Serving the Rich: The Washington Y
Levine, Arthur
Serving the Rich: The Washington Y by Arthur Levine All I wanted was to become part of the physical elite. You can spot them everywhere these days, flaunting their good health and superior...
...Some of Banzhaf‘s students plan to challenge the Y’s tax-exempt status in a soon-to-be-filed law suit...
...I wanted to know if we could go down and look at the pool and the basketball courts, and they wouldn’t let us...
...But what is the YMCA doing comparing itself to country clubs...
...The consultants also would h a v e recommended full family memberships, but that was reversed after their study showed that only 30 per cent of area residents had incomes over $15,000...
...After all, Hargrave didn’t become the leader of the “prototype Y of the future ” or get access to the “top echelon of people” by refurbishing some drafty old gym...
...Flags with YMCA insignia hung down from a two-story ceiling...
...In one letter to Wilson, Hargrave said: “This is to assure you that a major priority of the proposed Metro Center [Y] will be services to families and youth,” and Wilson so testified, referring to the letter, at a city zoning board hearing in February, 1976...
...Well, I told myself reluctantly, there’s no reason to be piggish about luxury if all I want to do is work out...
...It should be no strain on their athletic facilities, which are empty so much of the time...
...We’ve got a mortgage to pay off...
...In 1974, after doing a feasibility study, the decision was made to abandon plans for renovating the old Y and to build a new facility instead, in a different location...
...Calculating quickly, I realized that came to $745 for the first year...
...My convenient gym would also have to be a very affordable one...
...Ask Nathaniel Parker...
...There were expensive health clubs in Washington, of course, but I didn’t need their carpets and mirrors...
...For what they found (and what 1 found) was not a Y at all, at least not the Y they had known in the past, but something else entirely...
...Unfortunately for the men in that last category, there was a long waiting list...
...Administrative offices are housed there for all of the metropolitan association’s 13 branches and for its residence camp near Annapolis...
...It has only 250 paid members, but serves many area residents free...
...What it really boils down to, though, is money...
...As Banzhaf puts it, “Serve the rich, and the rich will in turn help the poor...
...Hargrave says (with a straight face), “People accuse us of charging countryclub prices...
...It was virtually empty-there were maybe ten men inside, almost all of them whitebut the place had the comfort of a professional locker room...
...Serving the Rich: The Washington Y by Arthur Levine All I wanted was to become part of the physical elite...
...You can spot them everywhere these days, flaunting their good health and superior bodies...
...Fortunately, a new Y had Arrhur Levine is a conrribuiing editor of The Washington Monthly...
...Oh no,” she thought to herself, “here we go again...
...Parker is a black, 16-year-old high school student from the neighborhood who, along with a friend, visited the Y this past summer soon after it had opened...
...Another is that the Y’s the best bargain in town when measured in square feet...
...An up-to-date knowledge of tax laws, proper methods of ownership, insurance and trusts is essential to help save money and insure that we keep what we save...
...In contrast to Hargrave’s suite, with its paintings and blue cushioned sofas, the staff here has to make do with a few battered metal desks and a plug-in electric heater...
...One consultant study prepared for the Y prior to construction said that they should expect to lose half of the old Central Branch members...
...No,” he said...
...There’s a particularly classless quality to our image of the Y. Sharing the same gym or pool or weight room are young workers, teenagers, businessmen, pensioners...
...Slumped against a far wall was one young white man in a sweat suit, legs extended, a basketball between his knees...
...One sign of the times is the kind of special programs offered there...
...The nostalgia increased when the old members confronted the new facility...
...PRESERVING ASSETS...
...So for now, 1 wander about looking for a place to exercise...
...No doubt the YMCA leadership there has found ways to justify their new hotel...
...This 25-meter pool seemed to beckon me with its clear, seductive water...
...Contributions to the Art Levine YMCA Fund should be sent c/o The Washington Monthly...
...It has such an exclusive air, like it’s geared only to male heart attack prevention,” she says...
...Some of us also know it for the social services it offers-counseling, adult education, job-training...
...When a fundraising drive was held, it raised $700,000 in large part because c o n t r i b u t o r s could deduct the contributions from their income taxes...
...If they cared to broaden their service a r e a , they would find thousands more...
...Hargrave and the Y’s directors continue to defend their high prices and lavish facilities with arguments that become increasingly absurd...
...It’s those who depend on places like the Y for recreational facilities who are left stranded...
