From The New York Times
December 7, 2008 Living In | St. Albans, Queens
Bluesy Home Market With a Jazzy Past
By JOSEPH PLAMBECK
IT used to be easy for residents to rest on St. Albans’s laurels.
For several decades, starting in the 1940s, this serene neighborhood in southeastern Queens was a bastion for some of New York’s most famous African-Americans. Jazz greats like Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald, as well as sports heroes like the Brooklyn Dodgers‘ Roy Campanella, called it home. By the 1970s, the area was solidly African-American and middle-class, and living there was a sign of success.
Visitors today don’t have to look far to see the neighborhood’s pride. Near the Long Island Rail Road station in St. Albans, a giant mural depicts some of the neighborhood’s famous residents.
But then came the 1980s, when, like much of the rest of the city, the neighborhood faced rising crime rates and drug use. And then, in the last 10 years, with real estate prices rising, investors and developers sought out one-family houses, the predominant housing stock, and converted them into two-family houses or built row houses where detached houses had once stood.
Greg Mays, a local community organizer, said: “Overdevelopment in southeast Queens was the biggest threat that we faced before the credit meltdown. The silver lining of the meltdown is that all of the development came to a roaring halt.”
Even before the downturn, though, community organizers had been fighting to preserve the area’s history and protect its suburban feel. Last fall, with the support of Mr. Gibbs and Mr. Mays, among others, the City Council rezoned much of the neighborhood to make it much more difficult to build multifamily homes or convert single-families.
It is the tranquil atmosphere that has lured many new residents, including Blanche Charles, a nursing assistant who lives with her two children in a three-bedroom home she bought last year. “It is a nice, quiet neighborhood,” she said, “and usually no one is on the streets at night.”
Those are just the attributes that need protecting, said Mr. Mays, the president of the Addisleigh Park Civic Organization, which is named after the 650-house enclave where many of the well-known African-Americans lived.
Last year, his group formed a partnership with the Historic Districts Council, a preservation research and advocacy group, to come up with a definitive history of the area and its architecture. That research has been sent to the state’s historic preservation office so that Addisleigh Park will be considered for the National Register of Historic Places. “It’s always nice to know that your neighborhood has a little magical significance,” Mr. Mays said.