NEWS: Demolition of historic SI homes continue
The demolition delay bill mentioned in this article was strongly endorsed by HDC and over 70 preservation groups from across the city. It was opposed by the trifecta of NYU, the Archidiocese & the Real Estate Board of NY and died in committee.
Building that housed Staten Island Hospital in the late 1800s is being considered for demolition
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
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By DAVID V. JOHNSON
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE
Virginia Marotta has seen the architectural ties to her childhood disappear over her lifetime.
Her grandfather’s barber shop on the South Beach boardwalk and Stapleton’s R&H brewery and clocktower, where her father worked, exist only in pictures.
Her parents’ first two homes and her primary school in Rosebank, P.S. 34, were destroyed to make way for the Staten Island Expressway.
And now the possibly historic house in Rosebank where she celebrated her Sweet 16th, danced to “Sh-boom” and was married is set to be demolished, to make way for four new tax lots, according to Department of Buildings Records.
The building, located at the corner of Tompkins Avenue and Belair Road, once housed a medical facility called Staten Island Hospital, which opened its doors on Dec. 18, 1893, according to the hospital’s first annual report. It had no direct affiliation with today’s Staten Island University Hospital, which was called the S.R. Smith Infirmary from its 1864 opening until 1917.
“We’re kind of sad that the house is going down without any recognition that it was Staten Island Hospital,” said Mrs. Marotta, a Stapleton resident who grew up in the building and whose parents lived there until 1975. Mrs. Marotta’s 1907 map of the borough indicates that the 88-foot-by-150-foot lot was Staten Island Hospital to that date.
The house provides an excellent case for reforming the city’s building code, according to City Councilman Michael McMahon (D — North Shore). In the past two years, he has twice introduced a bill, held up in committee, that would require the Landmarks Commission to be notified of demolition permits for any building more than 50 years old, to determine whether it deserves a hearing for designation as a landmark.
Under current law, historic buildings may be demolished too quickly for review by the Landmarks Commission, McMahon said. Unless a building has already been landmarked or calendared for landmark, there are no barriers to filing a demolition permit, according to Jennifer Givner, spokesperson for the Buildings Department.
‘WHAT CAN WE SAVE?’
“It’s exactly the type of building my legislation would save from the wrecking ball,” said McMahon of the Rosebank property. “It looks like a very historic building with interesting architecture.”
McMahon hopes his bill, which he plans to reintroduce this fall, will give time to the Landmarks Commission and the community to determine a building’s historic value before it is destroyed.
Mrs. Marotta was horrified when her daughter, Joanne Nellis, discovered “the dreaded plywood fence” — a telltale sign of demolition — around the property this summer. Mrs. Nellis, who visited her grandparents in the house as a child, has written to the Staten Island Preservation League and the New York Preservation League.
“We’re interested in every building that possibly has a story to tell on Staten Island,” said Jim Ferreri, president of the Staten Island Preservation League. He remains pessimistic, though, after landmark status was recently denied to a “pristine” pre-Civil-War Greek revival house in West New Brighton: “If we can’t save this one, which predates the Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty, what can we save?”
LAST TIE TO CHILDHOOD
Mrs. Marotta lived in the Rosebank house from the time she was 8 years old until she was married at 21 in 1960. The structure is the last standing from her childhood.
Both Mrs. Marotta and Mrs. Nellis, who now live next door to each other, recall the home’s large hallway, spacious bedrooms and cubby holes in the basement — remnants of the old hospital which fueled their childhood imaginations.
“The leading physicians and surgeons of Staten Island found great difficulty in treating and caring for their needy and sick and injured patients,” explained the hospital’s first annual report about its founding. Unnamed friends of the borough’s leading doctors donated the house for their medical use.
In its first two years, physicians at the hospital treated 166 patients for everything from tuberculosis to ingrown toe nails. Thirty-five operations were performed, including an abortion and a reconstruction of an intestine impaled by a picket fence.
Although the hospital had no direct affiliation with S.R. Smith Infirmary, which had opened at a new location on Castleton Avenue in 1890, the two facilities shared several doctors.
A demolition permit for the lot has yet to be filed, but is expected “at a later date,” according to Buildings Department records. The prospect has become so terrifying for Mrs. Marotta, she cannot bring herself to drive by her former home.
“It’s like everything is wiped out,” Mrs. Marotta said. “My whole childhood is gone.”
David V. Johnson is a news reporter for the Advance. He may be reached at [email protected].
© 2006 Staten Island Advance
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