I thought you might be interested in the loss of another piece of Flushing history, too common place with NEW developers and their overseas financiers.
Well maintained and lived in until recent, a restored early American home is now under demolition to be replaced by a box. Previously owned by Christopher South.
Though there exists no momentum to save the home the only other equally important historical living entity that would remain here is the approx. 150 year old London Planetree street tree in front of the home. A tree likely with origins from the former Samuel Parsons Nursery.
But that tree may go as well. By the City's lack of concern and interest in tree preservation (the more large trees that can be irreparably damaged then over time cut and removed, the more new MillionTrees that can be planted) and based on past behavior by various agency representatives, this tree within the City right of way shall be destroyed by the developers excavators and long-term construction activity. That unless the public voices their concern.
LOCATION: 149-17 Sanford Ave / 149 Place.
Please find attached several current photos.
- anonymous
38 comments:
Vandalism, pure and simple. A crime against the people of New York City.
Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting...as usual around here.
Flushing is becoming a dim memory, even though I've never left it.
Having been to China where in the past and somewhat today people have lived in their apartment or 3 room house that belonged to the Govt. These dwellings were so ill maintained or never that over the the years a century of neglect for real estate by the govt gained a reputation in China that everything old was garbage and not ever desired to be rebuilt or renovated - thus the mind set in China that is exported here with legal and especially illegal immigrants is that everything old should be torn down and rebuilt with all new material and construction. Thus what is brand new is most desired and what is over 25 years old - redone at minimum.
So the value as we know in an old house the materials and craftsmanship is irreplaceable because everything newly built for the most part in this country using the material available is pure crap. This is the mind set of those tearing down beautiful old home to replace them with the largest of structures to house the most peple. It's the Chinese way!
More "Queens Crap" that some call progress. These new box homes will not have enough parking spots because the new home likely will have no driveway and no front lawns. Just Fedders AC's and crap hanging off a useless balcony. Soon all of Flushing will look like Linden street at 32nd Ave.
Houses for the "Slave" workers while the rich owners build their McMansion and live likely somewhere in Bayside or Little Neck.
How could the former owners allow that beautiful property to deteriorate to such a state?
Did you miss the part that said, "Well maintained and lived in until recent, a restored early American home is now under demolition to be replaced by a box"? It didn't deteriorate, it was demolished.
A better question: If the former owner(s) knew well enough to restore this grand home and keep it so well maintained, under what circumstances was it sold so THIS was allowed to happen to it?
was this TUMMY HUNG,
Did anybody know Christopher South?
More importantly, did he make any attempt to preserve the house after he sold it?
Schmucks...he went for the $$. Face reality...it's over Johnny!
Commenter #3 hit the nail on the head. The Chinese want "modern" at the expense of the historic. Never vote for a person of Chinese heritage for President. They will demolish the White House. 'strue.
"Culture makes all the difference." - Mitt Romney
Xie, xie.
#10 is correct.....in Bayside ,a 14 story nursing home is buying all private homes surrounding it. they offer MORE MONEY than the prospective buyers who would live in and maintain the house.
the N.H. has mucho federal and state MEDICAID money to out bid any homeowner.your tax dollars. no politician will touch this scam.
then they will use AS OF RIGHT to demolish the private homes ????? and expand.
Yes it sucks that people sell out to developers, but what loss is an individual expected to incur in an effort to preserve one house in a neighborhood that is already pretty far gone?
Say you could get $100,000 more selling to a developer, would you give that up for the sake of the greater "community"? Maybe if you have money out the nose, but if you spend your life as a working man saving and scrimping, that $100,000 is huge, especially if in retirement.
It sucks to see a house like this go, but I wouldn't expect the owner to pass up the best offer.
Chinese developers, no doubt,...
the scourge of Flushing!
The horde of the Khans couldn't have done worse.
With a shady NYC Comptroller (John Liu) and a crooked former State Assemblyman (Jimmy Meng) the Taiwanese
have brought destruction and corruption to our doorstep.
The owners loved it.
Obviously their heirs didn't.
"Take the money and run",
often the battle cry of a greedy son or daughter.
