From the Daily News:A set of stunning 140-year-old buildings in an up-and-coming corner of Staten Island has been neglected so long that the interiors are rotting and foliage is growing from the inside out.
Big plans for the 3-acre Lighthouse Harbor Site in St. George have gone unrealized for more than a decade, despite millions in city funds spent to keep the buildings intact.
Two of the buildings, including one protected by the city Landmarks Preservation Commission, were selected by the federal government in 1997 to house the National Lighthouse Museum, but preservation groups have failed so farto secure enough funding and get the museum up and running.
Triangle Equities, a Queens-based real estate firm, was selected in 2007 to develop the remaining three buildings. The firm announced plans to transform them into a massive mall with shops and restaurants, but the project has gone nowhere.
"The city is invested in this site. We've done a lot to put a plan in place that will make it a great Staten Island destination," said Julie Wood, spokeswoman for the city's Economic Development Corp., which owns the buildings.
Wood said the EDC has spent $6.5 million to keep the buildings structurally sound.
If the EDC is involved, you know it won't go well.
12 comments:
What an ugly pile of crap,good riddance.We should find a developer to demolish it and build luxury condos/estates.
Dam Shame.
It looks like the structurs on North Brother island.
From what I see it likley has to much water damage to save at this point.
It's foolish to think every old building is worth and able to be saved.
$6.5 mil! Some stabilzation job! Could have wrapped the place in shrink wrap 10 times over for that.
The National Lighthouse Museum!? Please already.
Time to move on folks. Ancient decrepit buildings are worthless-- especially in this economy. A brand new exact copy could be built (assuming that's what someone wanted) for 1/10th the price to stabilize the old one.
So they have spent 6.5 Million $$ to insure these building look like they do in the pictures? Arrest these folks on fraud and criminally negligent business practices. Boot them from their jobs and expel them to New Jersey.
Speaking of which, how is the terra cotta building of LIC doing?
The point is that the properties were supposed to have been rehabilitated by a not-for-profit with oversight from the EDC. That didn't happen and the buildings were allowed to continue to deteriorate, which makes them more expensive to fix now.
Typical behavior in Queens. The Terra Cotta Building next to the 59th Street Bridge is also a victim of neglect, not that Queens has a brimming amount of landmarks to save. Helen Marshall at work here. The Flushing Meadows Park buildings are all falling apart because this bitch refuses to do anything.
YOU voted for her!
And so it goes with the Brooklyn Navy Yard "Admiral's Row", and give the city's ownership of Governor's Island another decade and it will all be as bad.
For our $6.5 million, they might as well have thrown the cash into the harbor.
What are the Queens Preservationists doing?
Why giving out the 'Stanley Coogan Award' to a deserving homeowner!
Now there is a forward thinking group that must be taken seriously.
A brand new exact copy could be built for 1/10th the price.
Doubt it, you couldn't even make the window work and beading. I wont even get into the woodwork inside these structures.
Try getting a 19 century oak staircase and banisters made and installed for under $2000 a foot.
Plastic bowling pins and cheap Home depot rail is not my style.
I have an old house in Mattituck it took me a year to remove, strip and restore all the windows, sash chain works and shutters, fireplace, doorways and kitchen cupboards.
I had to have custom router bits made to replicate moldings with the proper beading.
No way was I going with those ugly PVC euro-crap windows with the wide capping.
I also restored some 50's TVs and tombstone radios and a retro 60's party room.
All the neighbors taught I was crazy till they saw the finished product. I also have a real 1951 Ford F1 "Sanford and Son" replica.
Some this you just cant copy once they are gone
People are so lazy it's disgusting, most want instant gratification and that a big part of the problem
The way to preserve an old facade is to make it advantageous, financially appealing for a private developer to incorporate it into new construction.
There are a number of properties in Manhattan that have accomplished this quite nicely.
Others are destined to become ruins.
Post a Comment