Sunday, November 26, 2017

The Garaufis house: From classic to crappy

From the Times Ledger:

Work on the historic home formerly belonging to federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis is nearly complete with none of the original features of the classic 19th century structure remaining and complaints continuing to mount.

A modern brick structure with multiple entrances has risen in the place of the large, stately home that originally belonged to the Lawrence family, who owned an estate covering most of what is now Bayside and left a legacy which preservationists have attempted to maintain.

A neighborhood feud began in April 2016, led by Bonnie Skala Kiladitis, as the property was purchased and plans for renovation were posted on the city Dept. of Buildings site by the new owner with a permit requiring at least half the original structure be retained. Work on the four-story house, however, quickly took a turn for the extreme. Within days, the home had been reduced to the first floor.

The most recent violation on the property shows people have been living in the home without a certificate of occupancy for which the DOB cited them on Nov. 5.

32 comments:

JQ LLC said...

Way to destroy that beautiful lawn. I assume there is going to a roll up style driveway in it's place. Tacky.

Why do these mcmansion people hate lawns so much.

Anonymous said...

“Our community will not stand idly on the sidelines when homeowners and developers come into our neighborhoods and deceitfully try to circumvent building codes,” Vallone said in 2016. “This type of blatant disregard of building permit requirements and deliberate over-development will never be accepted in our community.”

They had to use a 2016 quote from Stinky? They weren't able to reach him this week because he was busy putting up his Christmas lights?

ron s said...

Ugly

Anonymous said...

aaahhhh new money

Anonymous said...

@JQ LLC
They hate lawns because they need to park their multiple luxury suvs.
The McMansion will most likely contain multiple generations with children in their 30's still living home. It's more like a compound then a home.

Joe Moretti said...

This place would not be bad in the suburbs somewhere, where all homes look like this, but HERE, come on. The worst part of this is the removal of grass, trees and bushes/shrubs. Just like JQ LLC, why do so many people in NYC hat green. You do know the removal of green will mean the end of us eventually and that is probably the only good thing about that. HIT THE START OVER BUTTON.

AND where is DOB and other agencies on this shit, they wait till damage is totally done and nothing can be done about it, so they live it as is.

NYC SUCKS and if this city is so progressive, it would not allow the constant removal of GREEN.

georgetheatheist said...

What kind of aesthetically mentally deficient idiots want to live in such gaudy shitboxes? Who are their deranged architects? Time to call Bellview?

Anonymous said...

The most recent violation on the property shows people have been living in the home without a certificate of occupancy for which the DOB cited them on Nov. 5.

Does it matter? Does anyone care? Is there any downside? If not go ahead and build!!!

Anonymous said...

It looks TERRIBLE! I read that the owner (asian of course) said that she was only going to put her family in there! YEAH RIGHT! Like anyone would believe that this crap is just to house one family in it! Its such crap with what these people can get away with!

Anonymous said...

The brick house is gorgeous.
A bunch of jealous people on this blog.
Get a life, seriously!

Anonymous said...

Why do they hate and reject 'GOOD TASTE' so much, JQ? I call these 'SIGHT POLLUTION' structures 'hideosities,' and they completely ruin whole neighborhoods like nothing else. Even Liberace would vomit!

Anonymous said...

Garafus is a federal judge (eastern district) .....formerly Claire Shulman's counsel.

Anonymous said...

Who cares. He was lousy judge anyway.

M. How said...

Anonymous said..."The brick house is gorgeous. A bunch of jealous people on this blog. Get a life, seriously!"

Oi vey! Another McMansion trying to look like a Pasha Palace. And with this "home" will come plenty of green cards since over $1 million dollars was "invested" in real estate.

Well, beauty IS in the eye of the beholder BUT Anonymous could really SEE what this "home" looks like if he/she took off the dark glasses and considered the surrounding neighborhood.

This Asian not only didn't look, he/she didn't give a rats ass for his/her neighbors. And don't tell me that the DOB wasn't paid off plenty for this disregard of building plans and codes.

Ain't diversity wonderful!

JQ LLC said...

Re: Hideousities.

That is real real good.

Anonymous said...

"The brick house is gorgeous."

Consider getting a seeing eye dog and white cane.

Anonymous said...

Does that not symbolize to non-Queens residents the world's impression of the borough?

That's what happens when you get lazy and let someone else, like a political clubhouse, define you and your community.

