State Senator Espaillat Creates Petition to Save ARC Senior Center

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — State Sen. Adriano Espaillat is acting on his promise to fight "tooth and nail" to save a Washington Heights senior center that may be forced to close its doors by the end of the year.

Espaillat created an online petition to gather signatures protesting the upcoming shuttering of the ARC Fort Washington Senior Center. The senior center has operated out of Christ Church at 4111 Broadway for 15 years, but the church has said it will not renew its lease. The ARC Fort Washington Senior Center was founded in 1972.

Espaillat and several other elected officials and community leaders have already held two rallies outside of the center to protest Christ Church's decision.

ARC's executive director Fern Hertzberg told Patch that she had been trying to renew the lease for three years, but it became obvious this year that the church had no intentions of keeping the center as a tenant.

"Our senior center has served this community for over four decades, providing hot meals, social work services, transportation and activities to thousands of seniors annually, and we want to stay here so we can continue to serve this community for decades to come," Hertzberg said during a Sept. 8 rally.

Christ Church has said that it decided not to renew the lease because the church is trying to renovate its building, but Espaillat thinks the church has ulterior motives.

During the rally, Espaillat shared a hunch that the building's landlords don't want to extend the center's lease because they have desires to redevelop the site into luxury housing units. Espaillat promised to fight to keep the center in the same location should that hunch prove to be accurate.

"We will fight to keep this four-decade old institution right here in Washington Heights, and when this community comes together there is nothing we cannot achieve," Espaillat said.

Photos: Patch