Central Park’s once-lavish Tavern on the Green restaurant will become a visitors center and snack bar — possibly permanently — because the new operator selected by the city couldn’t come to terms with the food workers union, Mayor Bloomberg said last night.
“It’s disappointing that an agreement could not be reached between the two parties,” Bloomberg said in a statement.
“The city tried to play a role of honest broker, but the two sides remain far apart. We can’t — and won’t — wait any longer for a resolution with no guarantee that one will come.”
Officials said the city would seek new bids in a couple of months for the fabled eatery, which had been run by the LeRoy family for 33 years. The Parks Department awarded a 20-year lease last August to Dean Poll, who runs the nearby Boathouse restaurant within the park.
While the new bids are evaluated over the summer, officials said the shuttered Tavern would be turned into a visitors center, snack bar and retail shop.
“Then, based on the proposals and the success of the venue . . . we’ll decide whether or not [to turn] all or part of it back into a restaurant,” the mayor said.
Insiders said Bloomberg has been distressed for months that Poll and powerful Local 6 of the New York Hotel Trades Council, which represents some 400 Tavern workers, couldn’t negotiate an agreement.
“Most people think Poll didn’t know what he was getting into,” said one government source.
But at the time, Poll told a Post reporter he knew exactly what he was doing — and intended to rehire much of the staff after making alterations in the union contract. The Boathouse is non-union.
The new bidders will also have to assume the same union obligations that Poll rejected.
Union President Peter Ward said he was confident the next winning bidder would be able to accomplish what Poll couldn’t — a signed contract.
“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,” he said.
Despite eight months of intense talks, Ward said both sides had reached an “unbridgeable divide.”
He didn’t slam the mayor’s interim solution, calling it “very good.”
Poll issued a brief statement said he was backing out “with great regret” because it was “impossible to achieve” consensus with the union.
“We wish the city well in its future attempt to identify a new operator for this iconic Central Park location,” he concluded.