...The most important promises were made to a city councilman, John Wilson, who reversed his earlier opposition to the new Y on the basis of what he heard from Hargrave...
...On the fourth floor, I had a look at the Y’s cardiovascular fitness testing center...
...Upscale Movement The high prices have changed the very tone of the new YMCA...
...Her husband was with the State Department then, and she would spend the hot mornings swimming in the pool of the Hotel Indonesia, the place where all the rich white Westerders stayed...
...But for now, Hargrave, who is black himself, should be thinking about ways to help the old Y. He could start by selling off one of his office’s wood-and-leather lounge chairs to replace a few broken windows in the Anthony Bowen gym...
...And the well-to-do, it often turns out, are so much more pleasant to deal with...
...Soon, 1 was overwhelmed with a desire to swim...
...They always do...
...That was the cost of dues for the “Athletic Center Membership,” the t o p - o f - t h e - l i n e c a t e g o r y . These members get full use of all recreational facilities, the locker room with the attendants, and the extra goodies, like s a u n a s and s t e a m r o o m s . The initiation fee was $250...
...To prove his point, he later sent me a list of Washington country-club prices underlined in red, with a note attached that said, “Let it never be said the YMCA charges country club rates...
...For roughly $150, I would be able to use the gym after 7:OO...
...We think of it as a plain brick building somewhere in town, with a gym and a pool, rooms to rent, a cafeteria perhaps, some programs for kids...
...You go up the 14th Street ghetto corridor to get to the Anthony Bowen Y, past rotted-out housing and the junkies looking to score...
...As a charitable organization, it has certain public obligations that should be fulfilled if we are to continue paying its bills...
...As an apparent result of the study, Y officials decided to target in exclusively on downtown workers earning high salaries...
...After 43 people were evicted and five townhouses razed to make way for the new building, the Y was never asked to pay the $123,000 in property taxes someone else would have had to pay for the site...
...The new Y, she said, reminded her of her family’s stay in Jakarta a few years ago...
...I t is, in miniature, a particularly ludicrous example of an attitude that’s so widespread today...
...I’djust take one of the economy memberships 1 had heard about...
...What I saw was a long way from the traditional Y. The new, red brick building cost $6.5 million, and it looks it...
...This never would have happened at the old Central Branch Y.” There’s a big problem here, of course: the new Y has fallen victim to the trickle-down theory of social services...
...In their yearning for this new Y, YMCA administrators were willing to make promises they had no intention of keeping and to use rationales so tenuous it strains all credulity to imagine that even they believed them...
...They pay their bills, their problems can be s o l v e d , t h e y make g o o d lunch companions...
...Like many service organizations in America, the Y is changing in ways that are disturbing...
...Back again in America, she swam during the summer at the Y’s new pool, and as she did her backstrokes, she would look up and see the row of little black kids on the sidewalk, staring through the windows at the pool below...
...Most of its funds come from the United Way and contributions-not membership fees...
...This old Y, decrepit though it is, is the only branch now left in the city that is doing what a YMCA is supposed to do...
...But the real reason for the no-kids policy is undoubtedly a desire to placate and attract their high-priced clientele...
...And that’s because we have different resources to work with...
...I m sorry,” my guide said, “those memberships were filled a long time ago...
...A door punctured with holes opens into a tiny battered gym, where .school children are playing ball...
...The new Y thoughtfully replaces that with a referral service and, in the near future, symbolic gifts that immigrants can gaze at while trying to find a place to stay...
...At the time, Hargrave promised the community and political leaders that the new Y would do all the things it is not doing now...
...Yes, I was ready to join the Y. Then 1 looked at the prices...
...Thus, when the old property was sold for $5 million, the Y pocketed the full amount without paying a penny in taxes...
...But when the YMCA was seeking funds and political support for the new facility, they stressed how the place would be open to all, milking the tradition of the Y for all it was worth...
...More than any other reason, that is why all that money lavished on the National Capital YMCA is such an outrage...
...And that would be disastrous-think of all the highpriced memberships that would be lost...
...One fund-raising film, for example, highlighted the Y’s commitment to youth, older people and immigrants, including poignant shots of children being counseled or at The new Y isn’t totally devoid of kids’ programs, it should be said...
...I don’t see why they call it a YMCA...
...The figure $495.00 leaped off the page...
...In the lobby, I picked up a few brochures from a table, but before scanning them, I gazed through the picture window at the cavernous swimming pool below me...
...But London, apparently, has gone the way of Washington...
...And this past summer, children at a Y-run day camp in the southeast section of the city were bused in to swim a few mornings a week...
