Park Facilities in Shambles: Historic Rye Town Park Buildings Suffer From Decay and Neglect

There are few public spaces more beautiful than Rye Town Park, with its majestic trees, sprawling beach, and view of the Long Island Sound. For the thousands who visited its beaches this past summer, Rye Town Park was the face of Rye.

But it’s not a pretty face.

The sands are clean and the shore safely guarded — but the park’s facilities are in striking disrepair.

Outdoor showers are fenced-off because of a crumbling wall. The interiors of the bathhouse, with its imposing towers, need an estimated $854,000 in repairs. Its tunnels are dank, its upper floors closed off, the exterior stucco peeling.

The roofs of the boardwalk pavilions, where the town sponsors top-notch outdoor community concerts, need an estimated $488,000 to replace.

The Town of Rye manages the park, which is supported financially by Rye, Rye Brook, Port Chester, and Rye Neck, all of which lie within the town. Town Supervisor Gary Zuckerman and his top aide and Rye resident, Debbie Reisner, have procured grants for repairs with some success, including a $550,000 grant to make beach-level bathrooms ADA-compliant. The state is likely to approve a grant to repair the roofs of the boardwalk pavilions.

The non-profit Friends of Rye Town Park has installed temporary showers, a working water fountain, Adirondack chairs, and colorful, creative landscaping. Carpenters are at work on the beach-level bathrooms.

On an operating basis, the beach revenue, from both residents and non-residents, allows the Park to run on a break-even or better basis, Zuckerman said.

“If it’s a nice summer and we have warm days on holiday weekends, we can run a surplus,” he said. To date, this summer, the beach is running in the black.

But the parking and admission fees do not generate the revenue needed for a full-scale renovation, Zuckerman said. That would include the exterior renovation of the crumbling tower building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places and looms over the park.

The buildings upper floors are unsafe and empty. An interior renovation of the tower building could run over $20 million itself, Zuckerman said.

Meanwhile, the bathrooms in the one-time bathhouse building desperately need repairs.

“They’re horrible,” Zuckerman said.

Yet they are what visitors to Rye, one of the country’s wealthiest communities, see when they go to its public beach.

Rye City Council member Jamie Jensen, former secretary of the Friends of Rye Town Park, decried the condition of the facilities.

“For so many in Rye, the Spanish style, red-roofed towers that mark the bathing complex at Oakland Beach are architecturally beautiful,” she said. “They distinguish our city from other towns along the sound shore, marking our unique history as a vibrant, waterfront community. Unfortunately, the bathing complex has fallen into disrepair from years of neglect and little investment.”

What makes it so hard to find the money to address the Park’s capital needs?

Supervisor Zuckerman pointed to a combination of factors.

The process of seeking state and federal grants is slow — and any application competes against others from across the state or country. Then there’s the park’s unusual governance structure, which requires local governments to draw on their own budgets to support a facility that is not only used by their own residents.

The city of Rye, for instance, is responsible for 40 percent of the Park’s funding needs, while of course it has its own competing need for public improvements, including streets, sidewalks, and sewers.

The Park Commission has approved a long list of grant requests for the park totaling $10.6 million — all pending and uncertain of success. Those include grant applications to no less than eight state, federal, and county agencies, ranging from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (for sea wall rebuilding) to the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (for the pavilion roofs). No money is even being sought for the eyesore Tower building, because the structure doesn’t have an essential function, Zuckerman said.

The town, however, is considering other approaches.

Zuckerman said that state legislation could authorize the incorporation of a Park District — the park equivalent of a school district, which would have the authority to tax residents of the town and borrow money. Such districts are common in other parts of the country, notably Chicago.

He conceded, however, that a taxing authority might not be popular. What’s more, there’s no precedent for such a district in New York State.

Jensen and Diana Page, currently head of the Friends group, point to another option — a private, philanthropic approach — that already has proved successful in the Tod’s Point Park in nearby Greenwich, a shoreline facility remarkably similar to Rye Town Park.

The private, non-profit, Greenwich Point Conservancy “was formed in 2003 by residents concerned about the deteriorating condition of the historically important structures at Greenwich Point,” according to the group’s website.

It works with local government “to develop and implement plans for the restoration and preservation of the important historic structures at Greenwich Point, and to provide funding for the related preservation projects.”

It already has completed the renovation of several historic properties, including the landmark Old Barn and Arden Cottage.

Residents of Rye have shown they have deep pockets for some local causes, including the Jay Heritage Center. Local donors raised $3 million for artificial turn for the Nursery Field.

The vehicle for doing something similar for Rye Town Park — the Friends of Rye Town Park — already exists. The group has supported landscaping and the installation of working showers and a drinking fountain. But the largest donation it has ever received was $50,000.

Restoration of Rye Town Park could be seen less as a burden than an opportunity for Rye, officials say. A Conservancy, they said, could consider repurposing the tower building as a restaurant, boutique hotel, education center, or something else.

The group could convert the building into a signature property that boosts the profile of Rye for all residents.

“It would be wonderful if community members now stepped forward to help restore the historically significant and architecturally beautiful buildings,” Jensen said.