Republicans, Reporters, Drug Addicts and an Orphaned Mural

Having a hard time imagining a palatial Republican Club in the middle of blue Manhattan - with a sumptuous main lounge, fireplaces at either end, that offers a panorama of Bryant Park through its great windows, and an oak-trimmed dining room where each of the pilasters is topped by an “RC” crest?

David W. Dunlap/The New York Times Michael C. Dailey of Daytop, left, and Eric Hadar, who bought Daytop's building at 54 West 40th Street.

Would it sound more like a New York story if we told you that the Republicans reluctantly turned the clubhouse over to a bunch of journalists, after which the building was used by a drug-rehabilitation program that installed a mural, depicting the path out of addiction, along the curving grand staircase on which luminaries of the Republican Party once trod?

That's 54 West 40th Street: a place of second lives and second chances.

As the 20th century opened, it was the site of St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church, which is now on the Upper West Side. In 1902, the Republican Club - a social group with a political bent suggested by its name - built an ornate 11-story clubhouse on the church site, which it occupied from 1903 until 1961, when the structure was sold to the Overseas Press Club.

In financial distress, the press group sold the property in 1973 to the Daytop Village rehabilitation organization. (The name comes from “Drug Addicts Yield to Persuasion.”)

Daytop was all about second lives, and it commissioned a monumental mural, “Ascent,” by the artist Lumen Martin Winter. The allegorical mural depicted a journey from hope, through despair, and back into hope. The segments unfolded as one climbed the stairs. The happy ending came when one arrived at the second floor.

More recently, as Daytop faced its own financial crisis, brought on in part by declining Medicaid reimbursements, it reached an agreement to sell the building to Eric Hadar, the co-founder and chairman of the Allied Partners real estate concern. He is no stranger to second lives, having battled addiction until entering treatment in 2008 after a drug possession arrest.

Mr. Hadar and Daytop settled on a purchase price of $26.5 million in 2010. A closing was scheduled for 2011. Daytop's money troubles were mounting. The organization asked Mr. Hadar if he would release his deposit so Daytop could use the money. He was counseled against doing so, he recalled, but his “personal affinity” for the work of Daytop overruled common sense. After all, Mr. Hadar said, “the only scenario under which I could have lost money would have been if they filed for bankruptcy.” He smiled a bit ruefully at the recollection.

Because that's just what Daytop did, in April 2012. It also canceled the existing sale agreement in order to get more money out of the property, said Michael C. Dailey, the chief executive of Daytop.

Then who should emerge as the strongest suitor? Mr. Hadar. He agreed again to buy the building - this time for $32 million. “My philosophy was that the building had increased in value,” Mr. Hadar said, “but I had no carrying costs. In my mind, though it seemed like I was paying an added $5 million, I didn't feel as if it was the end of the world. While I was a little disappointed, I was pleased that it would allow Daytop to go forward.”

David W. Dunlap/The New York Times Lumen Martin Winter's modernist mural was added somewhat incongruously to a neo-Classical staircase.

Mr. Dailey said he was gratefully astonished by Mr. Hadar's negotiating posture. “He stepped up with an unexpected degree of both cooperation and fellowship,” Mr. Dailey said. Daytop was so impressed with Mr. Hadar's collegiality - and his decision not to sue - that it invited him to join the board. He accepted.

Mr. Hadar was not acting from pure philanthropic impulse. He already owned an abutting building, 50 West 40th Street, so he now controls a site on Bryant Park that could accommodate an apartment and hotel tower of more than 40 stories. The views promise to be spectacular. That project is likely to involve tearing down No. 54 and all but the facade of No. 50.

For the time being, however, Mr. Hadar is content to renovate No. 54, which he has leased to WeWork, which will run it as collaborative office space for individuals and small businesses. Mr. Hadar said WeWork was sharing the cost of the $9 million renovation. The lease runs 15 years, though Mr. Hadar can exercise an option in 2020 to redevelop the entire site.

David W. Dunlap/The New York Times Mirrors at opposite ends of the lounge create the impression of infinity.

What is not yet settled is the fate of “Ascent.”

While certainly not the equal of Tintoretto's murals for the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, Mr. Winter's mural is a consequential work by an artist who had a number of important commissions: the monumental bas-relief at the Roman Catholic Church of St. Paul the Apostle on Columbus Avenue, the mural “Titans” at the United Nations headquarters, a mosaic mural of the Annunciation in the Catholic chapel at the United States Air Force Academy, and two murals for the A.F.L.-C.I.O. headquarters in Washington, “Labor Omnia Vincit” and “Labor Is Life.”

For the Daytop mural, Mr. Winter painted representational figures in a crosshatched pattern that makes them seem to float against fantastic geometric patterns. The work is on canvas, so it can be removed. But Daytop has no room for it in its new headquarters, 204 West 40th Street, and has yet to find a recipient interested in such a site-specific mural. So it is still unclear whether “Ascent” will eventually have a second life.

A version of this article appeared in print on 05/09/2013, on page A24 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Republicans, Addicts And a Building's Evolution.