Sunday, June 3, 2007

Queens urban planner is new HDC prez

At its Annual Meeting on May 24th, the Board of Directors of the Historic Districts Council elected Paul Graziano (pictured left) to be the new President of HDC. Paul, an independent urban planner and Queens native, is HDC’s sixth president and is replacing Staten Island attorney and activist David Goldfarb (pictured right) who served as President from 2003-2007 and is remaining on the Board.

Paul began working with HDC in 1997 during his campaign to try to save the historic Waldheim neighborhood in Flushing and won a Grassroots Preservation Award in 2001 for all his efforts to preserve the historic, low-scale character of his native borough. He joined HDC’s Board of Advisers in 2002, and the Board of Directors in 2004. Paul has worked on several surveys of historic properties and rezoning initiatives throughout Queens; resulting in wide-spread down-zonings utilizing the new R2A code which he helped draft to prevent the sprawl of McMansions in low-density suburban areas. He is also the co-author of the successful Broadway-Flushing National Register Historic District nomination, which resulted in over 1,300 properties from this suburban northeast Queens neighborhood being placed on the National Register in 2006. To Paul, “preservation means more than just landmarking,” and he has pledged “to broaden our approach to come up with different strategies on how to protect and preserve neighborhoods in all five boroughs of New York City.” It’s going to be an exciting time, and we hope everyone will join in our ongoing preservation campaigns.


Photo from Historic Districts Council

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

What's left of Waldheim?

Anonymous said...

Congratulation to you Paul. You are and energetic, intelligent, articulate and knowledgeable activist.

HDC has been improved by this promotion.

verdi said...

Bravo Paul! You've earned it !

It's good to see HDC finally pruned of some of its Manhattan-centric deadwood with new leadership in place that recognizes "Greater New York" is also composed of 4 other boroughs!

Anonymous said...

OIY!

Anonymous said...

Is that ridiculous looking “Bob Dylan” hairdo a landmark?

verdi said...

If you're going to leave a "hair brained" comment why don't you first look up and see what this guy has accomplished in down zoning
Queens.....while you were (maybe) just sitting on your hairdo!

Anonymous said...

Who cares about the "do"? Nothing he's done has changed anything. Go to Malba, Beechhurst or Flushing. Almost a daily changes going on there. Waldheim is another joke!

Graziano is all about getting HIS name in the papers. AND he is not an "Urban Planner". He is not qualified.

Anonymous said...

Are you one of those malcontents, perhaps, from the Queens branch of the AIA (American Institute of Ass-wipes) who posted that last comment?

Maybe you need a new pair of spectacles to put into your jealousy bag !

What have YOU been doing besides TALKING to make Queens a better place to live in?

Not much, I would guess...... judging by the general ignorance exhibited in your remarks!

Let's see your credentials that qualify you as an expert to judge Graziano's qualifications as an urban planner !

You're all "talk" and no "walk"....I suspect!

Anonymous said...

P.S.
or as someone named "John" would have said, "All show and no blow" !!!

Ta....ta !

Anonymous said...

Eureka....Maybe it's our old "friend"
Mr. P. B. Doofus ??? (you know who we mean) who's been criticizing Paul's well established urban planning expertise ??? !!!!!!!!