Jehovahs selling a Ridgewood teardown

Well lookie here. 60-12 Menahan Street is a goner, with a demo permit filed recently. After JQ's post about the Van Sicklen house, I decided to look up the provenance of this larger than average home, and while I didn't uncover much in the way of original ownership, I did find that the current owner since 2003 is the Watchtower.

I'm almost surprised, given the location, that it didn't become some sort of hipshit commune but who knows what the next owner will do?

Such cutting edge humor!

No one appreciates sarcasm more than me, but the $1M price tag is most likely because it's being marketed as a teardown.

Also, did the Post just realize that this is the going rate for property in working class neighborhoods these days?



JQ LLC: It also looks like the bank recently had the residents kicked out of the house too. 

A million for a house in Bath Beach? Mental.

Man's house torn down while he was in Florida

From NBC:

A law in New York’s biggest town allows the town to demolish homes deemed “dangerous” or “abandoned” — and it is affecting hundreds of people.

“This was the lot,” Phil Williams said as he stood in an empty yard in the West Hempstead neighborhood he once called home. “And as you can see, there is nothing left.”

Williams went to Florida in December 2014 for knee surgery. When he returned months later in August, his house was gone.

“I bought the house from my dad in 1974,” Williams recalled. “My wife and I lived there. We had six children that lived in the house.”

The Town of Hempstead tore down Williams’ house according to Chapter 90 of town law.

It’s a law that allows building inspectors to identify and demolish structures that they deem are dangerous or abandoned. Currently, the town is dealing with 850 open Chapter 90 cases.

The town’s definition of dangerous is defined, in part, as something that is "…unsafe structurally, or a fire hazard or a nuisance to the general public."

"The house was not a danger. It’s just a ridiculous statement," Williams said.

It wasn’t just the house that was a loss for Williams, though. Decades worth of personal belongings and memories — all of them, gone.

Now, he is taking the town to court.

How San Francisco deals with illegal teardowns

From KPIX5:

The San Francisco Planning Commission made an unprecedented ruling against a developer this week, demanding that he rebuild a replica of a famous house he had illegally demolished.

The residence — known as the Largent House — was in San Francisco’s Twin Peaks neighborhood. It was built in 1936 and designed by one of the most important modern architects, Richard Neutra. Among the unique features of the 1,300-square-foot house was an indoor swimming pool.

The owner, Ross Johnston, bought the property last year. The planning department gave him a permit to renovate the house, but they did not give him the permission to demolish it.

The city believes he wanted to build a 4,000-square-foot mansion on that lot and flip it for a profit.

Earlier this week, the planning commissioners voted 5-0 to order Johnston to build the exact replica. They also want him to put up a sidewalk plaque that would let people know the original Neutra house was demolished.

Johnston’s lawyer declined to comment on our story. The city says even if he tries to sell the property, whoever buys the lot will have to build the replica.

Rego Park teardown

From Forest Hills Post:

A standard-sized house on a standard-sized Rego Park street is going to be demolished.

A demolition permit was filed for 64-53 Ellwell Crescent on July 27, about two weeks after the home was bought for $1.4 million.

The owner is listed as NLA Realty, with Nikadam Aylyarova signing the paper work on behalf of the company. No building permits have been filed to replace the structure.

The house is located directly across the street from a new development, which features large Greek columns and a concrete yard.

Slán do anois, Shannon Pot!

From LIC Post:

The Shannon Pot, a longstanding Irish dive bar in Long Island City, will be closing down for a second time, but with plans already in the horizon to remain in the neighborhood.

The bar and restaurant, currently located at 21-59 44th Dr., will close on Friday as developers plan on bulldozing the one-story building to make way for a seven-story residential and commercial project.

The business, in the neighborhood since 1999, was already forced to relocate to its current 44th Drive site in 2014 from its prior spot at the corner of Jackson Avenue and Davis Street, which was also demolished as part of the two-story project under construction at the former 5Pointz site.

But a spokesperson for The Shannon Pot told the LIC Post that the developer, Kyriacos Stavrinou, has promised them a place at their upcoming development.

The spokesperson said The Shannon Pot will be back in business when the new building is completed. The bar currently has no plans to reopen elsewhere in the meantime, but could potentially do so if a short-term lease were obtained.

