Governor Hochul’s Honor

“There’s no place like home.” That’s the word from the head of the oldest after school group and patriotic cadet corps in America, the Knickerbocker Greys. Yet unless Governor Hochul acts, the 143-year-old group faces eviction from its home of more than 120 years — the Seventh Regiment Armory on Manhattan’s Park Avenue. The armory is now leased by an arts conservancy that is trying to boot the cadets, claiming a lack of room in the vast facility.Public outcry was swift at the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where legislators and the local community board have urged the leaders of the arts conservancy to find room for the cadets’ 800-square-foot space within the 200,000 square feet of the armory building. The state legislature has even passed a bill requiring the armory to give “permanent access” to the Greys. The measure is now on Mrs. Hochul’s desk — but she has yet to indicate whether she will sign it.Mrs. Hochul is, a spokesman says, “reviewing the legislation.” What’s to review, though? “It’s a no-brainer,” the state senator for the Upper East Side, Elizabeth Krueger, tells the Sun, “which is why it passed almost unanimously in both houses of the Legislature.” She adds that “I don’t know what the governor is planning to do, but I certainly hope she won’t decide that it’s a good idea to throw these kids out on their ears.”It’s testament to the depth of support for the Greys across the political spectrum that the legislation to prevent their eviction passed almost without objection at Albany. In the lower house of the legislature, the vote was 145 to zero. In the state senate, the vote was 59 to one. With that degree of support, a veto from Mrs. Hochul would be startling — and, one can imagine, an obvious candidate for a veto override from the legislators.If Mrs. Hochul signs the measure and puts to rest the doubts over the future of the Greys, it will be a vindication for the group, which has trained some 5,000 New Yorkers over the years. The group’s name originated with its gray uniforms, which in older times included knee-length trousers or “knickerbockers.” Initially founded to keep boys off the streets, the Greys say, the corps provides youths between ages six and 16 with leadership training.Alumni of the Greys include figures like Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Vice President Rockefeller, the novelist Louis Auchincloss, and Mayor Lindsay. One recent alumnus of the corps is Colonel Thomas Pike, a United States Army veteran who served in Afghanistan. The Greys have long since transcended their Upper East Side milieu, he said, to include members from “all walks of life,” including boys and girls from diverse backgrounds.Yet the Park Avenue Armory, which presents itself as a haven for high-end culture by such distinguished artists as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Diane Arbus, and Yoko Ono, is refusing to accommodate the Greys. Colonel Pike is among those wondering why. “I think the building can come to a solution easily if they put some thought to it,” he says. The head of the arts group, Rebecca Robertson, has yet to answer that question from the community.In Ms. Robertson’s appearance before the local community board, she was peppered with questions over why the armory couldn’t make room for the Greys. What about the concern, one questioner asked, that the state of New York — the owner of the armory — opposed her push to evict the youth cadets? “I don’t know the answer to that question,” Ms. Robertson mumbled, adding, “I don’t believe it makes a difference.”Yet the legislature’s vote suggests that the people of New York have a say in the fate of the Greys. That brings us back to Mrs. Hochul. Will she back the patriotic youths, last of those in the armory who honor America’s military heritage and Old Glory? “The Greys just want to stay in their home of 120 years and continue their great work for kids in New York,” the cadet corps tells us. “This is all about the kids.” And, we’d add, the armory’s honor.

Governor Hochul’s Honor

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