A mystery New York billionaire has swooped in at the eleventh hour with a $6 million offer to save the beloved Central Park Boathouse.
Sources said the white-knight power broker stepped in after reading Steve Cuozzo’s column on August 12 in The Post about how we must save the Big Apple landmark.
Operator Dean Poll had said he had no choice but to close the Central Park restaurant on Oct. 17 due to skyrocketing costs.
The billionaire then approached Poll with a deal to finance the renovation of the iconic property and keep it open under his current contract with the city.
Cuozzo had written how the closure would be a tragedy for New York. “However you plate it, this is bad news for the city.
“A darkened Boathouse would leave a heartbreaking hole in the park at a time when New York’s green lung needs all the wholesome, law-abiding human traffic it can handle.”
The Boathouse, rebuilt in the 1950s, is magically set on the east bank of Central Park’s picturesque lake.
Poll, the Long Island-born restaurateur notable for rescuing Gallagher’s Steakhouse from closure in 2013, took over the Boathouse in 2000 but had recently said he had no choice but to close, blaming skyrocketing, inflation-driven food prices, combined with punishing labor costs.
He had announced he would close the Boathouse on October 17 at the cost of 163 union jobs, having tried to pressure Local 6 into swallowing job cuts, among other givebacks.
But sources say the billionaire’s pledged investment allows Poll a better negotiating stance with the city and Parks Commission by including renovation plans for the property.
One insider said, “Much of the billionaire’s investment would go into renovating the Boathouse, including a new roof. This means the property would keep the current operator and none of the current workers would get laid off.
“Plus there would hopefully not be a requirement to invite other restaurant operators to pitch, a process which could have left the property shuttered for years.”
The insider added that lawyers for Poll pitched the new plan to the city at a meeting on Monday, and he is waiting to hear if it might be green-lit.
A spokesperson for Poll and the New York Parks Commission didn’t return calls.
