‘YMCA kid’ at the helm

His education has gone far beyond understanding provincial quirks. A plan to sell most of the YMCA’s Huntington Avenue headquarters to Northeastern University - which was well along before his arrival - has introduced him to the city’s contentious neighborhood politics. Suffice it to say, not everyone likes the idea of the sale deal, which calls for the Y to part with nearly two-thirds of its Huntington Avenue headquarters and, at least temporarily, shutter its gym, a neighborhood institution. Northeastern plans to turn the property into dorm space.

Many neighbors and Y members are apoplectic, even though the organization will get $21.5 million for the site. Critics of the deal have expressed their displeasure in an array of venues - meetings, blogs, letters to the editor - but have been unable to thwart the deal, which has the blessing of the city.

Washington inherited the project but he staunchly defends it.

“Investing in this facility and redoing the space will give us a long-term future,’’ he said. “I know some members disagree, and that’s fine. They’re showing a deep, emotional commitment to the organization, and I respect that.’’ He says no core YMCA program will suffer, and the gym will eventually reopen.

There is some irony in Northeastern’s buying a chunk of the YMCA space. The YMCA started Northeastern, with the person who held Washington’s job doubling as president of the college.

Washington proudly proclaims himself a “YMCA kid.’’ At 57, he has been involved with the Y for 47 years, since he discovered the branch on Christian Street in his native south Philadelphia. He came under the influence of a youth counselor named Bill Morton. If Washington wasn’t at home, he says with a laugh, his mother knew he was at the YMCA with Mr. Morton.

He went to college, at Temple, on a YMCA scholarship. Through the organization, he met mentors such as Wilson Goode, Philadelphia’s first black mayor, and William Gray, a former congressman who runs the United Negro College Fund.