Caption Claire Shulman's Statue

Realtor who put up Greaser Punk statue in Ozone Park dies

 

Queens Chronicle

Residents of Ozone Park and Howard Beach tend to be familiar with one of the area’s most conspicuous oddities, the greaser on the clock.

Hoisted up on an office building along Cross Bay Boulevard, a statue of a ’50s greaser clad in blue jeans — hands thrust into the pockets of a black leather jacket — leans back on the brick facade of a law office at 109th Avenue.

What they might not know is that the figure was put there by George Schneider, the longstanding member of the business community in charge of Schneider Real Estate.

Schneider died on May 2 at 87 years old. He is survived by his wife, Mary Ann, his daughters Linda Schneider Bancalari and Debbie Ann Schneider, stepson Raymond Simpson and seven grandchildren.

The real estate entrepreneur was born and raised in Richmond Hill and lived in Howard Beach and Ozone Park for most of his adult life, before moving to Long Island in his old age. He began his Ozone Park-based business in 1955.

Schneider Real Estate turned into a recognizable name in South Queens, and even extended into a mini-business empire in the neighborhood. Its original quarters were located around 107th and Cross Bay Boulevard, where Schneider had set up a number of different businesses in his namesake: Schneider Travel and Schneider Insurance, in addition to a building that morphed over time from ice cream stand to consignment store among other businesses.

His daughter Debbie Ann Schneider still lives in a Schneider Real Estate home that she inherited from her dad.

“The people that are on my block, they’re like, ‘Your dad sold this one to that person and that one to this other person.’ But everybody comes back to the man on the building,” she said, referring to the greaser statue.

Next to Schneider Insurance, Debbie Ann said that her father used to put out dune buggies and hot rod cars to attract attention.

For the real estate company he wanted to get a statue of a burglar. “Like a robber — stealing — like we’ll steal a house for you, it’ll be so cheap,” Debbie Ann said. But when he couldn’t find a statue of a cat burglar, he went with another symbol of a lawless antihero: a member of the greaser gang subculture that gained prominence in the ’50s.

Many call it the James Dean statue, after the “Rebel Without a Cause” star.

“His main objective was so that people would stop and look at it, you know? And it worked,” Debbie Ann said.

State: Columbus statue is historic

From the NY Post:

The state is designating the Columbus monument at Columbus Circle as a landmark — in case the city tries to move it in the future.

The New York State Board of Historic Preservation voted unanimously on Sept. 20 to place the statue in the state and national registers for its historic and cultural significance.

The action was not publicized.

Gov. Cuomo is expected to announce the designation at the Columbus Citizens Foundation dinner Saturday night and the news will be celebrated at the monument on Sunday — ahead of Monday’s Columbus Day Parade.

The 76-foot beaux arts monument was designed by Italian sculptor Gaetano Russo and it’s his only sculptural art work in America.

Columbus isn't going anywhere

From NBC:

A city commission has decided to keep a controversial statue of Christopher Columbus that stands in Columbus Circle, officials said. Katherine Creag reports.

Both sides heard at Queens hearing on monuments

From PIX11:

The future of New York City’s controversial monuments was the topic of conversation Friday at Queens Borough Hall where for the first time, New Yorkers had a chance to give their two cents.

As many as 800 pieces of art across the five boroughs including a statue of Christopher Columbus in Midtown, are at the center of the debate.

Nearly two dozen residents testified before Mayor de Blasio’s advisory commission on city art, monuments and markers.

From residents who warned that erasing history would be dangerous, to others who called Columbus a “terrorist” — the opinions ran the gamut.

Outside all the talk of history, the turnout for the public testimony was noticeably low with members of the media outnumbering residents.

The midday hearing drew ire from some but the Mayor’s office insists holding a hearing like this in the middle of the day on a weekday, is standard procedure.

De Blasio uninvited from Columbus Day parade in Bronx

From NBC:

Organizers of one Columbus Day Parade in New York City have uninvited Mayor de Blasio after he ordered a review of controversial statues in the city -- including several Columbus statues. Rana Novini reports.

De Blasio's monuments commission appointed

From CBS 2:

The members of the commission are:

Co-Chairs

Darren Walker President of the Ford Foundation; longtime leader in nonprofit and philanthropic sectors

Tom Finkelpearl Commissioner, Department of Cultural Affairs

Commission Members

Richard Alba Distinguished Professor at CUNY Graduate Center; former vice president of the American Sociological Association

Michael Arad Architect; designer of the World Trade Center Memorial

Harry Belafonte Singer; songwriter; actor; and civil rights activist

John Calvelli Executive Vice President for Public Affairs of the Wildlife Conservation Society; Vice Chair of International Affairs at the National Italian American Foundation

Mary Schmidt Campbell President of Spelman College; former vice-chair of President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities

