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HARLEM COMMUNITY FIGHTS TO SAVE ITS TENNIS CENTER
Due to an ambitious proposal by the Police Athletic League (PAL), with funding provided by the NYC Budget, the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), and the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ), the Harlem Community is in jeopardy of losing forever its cherished HARLEM TENNIS CENTER with eight (8) indoor tennis courts.
Tennis Playing in Harlem is not an oxymoron! There is a long and storied tradition of people playing tennis in Harlem. The HARLEM TENNIS CENTER, located at the 369th Regiment Armory, is a large part of that tradition. For more than 50 years, famous and not so famous tennis players have served aces and hit forehands and backhands on the eight (8) tennis courts on the floor of the 369th Regiment Armory, located at 2366 Fifth Avenue (between 142nd Street and 143rd Street), affectionately called "the armory."
The Friends of Harlem Tennis Center, a group formed to stop the displacement of tennis in the Harlem community, has served notice that it is committed to saving the Harlem Tennis Center. The community was not consulted and only learned of the plans to displace the HARLEM TENNIS CENTER when the Division of Military and Naval Affairs (DMNA) informed the current lease holders, the HARLEM TENNIS CENTER, that the lease would not be renewed after this season.
The proposed facility that PAL wants to construct would be primarily dedicated to basketball. In the ten block neighborhood immediately encompassing the area in which the armory is located, there are 11 organizations and sports facilities with programs similar in scope to those that PAL is proposing to implement.
In addition, there is the huge Riverbank State Park Sports Complex 6 blocks west of the proposed PAL facility, the new site of the M.L. Wilson Boys and Girls Club 4 blocks west of the site, and the $7 million indoor sports complex that is breaking ground imminently at the Polo Grounds, which is 10 blocks north of the armory where PAL plans its facility.
The Friends of Harlem Tennis Center feels that the program proposed by PAL is redundant to those already in the neighborhood and is adamant that it should not displace the only indoor tennis facility in upper Manhattan. The Harlem Tennis Center is a multi-generational 7-days-a-week institution that caters to all age groups. It is home to the Harlem Junior Tennis Program as well as 13 other junior programs and 24 adult and senior programs.
The Friends of Harlem Tennis Center has embarked on a letter-writing campaign to educate and inform others of its plight. It has requested that the Division of Military and Naval Affairs (DMNA) hold in abeyance the signing of the lease by PAL et al, until the DMNA has met with the Friends of Harlem Tennis Center and resident members of the Harlem community.
Click here to visit the Harlem Tennis Center (HTC) home page.