...Still, I ask no pity...
...Before the Y came in, the kids were getting all excited about the new basketball courts they were going to have there...
...It stands as a rebuke as well to the glib advocates of the trickle-down theories...
...It was not built as a children’s Y.” Within a six-block radius, he says, there are less than 2,000 children...
...It had an EKG machine and treadmills and resembled nothing so much as a hospital lab...
...This includes a “Hall of Nations” that will soon house over 20 gifts from Ys around the world...
...Most of all, we think of it as a kind of outpost of opportunity, a place where the American dream can be given a start...
...The irony, of course, is that the affluent businessmen and government workers who use the new Y a l r e a d y have spas and government gyms they can afford...
...In addition, their soup kitchens could be upgraded to serve gourmet cheeses and gazpacho, while also raising prices to gourmet levels...
...That Y has always meant something special to Americans...
...Only later did I realize that there was no category at all for the people under 18 the YMCA was ostensibly in business to serve...
...The impression that help was on the way was reinforced by a picture of the old facility and the heartening caption: “The Anthony Bowen branch will be upgraded with p r o f i t s from the downtown Y.” Who could argue with such a beneficial application of trickledown economics...
...We couldn’t wait to see them...
...In the lobby there are paintings and plush carpeting-and an eerie quiet...
...In nearby suburban Maryland, the Y’s Bethesda branch has been able to mix services to a d u l t s , y o u t h and community members in a way that downtown Y officials view as financially impossible and unnecessary...
...Alaire Rieffel, a civic activist who joined the Y, says now: “I’ve been very appalled at the lack of response to young people...
...opened here in late April...
...You may come in for a nice facility,” Hargrave said, “We’re saying you’re joining a fellowship of Christian men...
...These last topics, no doubt, were meant as a subtle encouragement to the members...
...And by the 1970s it had money problems as well: deficits, declining membership, rising costs...
...I’d have to sell quite a few articles on the new Y before 1 could afford to join it...
...Well, you might ask, how does this new YMCA for wealthy adults meet the Y’s professed goal of “strengthening family structure”or changing the “conditions that foster alienation, delinquency and crime...
...Y officials insist the new Y has not lost the ideals of the organization founded in the mid- 1800s to foster “the improvement of the spiritual .and mental conditions of young men...
...Washington Y executives offer several arguments to justify their policy of keeping kids out of the Y. They insist that their own feasibility studies showed that there weren’t that many local residents who could be served by a downtown Y, so it had to be geared to the downtown businessmen...
...In their desire for a spanking new building, with plush comfort, high prices, and no kids, the people who run the Y in Washington were perfectly willing to abandon the ideals of the their organization, while keeping the tax exemptions that had been granted them precisely because of those ideals...
...The board’s decision tells us a lot about how institutions lose sight of their goals...
...There were other categories available, but they were of little use to me and many others...
...A member showed me a list of countryclub dues and initiation fees the other day, and I was completely bowled over...
...And not a soul in sight...
...To the right of the massage tables was the lounge, complete with Sony color TV...
...Long-term friendships were formed on the volleyball or squash or basketball courts...
...It certainly wasn’t the Y I had grown up with...
...Is running a health spa for the rich unrelated to the stated purpose of the Y? There are a lot of angry people who think so...
...But that too was more than I could afford at $525 the first year...
...The Y’s promises seem pretty hollow today...
...If that drive isn’t successful, as was the case with a similar 1973 fundraising campaign, the Bowen branch will have to scrape by as it does now...
...Eventually, perhaps, the Anthony Bowen branch may benefit from the contributions raised from middle-aged businessmen steaming off pounds in their private saunas...
...I just wanted the kind of simple no-frills facilities the Y traditionally has offered...
...But the Y is, in its own view, “an ecumenical, multi-service agency,” t h a t gets p u b l i c s u b s i d i e s , tax exemptions, and non-profit status allowing it to accept contributions from other charitable foundations...
...The final rationale offered by Y officials for the high prices is the hope of attracting affluent volunteers to their charitable works...
...The board is elected at an annual meeting drawn from the most active volunteers a t the local branches-predominantly affluent businessmen and professionals...
...Answers IO last month j. puzzle...
...She could look over as she did her laps and see the hungry children peering at her through a flimsy chain-link fence...
...One was a $12 membership that allowed you only to take classes...
...They’re trying to sell it as a country club,” says one suburban YMCA worker about the downtown Y. “As long as we keep the kids out of the white businessmen’s faces, everyone will be happy...
