Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Saving what's left of Queens

Groups working to save Queens buildings from wrecking ball

It's too late for the 19th-century parsonage at St. Saviour's Episcopal Church -- it was leveled in December -- and Long Island City's Hackett Building, a Flatiron-like structure that was built in 1884, that was torn down last year to make room for condos.

Before any more of Queens' history disappears, a group of activists and preservationists is organizing to save what's left.

The Queens Civic Congress, an umbrella organization of more than 100 civic groups, will host a workshop tonight in Glendale to build interest in landmarking in a borough whose protected sites number less than 20 percent of Manhattan's.


Good luck with that.

Here's more on St. Saviour's and Hackett Building: God save Queens (or anyone really)

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

and now that we've discussed what we might just possibly do in a theoretical effort to preserve buildings in Queens, without upseting any politicians or developers, we'll get on to the really important business at hand, and primary reason why this meeting was held in the first place. Namely, for the partaking of:

Wine & Cheese!!!

Now don't crowd about the table all at once. There's plenty for everybody. Cheers. Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Manhattanites are coming, so there will definitely be whine.

Anonymous said...

The house depicted is located
within the deed restricted area
of the Broadway/Flushing neighborhood.

Broadway/Flushing is zoned
strictly for ONE FAMILY homes.

You will not see a multi family building go up here.

It's been tried before
but the extremely active (since 1964)
Broadway Flushing Homeowners Assn. (BFHA)
has already set a precedent
by successfully winning 4 out of 4 lawsuits
with regards to any attempted transgressions!

DON'T TREAD ON US !

But beware.....
some of you smug and complacent
homeowners in the area.

You must have noticed
our trend of recent TEAR DOWNS.

We could wind up facing the same fate as Malba
the Mc Mansion capitol of Queens!

Anonymous said...

With Corey the "szlubb" now at the helm of QCC
my confidence in their performance
has been raised to new heights.....ha, ha, ha !

Not that Sean Walsh did any better.

His nabe was all that he was ever interested in
and it looks like crap.

Jeez Sean, for a lawyer with "juice "
that don't make you look too good.
(Did he move to Washington D.C. yet)?

Anonymous said...

If there were no caption, I would've thought the house on the photo was in Bellerose Village or Garden City. See, Queens also has nice houses.

Anonymous said...

Elected officials are generally pretty in touch with what their constituents want," said Jessica Lappin, (D-Manhattan) chair of the Subcommittee on Landmarking. "It's got to come from the community, and in Queens they are very organized, and very focused and have felt neglected and feel now that this is their time."
---------------

hahahahahahehehehehohohohoho

ah, give it a Queensmark!

Anonymous said...

"It's got to come from the community, and in Queens they are very organized, and very focused and have felt neglected and feel now that this is their time."


Hey Jessica, ever been to Norwood Gardens?

Anonymous said...

The Cornell Farm is to be landmarked even though its been substantially altered. The boro president wants to pony up $5 million to BUY it.

St Saviours has not been altered that much, yet the LPC repeatedly claims, despite a mountain of evidence that it is - an excuse not to landmark it. The boro president has not expressed an interest in buying it.

Both are little more than an acre in size. Both are worthy of protection.

This is yet another example as how community, not intrinsic value, gears preservation.

But the bigger question is why is some of Queens bigwigs in preservation, Jim Trent and Paul Graziano, neither shared this with St Saviours (Newtown Historical could have also testified looking for money at the boro president’s hearings), or even more pointedly, expressing public outrage that two projects have very very different treatments.

KG2V said...

I drive past that house all the time, and drool - I'd love to live in that house. The back yard is HUGE - what will probably happen is it'll be sold, and another house will go in the yard (that lot is big enough to subdivide)

Sigh

Anonymous said...

Queens Civic Congress - weren't those the guys that HELPED Dutch Kills UPZONE?!?!

Oh, thats ok. Its western Queens.

They are not very swift to begin with.

Anonymous said...

Sorry"kg2v".....you're misinformed.
The zoning doesn't allow it.

This area requires a minimum of a 60' by 100'
for a new house to be built.

YOU CAN NO LONGER SUBDIVIDE
an 80' by 100' lot into two 40' by 100' parcels
to accommodate two houses.

The zoning HAS BEEN CHANGED!

BUT it can be torn down or Mc Mansion-ized!

Sigh !

Anonymous said...

1/2 of the Cornell Farm is in Nassau County.
The city line cuts it in two.

The entirety of St. Saviour's lies within NYC!

BOTH SITES DESERVE
TO BE LANDMARKED AND PRESERVED !

Anonymous said...

I almost threw up when I saw Liz Crowley at this meeting tonight. She calls herself a preservationist but wanted condos at St. Saviour's.

Anonymous said...

My favorite thing about Queenscrap is that once someone post's something intelligent the idiot's dont know how to respond and the intellectuals have nothing to defend against so the comment page goes dead. Hysterical.

Anonymous said...

If you're such an "intellectual" yourself....
let me point out 3 spelling errors that you've made.

"Post's" indicates possessive and should be "posts".

"Idiot's" should be the plural "idiots".

"Dont" requires an apostrophe ..... "don't".

Uh....and Queens Crap is two words!