Donald Trump wants to make one thing crystal-clear about his offer to reopen Tavern on the Green:
“Without a new Crystal Room, you’d have 30 seats,” he told us. “I’d have no interest in that at all.” He meant that not being allowed to replace Tavern’s glass-wrapped, signature dining space, now demolished, would be a dealbreaker for a deal with the city he doesn’t yet even have.
Before architectural purists who hated the Crystal Room scream, the last thing Trump has in mind is to re-create the pavillion Warner LeRoy built in the 1970s.
“It worked well from inside, but wasn’t good-looking from outside,” he acknowledged. “We’d do something in keeping with the original brick structures.” He said he’s already talked to design firms known for sensitive historic preservation, including class-of-the-field Beyer Blinder Belle.
Tavern was immensely popular and most New Yorkers want it back despite its tourist-trap reputation. Trump’s proposal out of the blue put Mayor Bloomberg on the spot — and on the defensive.
But, like it or not, Bloomberg is likely to seriously entertain Trump’s proposal, which is based on a prospective agreement Trump has with Local 6 union leader Peter Ward — a political ally of Bloomberg, and a man regarded by some as having had as much say in running Tavern as previous operator Jennifer LeRoy.
Far from being a publicity stunt, the Trump-Ward contract “wasn’t easy,” Trump said. “It took six months” during which each side was ready to walk away, “but we ended up making a deal.” The question is whether Bloomberg will go for it after the city’s prolonged campaign to replace LeRoy ended up with no Tavern at all.
Among a score of complex issues, the most contentious might be over whether to allow a new building to be linked to the 19th Century sheepfold structure that housed the original restaurant in pre-Leroy times. A recent column in the Times hailed the Crystal Room’s demolition as a great feat of “restoration” and seemed almost eager to bring the sheep back.
In giving the Trump-Ward pitch a frosty reception, Bloomberg said he’d have to ask the Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit organization that helps run the park. Yesterday, Conservancy president Doug Blonsky, asked to comment on where it stood on a new Crystal Room, stated, “The Central Park Conservancy supports City Hall’s efforts to ensure that the site is a great destination within the park.”
But Trump said that to justify the $20 million-plus he’d need to invest, a new Crystal Room “would need to be the same size” as the old one, which had nearly half of Tavern’s 800 dining seats (as opposed to banquet space) and generated the lion’s share of Tavern’s revenue, once the highest in the country.
Ward seemed to leave a little wiggle room on that score. “Donald has told me repeatedly that below a certain number of square feet, it doesn’t make sense for him,” he said.
“We’d like to see it restored to what it was, optimally with the original number of seats. But unless I know exactly what the RFP [request for proposals] is, it’s impossible to make a determination about whether the former employees should go back.
“Perhaps there’s a restaurant that creates 200 jobs rather than 400. I’d reserve judgment.” He added that aside from the question of size, “If you have an operation where the price point is $5, it’s not going to support a union contract.”
It was an obvious reference to Bloomberg’s praise for Madison Square Park’s Shake Shack last week, when he questioned the need for a large, fancy restaurant in today’s safe and popular Central Park. It seemed an odd reversal, given that the city had tapped Boathouse operator Dean Poll to replace LeRoy on the basis of an elaborate, $25 million redesign that would have left Tavern about as big as the old one.
And what RFP did Ward mean? It was suggested last week that a loophole in the City Charter might allow the city merely to substitute the Trump proposal for Poll’s, which would eliminate the cumbersome RFP process — which last time drew only three responses, including Poll’s and LeRoy’s.
But Ward now says, “The more I look at it, the more I think the RFP is the most likely way.”
Tavern’s future was left in limbo last year when Bloomberg pulled the plug on floundering talks between Poll and Local 6.
Soon after, the city razed the Crystal Room and “replaced” Tavern with four food trucks in the Tavern courtyard and a “visitors’ center.”
Trump said Bloomberg “is an excellent mayor and I like him a lot.” Ward said, “The mayor obviously has to be thoughtful about what he wants to do. I respect that he has to go through a process before making a decision.”