...There were also daily or three-month memberships available...
...For him, and the rest of the kids in the neighborhood, even if they were old enough to join, the prices would be prohibitive...
...All 1 could see was one elderly gentleman with goggles, swimming his allotted laps, as a young lifeguard stood watch off in the distance...
...Hargrave asks, noting the cost of supervision, separate lockers, and other changes that he claims would be necessitated by having kids in the building...
...Some people have trouble with the fees,” my guide said as we headed for t h e e l e v a t o r . “But,” she added reassuringly, “with monthly dues, it seems reasonable to me...
...At the old downtown Y there had been youth programs and there was a residence hall...
...In the winter, cold winds knifed through the locker-room walls and water mains burst with alarming frequency...
...The promotional flyer said it all: “All of us want to make our earnings go further...
...BUILDING YOUR ESTATE...
...The lounges, with color television, bar, two types of restaurant services and all the facilities await you...
...I asked about the lack of people and was told the new Y is busy during lunch hours and after work, (Later 1 would check that...
...We have entree now to the top echelon of people,” Hargrave boasts...
...The walls are scribbled with graffiti, and masking tape covers some broken window panes, but not all of them...
...It would be easy, I thought, to join their ranks...
...One club had a $5,000 initiation fee and a yearly fee of $1,000...
...These commitments were made repeatedly, under oath at zoning hearings, in conversations, and in writing, and they included promises for one-day and short-term memberships, subsidized youth programs, and the whole range of youth and family programs...
...Family pool use is limited to three hours on Saturdays and Sundays...
...I would look, as they say, terrific...
...A broken-down basketball court or two, but that’s about it...
...Sure, I’d need some will power, but 1 knew if only I could find a convenient place to swim and work out, the ‘hew me” would be within reach...
...This facility reflects what the leadership at that time wished it to be,” said executive d i r e c t o r Marvin Reincke...
...Hargrave and the other black staffers at all area Ys should be the first to protest against this de facto discrimination, but they are not...
...They have other arguments too...
...The old Y was sold and the building 1 visited was supposed to be its replacement...
...There is also the new cardiovascular equipment, designed to prevent heart attacks...
...The swimming pool has been closed for 20 years, cracked down the middle...
...The old Central Branch Y merely provided a low-cost residence hall for foreigners and language training...
...I walked past some spanking new (empty) squash courts and the beautiful (silent) fullsized gym...
...Come to the Y Hotel and relax in comfort...
...Everyone was welcome, you see, at the YMCA...
...At the old Central Branch Y, in fact, downtown workers had begun to complain about the influx of black teenagers who used the basketball courts after school let out...
...At the Central Branch, the decision-makers came from the Washington Athletic Club, the top-of-the-heap $285-a-year luxury category...
...a fancy new health club for the rich, disguised in the tax-exempt, non-profit wrappings of the YMCA...
...Even so, the National Capital YMCA has pioneered a new twist on this venerable theory that others hadn’t even imagined...
...it didn’t sound like a gym...
...He was assisied in ihe research .for [his arricle b.12 Steven Findlay...
...In Washington, the nation’s richest metropolitan area, the appeal of the upscale market may be irresistable to almost any organization that trades goods or services for money...
...The Y has none of these things now...
...Instead of, say, English classes for foreigners, a staple of the traditional Y, the new Y offered in October a free “financial planning seminar...
...Parker asked about special rates, and learned there weren’t any...
...The entire place reeked of terminal seediness...
...I don’t have very much...
...We just try to reach those goals differently than other Ys...
...In one of our conversations, Hargrave proudly handed me a brochure describin a new facility the Under the bold faced heading: There Has Never Been Anything Like It, the brochure announces, “A modern hotel-built by the London Central YMCA for men and women of all ages-in the very heart of London that includes squash courts, a gymnasium, a 25-meter swimming pool, shops and underground parking...
...There’s no room for us,” says Parker...
...I Was afraid to leave my stuff in the lockers,”recalls one member...
...Once inside, you hear what you don’t hear at the new Y: the sound of children’s voices...
...In May he told The Washington Post that the new Y’s fees would be used in part to help the only other Y branch in the District, the dilapidated Anthony Bowen branch located in a northwest ghetto in the city...
...Some of the locker rooms I saw had orange carpeting and tan lockers, and there were uniformed black attendants to pick up your dirty towels after you got out of the shower...
...For all its flaws, the old Y had served a mix of races, ages, classes, and, later, sexes that gave the place a special flavor...
