Well, this could be good news for some nostalgic New Yorkers--or more correctly, for dreamy-eyed tourists who considered the now-closed Tavern on the Green restaurant in Central Park to be "real New York".
According to the New York Post Donald Trump to ask City to allow him to reopen Tavern on the Green - NYPOST.com the indomitable Donald Trump has once again ridden to the rescue of a bedraggled Central Park landmark (as he very prominently did in the 80's with the Wollman Skating Rink, which had fallen into disgraceful ruin under the Koch administration's bungling). The Donald is proposing taking over TOtG, which is currently being used as a makeshift "tourist center," after Mayor Michael Bloomberg, exercising a personal vendetta, basically drove the former long-time proprietors, The LeRoy Family, out of business. Granted, the restaurant was inexplicably in bankruptcy, despite being the "most profitable restaurant in the world," so there was clearly something fishy going on behind the scenes. One of the main sticking points in reviving the restaurant under new proprietorship has been the iron-clad union contracts with the Hotel and Motel Trades Council union. Trump claims to have loosed the logjam and is prepared to put up $20 million to make the landmark "more beautiful than it ever was in the past," as he put it in his usual understated fashion.
I, for one, am very heartened to hear this news. It's tough to find any Manhattan resident who will admit to being sad to see it gone. "A tourist trap with over-priced, lousy food," would be a typical New Yorker's review. But I always felt there was something really enchanting about the place. Not so much in the gaudy "Crystal Room" inside, but outside, on the patio beneath the thousands of twinkling lights and Chinese lanterns in the towering London Plane trees. On certain summer nights, they'd have live music and a dance floor overlooking the verdant Sheep's Meadow....well, one would be hard-pressed to imagine a more romantic setting than that. So, if he's sincere--and it seems that, in his own way, he is--perhaps we'll have Tavern on the Green back, and soon (he's saying he can get it all done in less than a year). Then maybe, while he's at it, he can somehow resurrect The Rainbow Room and Café des Artistes, too? New York could use some "white knight" action...and like him or not, we've got The Donald.