Gonzalo Casals Director of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art; adjunct faculty at CUNY Hunter College in arts administration

Teresita Fernandez Visual artist with experience in public art; MacArthur Fellow

Amy Freitag Executive Director of the JM Kaplan Fund; former Executive Director at New York Restoration Project

Catie Marron Editor of books on urban parks and public spaces; chair of the board of Friends of the High Line; trustee of the New York Public Library

Jon Meacham Vanderbilt professor; Pulitzer prize-winning biographer of Jefferson and Jackson

Pepón Osorio Visual artist with experience in public art; MacArthur Fellow

Harriet Senie Public art scholar; author; professor of art history and director of the Art History program and Art Museum Studies at City College of New York

Shahzia Sikander Visual artist with experience in public art; MacArthur Fellow

Audra Simpson Mohawk anthropologist; Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University

John Kuo Wei Tchen Historian of Chinese Americans in New York City; Associate Professor at New York University

Mabel Wilson Architect; scholar of race, memory, and urbanism; Associate Professor at Columbia University

Ex-Officio City Agencies Public Design Commission, Law, Education, and Parks

Astoria's Columbus statue vandalized

From Eyewitness News:

"Don't Honor Genocide" was spray painted in blue paint on the monument of Christopher Columbus in Queens.

This statue is the latest across the country to be marred by vandalism in the wake of the deadly Charlottesville rally.

It's all making many officials question whether New York City should remove monuments of other controversial figures.

An employee from the Sanitation Department spent just about his whole day working on it, but try as he might, he just couldn't wash it away.

"It's against America," said Adrianna, a parkgoer.

Folks stopped in Columbus Triangle Park in Astoria, to take pictures of the vandalism of the statue of Christopher Columbus Thursday.

Someone had written with a stubborn blue paint over a stencil: "Don't honor genocide," a reference to Columbus' actions as a conqueror after he landed in 1492.

"He came to discover the new world and this is how he's treated," said Joe DiPietro, a parkgoer.

Ugly statue will soon be foisted upon LIC

The controversial pink sculpture planned for the median at the intersection of Jackson Avenue and 43rd Avenue is about to go up, according to Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer in a Facebook post today.

The 8 ½-foot-tall sculpture, called the Sunbather, comes at a cost of $515,000 and is part of the Department of Cultural Affairs ‘Percent for Art’ initiative.

The DCLA selected the sculpture, which will be permanent, based on the opinion of an expert panel. The public art is required since New York law requires that one percent of the budget for City-funded construction projects be spent on public art.

The sculpture sparked a heated discussion when Community Board 2’s land use committee first heard of the plan and saw the design at a November 2014 committee meeting.

The committee members said they felt caught off guard by the proposal and were upset that they did not have more input in the design.

Penny Lee, who works with the Department of City Planning, told the committee at the time that the artwork was “not just a whimsical piece he [the artist] came with up. It may look whimsical but an enormous amount of thought and attention to place was put into the design.”

Make sure to click the link above to see how much taxpayer money got blown on this pile of pink crap.

Where will Civic Virtue finally rest?

From Pix11:

...what will become of the empty space at Queens Borough Hall? The city and the office of the Queens Borough President is considering landscaping the area and adding plants to honor the women leaders of the borough.

Richard Iritano and the members of Civic Virtue Task Force question the deal that gave the statue to the cemetery in Brooklyn for an undefined amount of time.

Weird statue to be placed somewhere in LIC

From LIC Post:

The Department of Cultural Affairs is close to erecting a bright pink, 8 ½ feet tall sculpture on Jackson Avenue.

The artwork would be located there permanently and the cost to taxpayers would be about $450,000. Furthermore, the owners of the adjacent sites have not been notified — which is typical for this type of a artwork since it is part of city program.

The Department of Cultural Affairs through its ‘Percent for Art’ initiative has selected an artist to create the piece and it is a long way in the process of getting it approved. The artwork is called “The Sunbather” which is likely to be placed on the grass median by the crosswalk near 43rd Avenue.

Public inclusion in the process has been limited—with the organization electing not to share the rendering with the greater public or with this news site. It also won’t put the rendering up online until it is approved.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And in this beholder's opinion, it looks like a bunch of wadded up bubblegum.

Rally in the works to bring Civic Virtue back to borough hall

From the Forum:

Time has not put a damper on the fight to bring Civic Virtue back to Kew Gardens and advocates said they were planning a major rally for the cause.

Richard Iritano, leader of the Civic Virtue Task Force, said he and his team were making hundreds of phone calls and emails to organize one a massive effort against the removal of the historic statue and call for its immediate return to the front of Borough Hall. After months of waiting for letters of support and other commitments from Queens elected officials, Iritano said he was ready to press forward alone if he needed to.