The local zoning south of Northern B'lvd. sucks and that's what finished the job.
Look at what kind of "housing" surrounds it.
Flushing has deteriorated into becoming an unsanitary, overcrowded,
low class Asian ghetto.
The average Chinese (in his home country) is used to living in a government shit box...
hundreds of worker bees living nose to ass in a beehive...serving the big Red Communist queen.
Mandarin as a second language anyone?
Why not Cantonese?
Too low class.
What's ironic is that even as it is being torn down, it still has more beauty than any of that new garbage EVER will. I get a pang in my stomach every time I see something like this. I used to hope this would be stopped, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
"Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown".
What a pity to see
such irreplaceable craftsmanship go.
Since 1961 (I believe) the zoning was changed for higher density building
courtesy of Robert Moses.
This will quickly be replaced by shoddily built Chinese junk.
Dim sum ugly building
gonna replace it, for sure.
May bad luck follow the builder.
It was only a matter of time
before this jewel bit the dust.
It was surrounded on all sides.
Many more of these fine old homes have gone before the wrecking hammers, during the past 20+ years.
Maybe we'll soon be seeing San Pans and Junks moored along the Flushing River...mimicking the boat people of Hong Kong.
I propose Flushing be renamed
Huang Kong in honor of that slimy Taiwanese convict/builder Tommy Huang.
He set the architectural tone for the area...that spawn of demons!
It's only history to people who were born in the city.
To newcomers it's just old.
As the picture clearly shows, no buyer in their right mind would want to live in that house, which is surrounded by condos. No matter how lovely it is, it does not make any sense. Sooner or later, this lot will be developed.
The oldies get the money, but still expect the new comers to preserve their memory?
"It's only history to people who were born in the city.
To newcomers it's just old.”
If that’s the case, then “beauty” itself is 100% subjective. So is taste. Greed, on the other hand, is universal.
There are plenty populations of people who can appreciate and advocate for the preservation of history not only in their home countries but in other lands, too.
But no, regardless of its rich history and historical significance, Flushing is a sandbox and its historic structures are as good as sand castles.
a house built less then two hundred years ago is not history to the Chinese, who are one of the oldest civilizations on earth, dating back many centuries before the start of the Christian Era. It is just old, out dated crap.
"...who are one of the oldest civilizations on earth..."
...now residing in a country with the oldest political constitution on earth.
No acknowledgment of the architectural heritage of that country.
Historical crap or architecture?
Who decides?
China...
a fine 5,000 year old history of fucking over their own!
They're a lying people...
the product of a corrupt culture!
Human rights in China are non-existent...and it's been that way for most of its population for centuries and centuries.
Only the emperors, lords, high magistrates, etc. lived well.
This cesspool has now been transported to Flushing.
Tear down the "Forbidden City"
in Peking.
It's too old...
and the "Great Wall" is shabby looking.
Kill off the Pandas.
They eat too many Bamboo leaves.
Put up some nice Communist prefab in place of all that old stuff.
The peasants living there don't care, as long as they've got a roof over their heads, rice in their bellies and a concubine on the side.
That's what you've got in Flushing now...mostly peasants from Taiwan and Fujian province.
These were farmers 5 years ago.
This is the poster child as to why community preservation will never get anywhere in Queens.
The preservationists need your city councilman to approve their landmarks. So as long as they don't give Queens any real help, and lets your councilman have his way with you, this will happen.
Yes we do have a preservation community in Queens. Isolated from the rest of the city, with no political influence and frankly, not of the first rank, it will go around in circles blaming someone, Mary Beth Betts, immigrants, anyone but the real cause - themselves and their lack of balls.
The landmarks law is joke. It in discriminates against 90% of the city - mostly poorer and economically disadvantaged.
No one, even the most avid advocate of the status quo, can say that the system is not broken far beyond repair.
We need a system reset for the whole shebang.
Yes it sucks that people sell out to developers, but what loss is an individual expected to incur in an effort to preserve one house in a neighborhood that is already pretty far gone? Say you could get $100,000 more selling to a developer, would you give that up for the sake of the greater "community"? Maybe if you have money out the nose, but if you spend your life as a working man saving and scrimping, that $100,000 is huge, especially if in retirement. It sucks to see a house like this go, but I wouldn't expect the owner to pass up the best offer.