...We left after 15 minutes...
...I guess the new Y doesn’t want any unpleasant people around...
...The conservatives and business interests who shaped the new package undoubtedly believe their rationales as passionately as Hargrave believes his...
...In the meantime, the Anthony Bowen branch stands as the starkest reminder of the illusory benefits of the National Capital YMCA...
...It has something of the democratic fraternal ambience of those old movies about our troops overseas, with some sergeant reading off the names of the r e c r u i t s from Anytown, USA: “ Ko wals ki ! ” “ M arkow i tz ! ” “Jones ! ” “Davis...
...They said I couldn’t join and I had to be 18 or over,” he recalls...
...The new clientele also spruces up the Y’s image, aids their fundraising drives, provides important contacts...
...It didn’t seem much busier...
...These unpleasant people-lower income types, boisterous teenagers, and so on-have perhaps found somewhere else to go...
...That’s just not true...
...The only hitch was money...
...As a full-time staff member, she gets free use of the facilities...
...This approach is reflected in the current trend in tax policy-corporate tax cuts and capital gains relief for the rich are provided under the illusion that they will mean jobs and increased earnings for everyone else...
...Implicit is the hope that these new members will see the light and donate some of their time-and money-to the Y’s programs...
...Rieffel hasn’t been impressed with the new Y’s attitudes toward her own kids, either...
...One reason for the restrictive policies might be a well-grounded fear that a convenient downtown Y would be clogged with young people...
...Instead, they serve as the best advance troops for the whites who dominate the organization...
...Later, the 85member board of directors, after studying rising construction and operating costs, set the new rates...
...There’s also an “extension center” in the the southeast part of the city that runs some programs at schools and playgrounds...
...These questions presented Hargrave with something of a PR problem back in 1976 when he and other Y officials were trying to get plans for their new building approved...
...t h e o t h e r was a $225 membership for men and women between 18 and 21, or over 64...
...But when they told us we had to be 18, I just told my friends about it so they wouldn’t waste their time going over there...
...Even members of the new Y are troubled by its policies...
...Talking to Hargrave, one yearns for a return to the original concept of the Y, an organization that was founded in London in 1844 to “improve the spiritual condition of young men in the drapery business...
...My only hope then was the no-frills “fitness category,” which would let me use all the athleticfacilities, but none of the extras...
...The upscale movement was not something that just happened to the Y; it was the result of calculated decision and study...
...On Saturday mornings, a group of handicapped and blind youths are allowed to use the Y’s gym u n d e r t h e supervision of city volunteers...
...It was always packed at lunchtime, averaging up to 400 people...
...CHARITABLE BENEFITSgiving that saves, gifts that produce income, how to give property and still use it...
...Somehow, though, most of the nation’s other 1,800 YMCA branches have managed to survive while offering the programs and prices that Hargrave finds so burdensome...
...Do you know how much it costs to have a youth department...
...The Redskins could feel at home here, 1 thought...
...YMCA its property tax exemption...
...Predominately black and poor city residents [Washington is 75 per cent black] are paying for athletic facilities for the rich white suburbanites who don’t pay taxes in the city...
...There’s a training center for the ass oci a t ion ’s youth outreach workers , and a section devoted to their international program...
...But the old Y was for many years in dire need of renovation and repair...
...In fact, says Thomas Hargrave, Jr., the general executive of the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington, “This is the prototype of the Y of the future...
...However, when I asked Hargrave whether money would be going to Anthony Bowen as promised, his reply was a little different...
...They’re outrageous...
...Upstairs, there was an open area full of athletic luxuries: massage tables, sauna, sun-room, and other YMCA equipment...
...Their prices were a bit high, I’d heard, but I was sure something could be worked out...
...One of the sharpest critics of the Y, George Washington law professor John Banzhaf 111 says, “It isn’t serving a charitable function anymore...
...Using the Y’s luxury facility as a model, the Salvation Army should begin dropping off turkeys at Christmas to hungry diplomats on Embassy Row...
...Built in various stages in 1884, 1906, and 1944, the Central Branch had what was expected of a YMCA: gym, pool, weight rooms, handball and squash courts, jogging track, lockers...
...So late one afternoon, I strolled over to have a look and find out how I could sign up...
...And it is not just millionaires who can benefit from planning...
...Under the law, businesses unrelated to the central purpose of the non-profit organization should be taxed...
...An 1894 act of Congress gave the D.C...
