Village outrage over NYU building project

When NYU decided last year to demolish much of the Provincetown Playhouse in order to create space for the NYU School of Law's research centers, it promised the community it would preserve the walls and facade of the theater.

Now, some think NYU has broken that promise after large holes were found in one wall of the playhouse.

"We are very disturbed by this because NYU made the promise that they were going to keep these walls up," said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation. "They not only said that they would be preserving them, they claimed that they had done a thorough evaluation of the entire building."

According to Alicia Hurley, NYU's vice president for government relations and community engagement, the wall needed to be partially demolished because it was unstable and unsafe. NYU was unaware that the wall was unstable until after construction began, Hurley said.

Some community members do not accept Hurley's explanation.

Judith Callet, a New York resident since 1972, lives on Bleecker Street near Provincetown Playhouse.

"NYU has a lot of money, and they hire a lot of good architects," Callet said. "They should have known right then and there that this was going to be a problem."

Callet was also outraged that no one from NYU notified the community about the hole in the wall.

"They tried to conceal it," she said. "A lot of people are angry that they did not come to the task force, that they did not come to the community. They thought they would get away with it."

Hurley said this was a "huge oversight." She said her office should have alerted the community.

"I have been all over my team to make sure something like this doesn't happen again," she said.

But Hurley believes that NYU deserves credit for modifying its construction project for the community and maintaining the theater.

"This could have been a 10-story building," she said. "This is the first time the university said we're not going to build as much as we can. The university didn't have to … keep a working theater on this site. Their lawyers don't need theaters, so this is a huge thing."

Hurley is optimistic about the project.

"I think the community has really embraced it," she said.

Berman disagrees with Hurley's assessment.

"The response from the community has pretty unanimously been outrage and deep disappointment," Berman said. "You would be hard-pressed to find anybody involved ... who is anything less then deeply unhappy."

Samantha Cook is a staff writer.