LIC Elks Lodge exists now only in photos

Untapped Cities takes us inside LIC's now-demolished Elks Lodge.

End of the road for the LIC Elks Club

Photo by George the Atheist

LPC rejects LIC Elks Lodge

From LIC Post:

The Landmarks Preservation Commission has notified this district’s elected officials that the Elks Lodge on 44th Drive is not worthy of being landmarked.

In a letter to Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan, the LPC wrote that the structure “did not rise to the level of an individual landmark.”

“The agency has determined that this property does not merit designation as an individual landmark due to its comparative lack of historic and architectural significance to other landmarked clubhouses,” according to the letter, dated April 14.

Phony preservation rally held by phony elected

From the Times Ledger:

Some of the biggest names in the Long Island City arts community declared war on developers who illegally altered the decorative facade on the Elks Lodge building on 44th Drive Tuesday, one week after neighborhood residents renewed efforts to have the property landmarked.

Artists in LIC don't give a flying rat's ass about preservation, only ice cream money from Jimmy Van Bramer.

“Maybe this building is a line in the sand about how we go about further development here,” Mazda said. “We’ve had a relationship with other developers like Rockrose and TF Cornerstone, who go about things by the rules. Not these Johnny-come-latelies.”

Uh huh.

City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside), who organized the rally of artists outside the Elks Lodge Wednesday afternoon, was furious. Last week he wrote to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, urging them to designate the building as a historical landmark.

Time and again, we have seen electeds pretend to care about saving something, only to later find out that they were in cahoots with the developer. But holding a rally means you can shrug your shoulders and say you tried when the building comes down.

The councilman said he would draft two pieces of legislation to discourage developers from illegally altering structures. The first piece would impose significant fines and penalties to any landowner that intentionally alters the facade or any part of a building that is in the process of being landmarked and the second piece would authorize the city to increase the fines if a developer does illegal construction without a permit.

Which will have absolutely no teeth, because sending a letter to LPC doesn't mean the building is "in the process of being landmarked".

How many preservation groups were invited to this rally?

Developer destroys facade of Elks club in response to landmarking push

From LIC Post:

Unique exterior details were illegally torn from the former Elks Lodge on 44th Drive this morning just days after the local community launched an effort to landmark the property and stave off development.

Construction workers took jackhammers to the building, located at 21-42 44th Drive. An elk head, one of the building’s unique exterior details, has been hacked off.

According to DOB documents, the work was taking place without proper permits. By Monday afternoon, police had arrived to enforce a stop work order from the Department of Buildings, an officer told the LIC Post.

Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer, who wrote a letter to the Landmark Preservation Commission requesting landmark consideration of this property, called the illegal alteration “a disgraceful act of civic vandalism.”

He reached out to the DOB and Mayor’s office to have inspectors visit the location and issue a stop work order.

LIC Elks Club in danger

From DNA Info:

Local residents are pushing to landmark the former Elks Lodge building on 44th Drive, citing the property as one of the few remaining vestiges of Long Island City's history in the rapidly developing neighborhood.

Supporters fear the century-old building, located at 21-42 44th Dr., will soon be torn down or turned into luxury housing after a partial demolition permit was filed for the site in December, Department of Buildings records show.

At the time of the filing, Adam Westreich of the development group Alwest Equities told local news site LIC Post that the company was working with Planet Partners to demolish the lodge and construct an eight-story condo building there and on the lot next door.

Westreich declined to comment on those plans when reached Friday, but City records show the building was sold in February to a company called 44th Drive Owner LLC; attempts to reach this entity for comment were not immediately successful.

While plans for the site remain murky, local groups are hoping to garner support to preserve the three-story site, which sports an ornately detailed facade — including an Elk's head carved into its exterior molding.

Here is the petition.

Elmhurst Elks Lodge may get upgrade

From the Queens Tribune:

An Elmhurst landmark will get some upgrades, but it needs help from the community first.

Constructed in the 1920s, the former Elks Lodge at 82-10 Queens Blvd. was designated a City landmark in 2001. According to Landmarks Preservation Commission documents, some of the features that earned the building its designation include a bronze elk statute at its entrance, ornate carvings around its entryway and its brick, limestone and granite façade.

Today, these designs are somewhat daunted by the current of traffic on Queens Boulevard and the crowd of neighboring buildings. Meanwhile, certain elements of the lodge are falling into disrepair; bricks have slipped out of the exterior walls and some balustrades are chipped or missing.

Nevertheless, it is a building busy with activity, and one of the several groups that use the Elks Lodge have found a way to restore it to its former state.

Last year, the New Life Community Development Corporation applied for a grant to restore the building with the State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

“We thought, maybe they would throw us a bag of cement or a couple of shovels or something,” New Life CDC executive director Redd Sevilla said.

Instead, in December, Parks awarded New Life CDC a matching grant of $500,000 for the restoration.

It was “the miracle that happened on Queens Boulevard,” Sevilla said.

According to Parks spokesman Randy Simons, the grant constitutes a 75 percent reimbursement of the total project cost, up to $500,000. This means that a restoration costing $666,667 would achieve the full $500,000 reimbursement, with New Life CDC fronting the initial cost and ultimately paying the difference.

New Life CDC has until the end of 2015 to fundraise for the project.

Former Elks Lodge added to National Register

From the Queens Gazette:

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced on September 22 that the New York State Board for Historic Preservation recommended adding 22 properties, resources and districts to the State and National Registers of Historic Places.

One of the locations is here in Queens. The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Lodge Number 878 on Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst is on the list. The 1923 building is a distinctive architectural example of a 20th-century fraternal organization building designed in the Italian Renaissance Revival style.

Fraternal organizations losing members

From the Daily News:

A bronze statue of an elk, now green due to decades of oxidation, stands guard in Elmhurst in front of a landmark commonly known as Elks Lodge No. 878.

For generations, the clubhouse hosted charitable and social gatherings until the Elks, whose dwindling membership no longer warranted such a vast space, sold it to a church a few years ago.

The Elks still meet next-door at a smaller facility. But many point to the group's exit from its Queens Blvd. base as a sign of a borough-wide downturn in fraternal organizations and service clubs.

Once signatures of many tight-knit communities across Queens, groups such as the Elks - known for camaraderie and charity work - are struggling to lure new blood and hang on to meeting spots.

Elks aren't alone. Other fraternal groups like the Masons are struggling, too, as are service clubs such as the Kiwanis, the Lions and the Rotary.

Locals fear that the weakening of such organizations diminishes civic pride, as does the demise of other middle-class institutions being profiled in the Vanishing Vintage Queens series.

From the Daily News:

Cutting through blocks of single-family homes in Forest Hills, Metropolitan Ave. embodies the main drags in small towns across the United States, thanks to a library, a post office and banks.

That atmosphere was once also exemplified by the Masonic lodge - until troubled finances forced the owners to sell in 2000 to a bank that then razed the lodge for a parking lot.

Gone is the meeting hall where Freemasons organized and hosted dances, dinners and charity events that signaled a civic pride many say is disappearing across Queens.

All that remains is the lodge's cornerstone, dated 1967, which was rescued by Jim Haddad, a Freemason who attended many functions there. He displays the memento in the yard of his Forest Hills Gardens home.

"The tombstones of fraternal organizations lie throughout Queens, which I suppose is appropriate given the number of graveyards we have," said Haddad, 46. "It really is a problem."