Dulcken House is being chainsawed

From George the Atheist

Dulcken House doomed

George the Atheist reports on the impending demolition of Astoria's Dulcken House.

16 units to replace 1-family house in Astoria

From Queens Post:

A single-family home that was built nearly a century ago was recently demolished to make way for a 5-story residential building.

Demolition permits for the 2.5 story clapboard home, located at 23-23 30th Rd, were filed in August, and the demolition began in December. The property was bought by 23-23 Astoria LLC in June for $3.1 million.

The 93-year-old house will be replaced with a 16-unit apartment building, which will be 12,495 square feet and 50 feet tall. The owner filed for building permits on Friday.

An outdoor recreation space will be located on the roof, and a lobby and bicycle parking facility will be on the first floor.

An ambulatory healthcare facility will be located in the cellar. The building will have a driveway.

More Kew Gardens crap in the works

From the Forest Hills Post:

A developer plans to demolish a century-old Kew Gardens home and replace it with a multi-family building.

A demolition permit was filed on Dec. 14 with the Dept. of Buildings to bulldoze 116-17 Grosvenor Lane, a 3-story single family home that was built in 1899.

Steven Li, the owner of Grosvenor Realty Group LLC, said that that he still hasn’t determined what will be built to replace it. No building plans have been filed.

The beginning of the end for the Dulcken House

George the Atheist has the latest at the goings on at the Dulcken House in Astoria and it doesn't look pretty.

The landscape, it is a-changin'

Forest Hills Post reveals that what is above will replace what is below.

Future crap site in Jamaica Estates?

"I'll betcha this is gonna be a piece o' crap soon.

180-28 Wexford Terrace in Jamaica Estates. Small house, huge, long driveway, over 7000 sf piece of land. For the last 15 years or so I've seen many different cars parked in its unpaved, largely unfinished front yard. I figured someone was renting out space to commuters to help pay their mortgage or heating bill. Turns out it's owned by a corporation. Recently sold for 700,000.

There's gotta be room for six or more families on that piece of land."

-Rick D.

Westchester town afraid of becoming Queens

From the NY Times:

“A big part of the reason people come to Larchmont is for the charming homes,” said Sarah Bauer, one of the leaders of Preserve Larchmont. “We know they can be drafty and leaky, but if you wanted something big and new looming over you, you would go to Queens or Long Island.”

After a spate of teardowns the past few years, on Jan. 11 the Board of Trustees took the unusual step of passing a six-month moratorium on residential development in the one-square-mile village.

Why the village is attracting so many wrecking crews is not entirely clear. The most common explanation is that as neighboring communities like Scarsdale and Rye have become saturated with new housing, and cracked down on it, developers are looking farther afield.

What has most alarmed villagers, and intrigued developers, is not simply that old homes are being replaced with newer, bigger ones but rather that two, three or even four homes are being built where once there was just one. There have been 23 new homes built over the past decade, 14 resulting from demolitions and subdivisions, according to city records. With roughly 1,800 homes, that may not seem like much, but village officials said it was undertaking the moratorium to ensure the trend does not grow.

More crap headed to Whitestone

Dear Crappie,

There goes another one in the neighborhood! I just found out that a lovely looking house that has been sitting vacant in Whitestone is going to bite the dust very soon. Take a look on the Department of Buildings site and look up 145-37 24th Avenue. They owners have been sitting on the house for nearly a year and went through multiple buildings and zoning applications to tear down a 1-family house and put a 2-family dwelling in its place. The approvals finally went through this week and they're going to gear up to start tearing down this house! Of course all of this is done under the guise of A1 minor alterations with some interior renovations but lets not kid ourselves. We all know that they're going to tear down all but half a wall and rebuild a giant house in its place with no yards and concrete everywhere.

Here's the kicker...punch in that same address on Google Street View and you'll see that the entire block is nothing but similar looking houses all built in the 30's with massive London Plane trees lining the entire block. This is a scene that is harder and harder to find in North Queens and now that this house mid-block has been approved for demolition, I see nothing but a domino effect on its way to take down this area.