Very well said. If it's already crap without maintaining, do you expect people will fork out money to maintain it or scrap it and restart it.
Put YOURSELF in the situation. At this RE market, if you house is worth only $500K, but someone came and say I'll offer you $700K CASH. Will you take it? How about $1 million. Please do not say you will not take that money because "You want to preserve this place", because you won't since everyone has a price. So we are all hyprocrites by saying why tear it down, etc. A lot of people will take that offer especially for an old house like this and in the current state of the nation and in this RE market.
I know a neighbor was offer $200k MORE than the highest market value because their house is on a R6 zoning. He said no. why? Because he is asking them for total $500K more than the market value. He doesn't need to leave now.. so if they will offer him, he will.. EVERYONE HAS A PRICE. You are a hyprocrite if you say you don't.
I guess that's why landmarking is in existence. Too bad it's not in the neighborhoods that need it.
I know a neighbor was offer $200k MORE than the highest market value because their house is on a R6 zoning. He said no. why? Because he is asking them for total $500K more than the market value. He doesn't need to leave now.. so if they will offer him, he will.. EVERYONE HAS A PRICE. You are a hyprocrite if you say you don't.
----
The fact of the matter is that the richest smartest communities in the city protect buildings like this - and those communities are filled with very savvy smart people.
You get some two-bit developer like this (or sleazy pol) that spreads this semi-literate blather in Queens would never dare say this in landmarked communities. They would get chased back to Malba or Great Neck or where the hell ilk like you live.
I can personally note--
that some of the past trustees of the Queens Historical Society were often afraid to openly and vigorously spearhead historic preservation in Queens--beyond meager advances.
Yet I can understand their dilemma--having served as a board member for two terms myself.
Consider this:
if QHS opened its mouth too wide, and yelled too loud--then Queens Borough Hall would have simply
cut its funding to them.
Aye, there's the rub with most historical societies.
Queens borough presidents DO NOT
have a track record of wanting to preserve historic sites over the wishes of their developer friends and political campaign contributors.
Make no mistake about it--
while I served on QHS's board--
I WAS NOT one of those do-nothings!
Why then did I not stick it out as a trustee, you might well ask?
Because I was unable to turn
things around all by my lonesome.
I served better elsewhere.
If you read the statutes carefully...
you will see that the municipal landmarks law was set up primarily to protect the tourist corridor of Manhattan.
Of course if one of the commissioners happens to live in Park Slope (for example) his nabe gets protected.
Face it folks,
Queens is a crap dump!
Park your shit here so that the other preferred boroughs don't
have to smell it!
Most of the few great sites that were worthy of landmark status in Queens, have since been obliterated.
What's left? Not much worth considering.
So should we clamor to landmark some more mediocre structures like firehouses?
Maybe LPC's Betts & Tierney are right in their assumptions,
"Not worthy of landmark status".
Now the Steinway Mansion deserves designation ....IN SPADES!
But as long as there are those political mafiosi...like the Vallones around ruling the local roost...you can FUGHETTABOUTIT!
LOL...
did you mention Queens Hysterical Society?
They've further dwindled into becoming a purely decorative body of self absorbed geldings...when they should be spirited stallions, championing the preservation of historic sites...and not just in old photos.
"Hi ho, Silver"!
Oh, they sell their books and mount their exhibits.
"Badda beep...badda beep...
(but) that's all folks"!
Uh...and if Jason Antos (yawn) publishes another one of his historical neighborhood pamphlets (replete with inaccuracies) I think I'll fall asleep right in the middle of Barnes & Noble, Bayside!
Yep...
those thin little softcover Antos books sell for over $20...yikes!
They're full of the same old photos that you see around everywhere else.
Very little info is original or enlightening.
Is this what passes for a Queens "historian"?
Then we've got Dr. Jack-off Eichenbaum as our official burro historian.
That Jack-ass is anti-landmarking.
No wonder Queens is lost!
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