Friday, August 10, 2012

Too many historic buildings?


From The Forum:

For the last 14 years, one group has been trying to get a large section of Richmond Hill designated as a historical district, which would honor and protect the old, Victorian- style and Dutch-Colonial style homes in that neighborhood.

Ivan Mrakovcic, president of the Richmond Hill Historical Society and second Vice Chairman of Community Board 9, has been among a group of people hoping to get their district proposal approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC).

But Mrakovcic said that the city agency has denied the historical society’s request for that designation.

In 2005, the LPC decided that the proposed area did not meet their requirements for a historical district designation. He said that he contacted LPC again about revisiting that decision and it refused.

As for Mrakovcic, he said that the historical district proposal will be revamped and submitted again to the LPC. Although he declined to say what the changes would be, he did say that the new proposal would be smaller in hopes of boosting its chances of getting LPC’s approval.

He added that it will be a difficult decision to decide what areas will make the cut and what will be eliminated.

“It’s never easy because you see so many examples of beautiful buildings,” Mrakovcic said.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

A decent man with whom I went to school. Glad to see he's active and involved in the community.

Ed Unneland

Anonymous said...

Poor 3rd world Richmond Hill...
surrounded by Sihks, Guyanese, etc.

It is not part of city planning's agenda for it to attain historic district status.

NYC will never interfere with a new ethnic neighborhood in the making.

Just like Flushing was socially engineered and destroyed to become an Asian enclave...so too Richmond Hill is slated to lose its many architectural treasures to the advance of "progress".

Likewise,
there is no historic district in the future for Broadway Flushing either, no matter what rumblings are being heard.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately,
the Department of City Planning
(and its close associate the LPC)
isn't doing much planning.

Instead,
they are PLOTTING against us!

Anonymous said...

Its Queens. If developers arent allowed to buy single family homes and put 8-unit apartments on them, then where oh where will all the manhattanites domestic help going to live???

Anonymous said...

It would be interesting to survey the differences in opinions on this issue among the residents who arrived within the last 5 years with with residents who have live there for over 20 years.

Anonymous said...

Anyone familiar with the history of Richmond Hill knows that it is a community of serial ethnic concentrations. Creating a historic district would be a way of enforcing an acknowledgment of the past as each wave moves through. Ethnic waves don't have to erase everything.

Anonymous said...

Oh but those "ethnic waves" coming through are Tsunamis that will wash away this nabe.