NEWS: Buildings in Queens on the EBO
4 Borough Landmarks Make Endangered List
by Rick Archer, Assistant Editor
from the Queens Chronicle http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16946467&BRD=2731&PAG=461&dept_id=575596&rfi=6
Four Queens buildings made the final cut on a list of the most endangered buildings in New York City, according to a historical preservation group.
The New York State Pavilion in Flushing Meadows Park is the most prominent Queens landmark that the Manhattan based New York Landmarks Conservancy deemed in danger.
The nonprofit group recently compiled a list of what it considers the city’s 56 most endangered landmarks. Besides the New York State Pavilion, the list includes the Willets Farmhouse in Fort Totten in Bayside, the Jamaica Savings Bank building on Jamaica Avenue, and the Richmond Hill Republican Club on Lefferts Boulevard.
The group’s initial survey looked only at buildings in designated historic districts. Some buildings were chosen because of serious visible deterioration, others because past actions by their owners, such as fighting a landmarks designation, suggested they are in danger.
Queens has relatively few properties on the list because it has relatively few historic districts, conservancy President Peg Breen said. Also, some of those neighborhoods, like Douglaston Hills, are well cared for and have no buildings in danger.
Breen said the conservancy’s endangered list is expected to grow as Web site visitors register their own suggestions. After compiling the list of 56 properties,. the group sent letters to the owners of the properties offering the group’s assistance in preserving the buildings. “We only got one response,” she said.
The New York Pavilion was built for the 1964 World’s Fair, and is one of the borough’s most recognizable landmarks. However, preservationists have been concerned about it for a number of years.
The Willets Farmhouse, built in 1829 and also currently located on city parkland, has long been abandoned and has suffered serious structural damage, according to the conservancy.
Breen praised the Parks Department for its efforts to preserve the World’s Fair pavilion and the Willets Farmhouse, but said the city doesn’t spend the funds to do the job properly. The Parks Department issued a request for proposals for the New York Pavilion in 2004, but rejected all of the submissions because they included inadequate provisions for funding. The site remains unused.
There are different challenges with the privately owned buildings. The Jamaica Savings Bank is in good physical condition, but its recent history casts doubt as to how long it will stay that way, Breen said. It has been vacant for a decade and was denied city landmark status twice due to owner opposition. That owner sold the building in 2004, but the new owners have taken no actions to use the building.
The Republican Club was landmarked in 2002, but preservation efforts have been stalled because the building has multiple owners who have not been able to agree on what to do with it, Breen explained.
Publicizing the list will hopefully attract proposals and funds for the publicly owned buildings and spur the owners of the privately owned buildings to action, she said.
Mitchell Grubler, president of the Queens Historical Society, agreed that drawing attention to the endangered buildings could help, but added that there was a potential downside. “There’s always a danger developers will move more quickly when a building is publicized,” he said.