“We want this to be a democratic process and so far, we’re not getting any cooperation,” Iritano said. “Where are the letters of support? We will move ahead with this rally with or without them.”

Now, the activist said he hoped to see those same elected officials come back to supporting the cause as he and his task force assemble another massive rally for next month.

“The consensus has long been established. We want it back,” Iritano said. “There still seems to be all these delays and stall tactics coming from those in office.”

Robert LoScalzo, a documentary filmmaker and member of the task force, learned through a Freedom of Information Law Request that $49,464 city dollars went towards the restoration work of the statue and another $49,801 paid for its transportation.

WTC sphere is staying

From the NY Times:

Rededicated in Battery Park in Lower Manhattan on March 11, 2002, as New York City’s interim memorial, the “Sphere” has been sitting for months behind a construction fence while the park is renovated. No one in a position to know what might happen to the 25-foot-tall bronze globe, which still bears the scars of Sept. 11, 2001, would disclose anything publicly about where it might end up. Or when.

So when a work crew arrived on Wednesday and began dismantling the sculpture, placing one hemisphere on the back of a flatbed truck, and a crew member said that he could not divulge where the “Sphere” was headed, it seemed as if the cloak of secrecy was about to swallow the sculpture whole.

To make matters even more puzzling, officials of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the sculpture, and those of the National September 11 Memorial, which is frequently mentioned as a possible final setting for the “Sphere,” said they knew nothing about the move.

The parks department did know about it, however. On Wednesday evening, Arthur Pincus, an assistant commissioner of the agency, said the “Sphere” was simply being moved about 550 feet within the park, to a spot much closer to Castle Clinton, to accommodate the renovations.

Originally they were going to remove the statue.

Parks Dept working on Doughboy paintjob

George The Atheist passed along these updated photos of Doughboy Park.


A more respectful paint job. It hasn't all been restored, but it's a start. Just in time for Memorial Day.

Photos from GeorgeTheAtheist's blog.

Still fighting for Civic Virtue

From the Daily News:

The controversial Triumph of Civic Virtue statue may be long gone from Queens Boulevard but some local activists are still fighting to find how and why it was moved.

They filed a Freedom of Information Law request with the city for details of the plans to move it to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

But the Department of Citywide Administrative Services has yet to respond, prompting the group to appeal to state officials.

“There are a lot of issues going on with this statue,” said Jon Torodash, a Kew Gardens resident who led the campaign to keep the statue in Queens. “Residents were annoyed enough that we were losing such a great work of art but then there was this whole secrecy and these strange channels through the Design Commission.”

The city Design Commission signed off on the plan to move the statue during a little-known public hearing in November.

Torodash and others complained they had no prior notice about the hearing.

Jacob Riis is still standing tall

From the Daily News:

Jacob Riis, the muckraking journalist who championed reforms for the poorest New Yorkers at the turn of the century, is still watching over Rockaway from his oceanfront perch.

A bronze bust of Riis, replaced just two years ago by a group of Queens schoolkids, miraculously withstood the fury of Superstorm Sandy.

The rest of Riis Park did not go unscathed from the storm that sparked fires and flooding throughout the peninsula. It toppled brick walls, twisted fences and unfurled railing across the sprawling recreation area.

Fat Boy heads to greener pastures

From the Daily News:

The Triumph of Civic Virtue, the controversial Queens statue that has divided local lawmakers and residents for decades, has moved to greener pastures.

A last-minute plea from supporters who wanted to keep the statue at its present perch outside Queens Borough Hall failed to change the mind of city officials.

A crew spent almost 12 hours Saturday carefully removing the statue from its base outside Queens Borough Hall for its journey to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Under an unusual agreement with the city, the cemetery will restore the statue and then place it on display.

“This is a sad day for Queens,” said City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., who recently led a rally in front of the statue to demand it be kept in the borough. “The people of Queens wanted this statue. They need to replace it with another large piece of Greco-Roman art immediately.”

No, we need to replace our do-nothing elected officials immediately. Or rather, next November.

It's happening because of us

Editorial from the Queens Chronicle:

It’s a shame that “The Triumph of Civic Virtue,” the 1920 statue by famed sculptor Frederick MacMonnies, which has been stationed outside Borough Hall since the 1940s, is being moved out of Queens.

But the fact is we don’t deserve to keep it.

The statue, commonly just called “Civic Virtue,” has not been well maintained. It’s not respected by many residents here; most probably don’t even know what it is. It was controversial even before it arrived at the corner of Queens Boulevard and Union Turnpike. And its pending move to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, while unfortunate, may provide the impetus for the residents of this borough to be more protective of our treasures.

“Civic Virtue” comprises a male figure wielding a sword and towering over two writhing female figures, sirens of Greek mythology, meant to symbolize vice and corruption. Those who want to keep it where it is understand the symbolism.