...This is a valuable goal, considering the large proportion of men over 40 who use the new Y. Too many coronaries could put a crimp in their fundraising plans...
...Prices ranged from $100 for general membership to $285 for the deluxe Washington Athletic Club, housed in a separate building and offering fancy extras...
...When I brought my son there, all these older men with paunches were grumbling about little kids getting in the way...
...Many of the members were looking forward to the opening of the new facility, but there was a nostalgic sadness when the old Central Branch closed its doors for the last time...
...It now appears that any move to renovate it or replace it will have to have its own fundraising drive, expected to be launched sometime in 1980...
...There were no shouts, no echoing of balls against wood...
...For those outside of walking distance, there is, after all, a new subway system that stops about two blocks from the Y. For most white businessmen, of course, the sight of more than two black teenagers gathered in the same place is enough to make them head for the nearest exit...
...In addition, they argue that the new Y isn’t just a health ana fitness center (even though most of its income is generated from members’ recreational fees...
...Parker and his friend stopped by on a weekday afternoon to look at the facilities...
...In just a few short months, I too, could show up at parties in my Adidas jogging suit, swigging Perrier with a casual flair...
...One is that the most expensive category costs only $1.30 a day, not counting the initiation fee...
...And it strengthens physical and mental health, and develops in youth values for living-a faith to live “At the National Capital Y,” the narrator continues, “you won’t find camping in the youth department [a reference to other branches’ programs], but you will see that we have the same goals as the rest of the association...
...In one promotional slide show for new members (and doubting critics), the goals of the new Y are outlined: “The YMCA of Metropolitan Washingt o n . . . strengthens family structures...
...Downstairs, in the locker room, there are no carpets and no attendants...
...Suddenly, 1 felt as if I were in some kind of athletic ghost town, a re-run of The Twilight Zone perhaps, but without Rod Serling to explain it away...
...Indeed, using their own figures about D.C.’s supposedly vanishing youth, the new Y should be glad to open its doors to the handful of young people who might want to use it...
...In Washington, the old Central Branch of the YMCA was not that far removed from the traditional image of the Y. It drew its members largely from the government offices and businesses near its site a few blocks from the White House...
...Like all prospective customers, I was given a brisk tour of the place by a YMCA tour guide...
...There are enough government workers, consultants, and lawyers making over $40,000 to guarantee that many enterprises that used to cater to the lower and middle classes don’t have to do that anymore...
...This is a specialized facility,” Hargrave says...
...Naturally, under these circumstances, my thoughts turned to the YMCA...
...In contrast, the chic Watergate Hotel Health Club looked positively cheap with its $495 annual fee...
...Some of the topics to be covered include OUR CHANGING TAX LAWS...
...Children and spouses of adult members could use the facilities when accompanied by their parents and only during certain weekend h o u r s . L i k e s o f t - c o r e pornography, this YMCA was rated R. This was the YMCA...
...Our data shows we couldn’t support it...
...In fact, something quite like this saintly approach has been promised by Hargrave...
...In Nashville, Portland, and Hartford, YMCAs are taking routes similar to that of the Washington Y. For that reason alone, it is worth finding out what is going on at the Washington Y. Symbolic Gifts As far as the executives of the Washington YMCA are concerned, critics simply don’t understand the difficulty of surviving financially in the city...
...helps change the conditions that foster alienation, delinquency, and crime...
...Non-profit” service institutions like the Y may have slightly more subtle motives to join in the drive to serve the wealthy...
...But in general, the record of the new Y’s commitment to youth and family programs-and affordable priceshas been a string of broken promises...
...Banzhaf and others see the Y offering competition primarily to private health spas in the downtown area, which don’t get the Y’s tax breaks and don’t have the Y’s immunity from a tough city law that allows purchasers of health spa services to back out after 15 days if dissatisfied...
...It economically discriminates against almost everyone...
...Yet Y officials refuse to admit that a training facility for suburban workers (which the new Y does have) doesn’t do a thing for the city kids living a block away who really need recreational programs...
...One can’t help but feel that they planned the new facility for themselves, and by adding some noblesounding but vague “youth training centers” and “international programs,” avoided any feeling of selfishness...
...My tour continued...
...Y officials have a $3.5 million mortgage to pay off, and that can’t be done, they say, if they don’t charge enough for use of the facilities...
...Parker and other residents of the Dupont Circle area where the Y is located-the most densely populated in the city-say there are practically no recreational facilities to be found there...
Vol. 10 • December 1978 • No. 9
