Historic Districts Council Elects New President
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Paul Graziano (left) and retiring HDC President David Goldfarb (right)
Queens Urban Planner Paul Graziano To Be Preservation Organization’s New Chief
The Historic Districts Council, the citywide advocate for New York’s historic neighborhoods, voted last week to elect Queens preservationist Paul Graziano as the organization’s sixth president, replacing retiring president, Staten Island activist and lawyer David Goldfarb.
Graziano, 36, is an independent urban planning and historic preservation consultant. “In my opinion, preservation means more than just landmarking,” Graziano stated “and we need to broaden our approach to come up with different strategies on how to protect and preserve neighborhoods in all five boroughs of New York City.”
Starting in 1997, Graziano has worked to draft contextual zoning and historic preservation plans for numerous parts of Queens, including most of Flushing. Realizing that surveying and writing reports about the merits of historic buildings was not enough to actually save them, Graziano also helped organize community and civic associations around Queens,, specifically in the Flushing communities of Waldheim and Kissena Park, to better protect their neighborhoods from overdevelopment and fight for their share of municipal services. He received a Masters of Science in Urban Affairs from Hunter College in 1999 and he also became Chair of the Landmarks committee of the Queens Civic Congress, a borough-wide umbrella organization for civic and homeowners associations. In 2001, he ran for City Council for the 20th District on the first “Preservation” political platform in New York City. At that time, Graziano was also awarded with the Grassroots Preservation Award from the Historic Districts Council; he became an adviser in 2002; and a member of HDC’s Board of Directors in 2004.
In 2003, Graziano was retained as a consultant by Councilmember Tony Avella, the Chair of the Zoning and Franchises subcommittee, to examine and inventory the 19th Council District in Northeastern Queens for areas that were at risk for character-destroying over-development. “Paul has provided a strong and independent voice in fighting to preserve our City’s historic treasures,” stated Avella. “His unique blend of technical expertise as well as his long history of preservation advocacy make him an ideal choice as the next President of the Historic Districts Council.”
Since then many Queens neighborhoods, including College Point, Bayside, Whitestone and Douglaston-Little Neck, have been contextually rezoned and include the newly-adopted “anti-McMansion” zoning category, R2A, that Graziano co-authored with the Department of City Planning. In addition, the Douglaston Hill Historic District – only the sixth historic district in the borough of Queens – was designated in 2004 due in part to his efforts. Recently, Graziano co-authored, with Phillip Esser, the Broadway-Flushing National Register Historic District Nomination (also within the 19th Council District) which successfully placed over 1,300 properties placed on the National and State Registers of Historic Places in 2006.
A native of Flushing, Queens, Graziano always had an interest in old buildings, particularly in his hometown. As he was finishing his undergraduate degree at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Graziano decided to write a thesis report about the changes in the urban landscape that were happening in Flushing in the early 1990’s. After going to the Queens Historical Society to do research, he ended up getting hired by that organization to conduct a survey of remaining historic structures in Flushing. “There are some incredible houses and other buildings of historic interest that, even if you have no background or experience in preservation, it’s pretty obvious when you see them that they’re something special,” stated Graziano.
Also see Queens Planner In Charge Of History from the Queens Tribune.