But from day one the sculpture has been misinterpreted, both knowingly and not, as sexist. Elizabeth King Black of the National Women’s Party is one who decried it, saying, “Men have their feet on women's necks, and the sooner women realize it the better!” That was no recent comment made by someone ignorant of history; she said it at a hearing in the 1920s.

So while we sympathize with those who know what the sculpture is meant to convey, we also understand the view of those who look at it and just see misogyny.

That, however, is not the main reason people in Queens should throw up their hands and just let “Civic Virtue” go. The main reason is that we let our officials allow it to all but fall apart over the years, and now it’s too late to do anything about it. Those who wanted it preserved should have demanded that funds be allocated for that years ago.

Instead, in typical Queens fashion, no one got it done. Now that the statue is just days away from being moved to Green-Wood — which will pay to restore it with private funds and let those who want to admire it afterward do so — we get a too-little, too-late press conference, led by two City Council members trying to stop the process.

The hearing was held, the decision was made, and all we can say now is that Queens residents should do a better job protecting other borough assets, such as the New York State Pavilion from the 1964-65 World’s Fair, the Bowne House, the Steinway Mansion and so many other endangered landmarks. If we lose another, the fault again will be not in our stars but in ourselves.

Too little, too late

The above video is from July 19, 2012. There was also a press conference February 25, 2011 calling for the removal of the statue and a subsequent March 11, 2011 NY Times article about Greenwood's interest in it.

If elected officials were really serious about keeping Civic Virtue in Queens, they wouldn't have waited until December 8, 2012 - nearly 2 years after this nonsense started - to have a press conference/rally, after it was announced that it was a done deal that it was being moved to Brooklyn. The fact that the Johnny-come-lately rally was led by Council Members Peter Vallone, Jr. and Liz Crowley is actually quite comical in light of their anti-preservation records.


The deliberate and uneducated actions of certain Queens elected officials (specifically Marshall, Ferreras and Weiner) and the deliberate inaction of all other Queens elected officials is what exiled Civic Virtue to Brooklyn. Ponder the symbolism for a moment.

The way preservation works in Queens is that electeds allow whatever is going to happen get to the point of no return and then they hold meaningless last-minute rallies to try to save face as the ship sinks. Pathetic preservation suckers fall for the charade every time, too.

The more I think about it, the more I believe Civic Virtue belongs in Brooklyn, which still has a few burning embers of civic virtue, and at Greenwood Cemetery where it will be restored and properly cared for. Getting anything fixed or preserved in Queens has unfortunately become a really unfunny joke, with the joke being on us.

Marshall already celebrating Fat Boy's departure

From DNA Info:

Borough President Helen Marshall is pushing to replace a controversial statue on Queens Boulevard with a public plaza to honor New York City women.

The Triumph of Civic Virtue statue, which depicts Hercules with the sirens of Vice and Corruption, has been standing in Kew Gardens since 1941, after Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia moved it from City Hall Park. Known as “Fat Boy” or “Rough Boy,” the monument, fashioned by Frederick MacMonnies in 1919, has been denounced by some as sexist and in recent years fell into disrepair.

And now that the artwork is moving to Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, Marshall says the space should be used to honor the city's women.

The statue should be replaced, she said, by “a public space that will honor outstanding women that have contributed in one way or another to the city of New York.”

The names of women may be inscribed on the base of the statue, which could remain along with a fountain in the proposed memorial, Marshall said. The redesigned space would also feature seating and landscaping.

Marshall's vision of the public plaza is in the early stages, however. Her chief of staff, Alexandra Rosa, said the borough president has discussed the idea with the Parks Department, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services and the Mayor's office.

It was too early to put a price tag on the plaza, Rosa said. Still, the mayor's office was "receptive" to the idea, she said.

I picture a Mount Rushmore-style monument featuring likenesses of Marshall, Stavisky, Shulman and Meng...

Here's info about a rally today at Borough Hall:

Council Member Peter F. Vallone Jr. will join Community Board 9 Chair Andrea Crawford, District Manager Mary Ann Carey and residents of Queens at a rally protesting the City Design Commission’s recent ruling to permanently relocate the Triumph of Civic Virtue statue to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn from Queens Borough Hall. The cemetery has stated that the statue may be moved in the next week!

The Design Commission ruled on November 13th to move the statue without input from the public, despite most Queens residents wanting the sculpture to remain in the borough. Community Board 9, which has always supported keeping Civic Virtue in Queens, is also greatly disappointed by the decision and the lack of consultation with residents and community leaders.

WHAT: Triumph of Civic Virtue Rally
WHEN: Saturday, December 8th, 11:30 AM
WHERE: In front of statue, next to Queens Borough Hall (120-55 Queens Boulevard, Kew Gardens)