé, Victoria Beckham and Orlando Bloom.
Menin and Maloney famous the armory is making an attempt as well the children whereas rubbing elbows with excessive society.
The conservancy holds a 99-year lease of the Armory that it obtained in 2006 from the New York State Empire State Improvement Company.
The lease features a provision requiring the conservancy to assist “interpretive and/or academic packages associated to the social aesthetic, and army historical past of the [Armory] and different matters to the extent practicable” and to usually serve the general public good as a tax-exempt nonprofit group.
The Greys occupy a small area within the basement, however the armory claims they now not “slot in” with the group’s “arts-related” and “cultural” packages, in keeping with the council members.
“The Conservancy claims it can not correctly renovate the Armory and fulfill its cultural mission with out stopping the Greys from occupying only a few hundred of the Armory’s 100,000 sq. toes of usable area. This declare strains credulity,” Menin and Maloney stated within the letter.
The Greys can argue at trial that their use of “lower than 1%” of this “multi-story, Metropolis block-sized facility” won’t intrude with the conservancy’s means to make use of the armory, the council members stated.
“Rely us among the many satisfied,” Menin and Maloney stated.
Within the meantime, the Greys ought to be allowed to renew their courses and drill classes, they argued.
“Given beneficiant taxpayer funding for the Armory and widespread public assist for the Greys, it could be clever and appreciated for the Conservancy to reassess its place,” the lawmakers stated. “This dispute between two native charities ought to by no means have devolved into expensive, prolonged litigation.”
A lawyer representing the Knickerbocker Greys welcomed the council members’ assist.
“It’s a strong, pointed, very wise letter. It’s by no means too late for the Conservancy board to alter course and drop these wasteful, mindless fits,” stated Knickerbocker Greys counsel Howard Rogatnick.
The Seventh Regiment Armory Conservancy/Park Avenue Armory had no speedy remark.
