NEWS: Arguements about Landmarking in Sunnyside make the Times
Having been to a number of the landmarking meetings and knowing the people involved, it is the editorial opinion of this blog that this article is more than somewhat slightly slanted to create drama.
From The New York Times
December 31, 2006
Sunnyside Gardens
Brick Houses, Winding Paths and Unexpected Sharp Elbows
By JEFF VANDAM
The 16-block enclave of Sunnyside Gardens in western Queens, a co-operative garden community built in the mid-1920s and home to about 8,000 people, has always had a close-knit feel.
That closeness was built into its master plan, which called for modest, two-story brick houses and the occasional apartment building separated by shaded, intimate walkways. Among those who strolled along these paths was the pioneering urban historian Lewis Mumford, one of the original co-operators.
Yet in recent weeks, some of the talk in Sunnyside Gardens has turned sour over the subject of whether the community should be designated a historic district, a move that would protect it from future changes.
Community leaders have been working for four years to win the designation, and their efforts finally seem ready to pay off. The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission is poised to schedule an initial hearing on the subject. In response, however, some residents have begun to argue against the change, on the ground that it would spur unwanted gentrification and thus force out the very people who give Sunnyside Gardens its special character. These opponents say they are getting considerable flak from their neighbors.
“There’s noticeable anger,” said Susan Meiklejohn, a professor of urban planning at Hunter College who owns a home in Sunnyside Gardens and opposes the designation. “It’s particularly inappropriate when the historic intent of the community was to dispel hostility between neighbors. I mean, what would Lewis Mumford think?”
The issue was first reported in The Queens Chronicle, a local weekly.
More than 100 people attended a meeting two weeks ago organized by opponents of designation, and more than 200 have signed a petition asking that no action be taken without further discussion. The petition said historic districts “make maintenance and repairs much more expensive,” adding that those who had signed “do not feel that the process followed so far has been inclusive of the entire community.”
“The level of discourse has not been open and fair,” said Judith Sloan, a Sunnyside Gardens resident who helped organize the meeting.
Many who have been fighting for the designation as a historic district are responding to these criticisms with shock and puzzlement. Among this group is Jeffrey Kroessler, a professor of urban history at John Jay College who lives in the area and is a founder of the Queensborough Preservation League.
“They actually cut me off, and all but grabbed the microphone out of my hand,” Dr. Kroessler said of the reception he received when he tried to explain the effects of landmark designation at the meeting this month.
“To say it has been an exclusive, closed-door process is ridiculous,” Dr. Kroessler added, noting that members of groups such as the Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance had knocked on every door in the community to get signatures on petitions supporting historic designation, and that several public meetings on the subject had been held.
Even as accusations fly, the Landmarks Commission is preparing to begin the designation process. As it turns out, the commission’s own summary of the community’s value includes a quotation from Mumford, noting that Sunnyside Gardens is “an exceptional community laid out by people who were deeply human and who gave the place a permanent expression of that humanness.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company