Bye, Bye Grammy--New York to Host ’91 Show : Awards: The big loss for Los Angeles is tourist dollars lured by the show. New York last held the event in 1988.

New York City is the winner of the 1991 Grammys, leaving Los Angeles as the loser.

The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences announced on Monday that the music industry’s most prestigious awards will be handed out in New York’s Radio City Music Hall in late February. All but four of the Grammys’ 32 awards shows had been in Los Angeles, including the two most recent, held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. New York hosted the Grammys in 1988, 1981, 1974 and 1972.

The announcement was made at a New York press conference featuring appearances by NARAS president Michael Greene and New York Mayor David Dinkins, who touted the decision as “a vote of confidence in our city and for our city’s future” and promised “the biggest and best celebration in the history of the Grammys.”

This is a triumph for New York, which has lobbied heavily for the Grammys to alternate between the two cities, if not move permanently to the Big Apple, though Greene gave no hints as to the future of the show beyond next year.

For Los Angeles, which has campaigned just as concertedly to be the sole host, it represents a significant blow.

“We are obviously disappointed by the decision,” said Bill Chandler, spokesperson for Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who is on a trade mission in Korea and Japan. “But it is clear that Los Angeles, home of the Oscar ceremony and a number of other awards proceedings, is the true entertainment capital of the world.”

Chandler also expressed confidence that the Grammys will return to Los Angeles soon, noting that NARAS is based here and continues to work with the city on various educational and industry development projects.

Shell Ausman, chairman of Mayor Bradley’s Grammy host committee, said he wasn’t surprised by the announcement.

“We were all suspicious that NARAS might have to succumb to the pressure of its New York members,” he said, citing tourism dollars as the biggest loss. “The Grammys attracts a lot of people for that week.”

Ausman predicted that New York’s harsher winter weather will continue to give Los Angeles an advantage in the competition between the cities for the awards show.

But MCA Music Group chairman Al Teller, now a member of the Los Angeles host committee but a former member of the New York committee while he was president of New York-based Columbia Records in the mid-’80s, believes the trend may be toward more of an even split.