After six months of negotiations between the restaurateur who won the bid to operate Tavern on the Green, and the labor union that represents the shuttered tourist trap's 400 former employees, the would-be operator has walked away from the project, the AP reports. Now what will become of "that always overcrowded café to whose allure all visitors to the park would eventually succumb on even the nicest days, despite the well-known quality of its ambiance and food," as Wallace Shawn put it in a thinly-veiled allusion to Tavern. Two words: Snack bar!
In a statement, Mayor Bloomberg said, "We’ll solicit new proposals with labor obligations from anyone that wants to re-open it as a restaurant. During that period, which will last several months, we’ll use the venue as a visitor center and snack bar, similar to the successful Central Park Dairy, and also a retail shop." Now that Dean Poll (who runs the non-union Central Park Boathouse and last August won the lease to Tavern) has pulled out, it looks like Donald Trump may step in. The ever-altruistic developer tells Diner's Journal, "If I could help the city and the city wanted me to get involved, I could be open. It really is a special place. Only a person with a lot of money can rebuild and resurrect Tavern. And I have a lot of money."
The union had threatened to picket Poll if he didn't renew the workers' contracts to their liking. After negotiations at Gracie Mansion finally collapsed yesterday, union president Peter Ward told the Post, "I am 100 percent sure that we will have no trouble dealing with a sophisticated operator who doesn't have an ideological bent against the union and who recognizes that we can have a constructive relationship." In the meantime, the snack bar will most likely by employees of the city or of the Central Park Conservancy.