Gorgeous mosaic my @ss. 3rd world slum 3rd world values.

Gino said...

The brick house is gorgeous"

Ha-Ha-Ha-ha you clueless mis-informed, that isn't skilled $$ mason laid brick.
That is called cheap "Faux Stone Novi Panel" over cinderblock & steel beam. Columns are stucco sprayed over bent plywood.

If you look closely, every cluster of prefab faux brick panel repeats itself every 2 and 4 square feet.
Near every new piece of shit in Queens is made this way to look "expensive" with slap up quick with unskilled labor. (and before a stop work order can be executed too)
This structure will start looking shod and peeling like a fish after a couple New York winters. Just take a walk down Bell Blvd and see all the peeling faux and spray on crap

-Gino

Learn yourself something See: www.fauxpanels.com

Especially this (cut and past the whole line to a browser)
https://www.fauxpanels.com/?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=STONE-PANEL&utm_term=%252Bfacing%2520stone&utm_content=STONE-FACING

Anonymous said...

NOT BRICK you Einstein, its compressed & molded polymer panel!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=25&v=f5hGoOrGGqk

Tom said...

Many people have no taste hence the phrase , cash doesn’t buy class . McMansions, Lazy Boy chairs , decorating with 14k gold.

But who the hell is the archetect that would design this ? My god .

Anonymous said...

Just wait and see. It will turn into an air BNB after its completion same as other mansion-looked houses in Flushing such as 149-02 ELM AVENUE

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/20636888?adults=1&children=0&infants=0&location=Flushing%2C%20NY%2011355%2C%20United%20States&check_in=2017-11-30&check_out=2017-12-03&tier_override=0&s=F3IocVNb#host-profile

Anonymous said...

Of course he was a lousy judge. That's why he's imbedded in the system.

Anonymous said...

What's with all the hate for the new building? (Aside from potentially removing the lawn.) The old building is pretty, the new building is also pretty.

What's with the obsession here with having every house in the neighborhood look the same? Cookie cutter houses are for suburbia, not for the City.

McMansion Are For People That Want to Look Rich but Are Not said...


No, actually. The new building is pretty awful.

Let me list some:

1) It is not proportional. The center entrance is too high for one thing
2) The color is awful
3) The windows all look weird. Why are there 5 casement windows in a row? WTF person designed this?


You should read this blog about McMansions and why they suck

http://mcmansionhell.com/

>> Anonymous said...
>> the new building is also pretty.

Anonymous said...

- "What's with the obsession here with having every house in the neighborhood look the same? Cookie cutter houses are for suburbia, not for the City."

Thank you for your thoughts, Mr. Vallone.

Anonymous said...

What's with the obsession here with having every house in the neighborhood look the same? Cookie cutter houses are for suburbia, not for the City.

I would say that most of the McMansions look the same: fake brick or fake stucco; columns; turrets, in an attempt to look like a castle; often a big window above the front door, to show off the huge chandelier in the main hallway; etc.

Anonymous said...

The faux style of McMansions is documented in McMansion Hell.

Ned said...

This is pretty ?
Gosh these people are crazy or really blind.
Every external component part of the structure is dog shit brown. Its also has a "liquefied droop" to it. Much like the monuments my neighbors dog sometimes makes on the lawn. This shit belongs in a botanical garden off the Chang'an-Tianshan corridor not anyplace in America.
I hope the new people at least have the decency to fix up the color and do some green landscaping to show some consideration for their neighbors who have to look at this mess.

-Ned
www.nra.org

Anonymous said...

Will look a lot better if the cut the balls off the roof and get rid of all the wormy looking ornate wiggles in the entry arch.
That "overkill mess" inside that arch really looks like a box of bloodworms used for fishing.
Who designed this shit Stevie Wonder ?

Anonymous said...

What's with the obsession here with having every house in the neighborhood look the same? Cookie cutter houses are for suburbia, not for the City.

We use to be the suburbs back in the day when things were normal in nyc.

Anonymous said...

Yes, this Mc Mansion is an architectural ABORTION but the old house wasn't exactly the Parthenon. This is Queens the wide open spaces for tear down and development.

Anonymous said...

All these new automobiles in Bayside are McUgly. People should be made to drive the true classics. Who issues registrations for these ugly cars. I bet they were paid off. The quality of life of this neighborhood is clearly going downhill. Everytime I come out of my house I have to see these ugly new cars. Oyee Vei!