I hope you shine a spotlight on this on your blog like you have in the past showing how great looking areas of Queens are turning crappy. I'll try to get pics of construction as it happens, since I'm sure they'll start tearing down within a few weeks.

Keep up the good work.

-James

Apex of destruction

Among the streets of northeastern Forest hills, the two-block Apex Place is unique for defying the boring rectangular grid. The road is a remnant of the ancient North Hempstead Plank Road that connected Maspeth and Newtown with Flushing. As is often the case, old streets have old homes. On the corner of 63rd Road and Apex Place a charming colonial revival home owned for many decades by Lewis and Luba Meiselman. Lewis died in 1997 and his son Barry paid the taxes for another decade. In 2014, he sold the property to Artur and Alexandra Yakutelov through Dom Realty. This realtor has a long record of selling old homes to buyers who knock them down in favor of tract mansions. Don't get me wrong. Some of the new mansions look fabulous and worthy of the AIA Guide but most look like shit.

The new owners don't have the taste to maintain a colonial revival and applied in April 2015 to expand and renovate the home under architect Chang Hwa Tan. As for Barry, he lives in tony Scarsdale so why should he care what happens to his parents' historic house? This story isn't so different from the fate of historic 90-11 56th Avenue in Elmhurst, where the heirs of longtime resident Vera D. McCarthy sold it to a Chinese developer.

Little old home that has seen so much change
To become another shitty brick box
With a tall brick fence and shiny chrome gates
Your old owner died and his children don't care
For the beauty of a house
On a former colonial lane

-Former Forest Hills resident

1-family house replaced with three 2-familes

Before

Henry Fabian is building "upper parts" in the attics...

Should be fun in the summer.

Disgusting shitbox to no doubt replace tasteful North Flushing home

Hey Crapper,

Must wanted to make your North Flushing readers aware that the house at 161-16 33rd ave is scheduled for demolition. Below is the NYC DOB job approving the demolition. This is a beautiful center hall dutch colonial and there is no need to tear it down. It was sold on 4/10/15 for $960,000.

Link to DOB.

Here is a link to some photos of the home.

- anonymous

Momentum builds to protect small rowhouses

From the NY Times:

Some blocks are graced by quaint two-bedroom, one-story rowhouses — with small front yards, tiny porches and peaked roofs. These houses have become the latest focus in a clash throughout New York between homeowners who want to develop their properties to the limits allowed by law, and preservationists lobbying for stronger laws to protect those properties from development.

The preservationists argue that single-family rowhouses imbue some neighborhoods — particularly in Queens — with their essential character. But under existing zoning laws, there is no specific designation for single-family rowhouses that provides protection against increasing the number of units, or against out-of-scale and out-of-character expansions.

“It’s an absolute disgrace,” said Richard Hellenbrecht, the vice president of the Queens Civic Congress, an umbrella association of more than 100 community groups. “Lovely, affordable homes being squeezed out by monstrosities.”

The architecture is secondary, said Paul Graziano, an urban planning consultant from Flushing. “What it is is affordable rowhouses of modest means, and for people of modest means.”

“It’s stuff worth protecting,” he said. “We’re talking about the basic character of a neighborhood.”

Ms. Lin — unwittingly, she says — thrust herself into the center of the debate soon after buying her rowhouse at 146-15 56th Road for $558,000 in 2013. She had started to renovate, but quickly determined that it would make more sense financially to tear the house down and build a bigger place.

It also made logistical and emotional sense: She wanted a home big enough to house not only her two young children but also her father and brother.

Melinda Katz, a Democrat and the Queens borough president, has vowed to press for protections for single-family rowhouses.

“The rowhouses and the communities that form around that are so important to our future,” she said in an interview. “We value the low-density portion of our neighborhoods.”

“Where will our parents live when they come over from China?” asked Lin Xin, an employee with a contracting firm that had been involved in several of the projects in Queensboro Hill. “Why do you think we work so hard? Why do we scrimp and save? This is why. We want to be reunited with our families. We want to sit around the same table together.”

Another Broadway-Flushing house bites the dust

Another one bites the dust on 32nd Avenue & 156th Street across from Bowne Park.

One more down, and many more teardowns coming to Broadway-Flushing.

The new house right near this one between 156th & 157th already started parking illegally before the more-than-likely parking pad is built.