Report from Marathon Hearing on Sunnyside Gardens
From the Queens Chronicle (a truthful albeit a little too fairhanded take on Tuesday’s hearing)
Landmarking Opinions From Both Sunny Sides
by Jennifer Manley, Assistant Editor
In three-minute increments, Sunnyside Gardens residents bent the ears of the city’s Landmarks Preservation commissioners for nearly five hours on Tuesday.
“We are here today not to talk, but to listen,” said commission Chairman Robert Tierney, kicking off the marathon of comments on a plan that could designate the neighborhood a historic district. It was the last chance residents had to voice their opinion before the commission makes a decision. Everyone who signed up and stayed had a chance to speak.
The first, a 19-year resident, opened with a sentiment common on both sides of the divide. “I love my neighborhood,” said Christine Hunter, who called it a “striking example” of smart urban planning and a place the Landmarks Preservation Commission “should have jurisdiction over.”
Jeremy Keraken, a landmarks supporter, followed with a humorous tale of stumbling upon “a place that sounds like a cemetery or a sanitarium” and discovering a place of “human scale properties where people smiled at each other.”
Eighty-three people followed, 58 of them speaking for and 25 of them speaking against landmarking. While most echoed Hunter and Keraken’a deep appreciation for the unique neighborhood, not all agreed that a city agency should be charged with safeguarding and directing its future. The commission was accused of being “insulting,” “parochial” and “self-appointed style police.”
Miriam Allen, an urban planner and opponent of landmarking said, “having outside interests dictate what we should do with our properties is wrong.”
Others objected on the grounds that the existing rules are sufficient. Resident Ira Greenberg put it this way: “We need a dress code, zoning; not a uniform, landmarking.”
Marked by modest, low-rise brick row houses joined by common rear gardens, Sunnyside Gardens was designed by Henry Wright and Clarence Stein and built in the 1920s for middle- and working-class people.
It has served as a model of planned garden living for other neighborhoods, as an educational model for architecture students, and a place of inspiration and recipient of praise from social commentators, from Louis Mumford to Eleanor Roosevelt, who was quoted most dramatically on Tuesday by resident and actress Jodie Lynn McClintock.
The opposition contended, however, that landmarking would drive up property values, taxes and the cost of maintenance, undermining the designers’ intent.
One 43-year resident, Roberta Gebhardt, recalled her husband working two jobs so they could afford to build the life they envisioned in the gardens. “Landmarking will destroy that dream,” she added.
Another speaker urged the commission “Do not elevate our community out of the reach of its current residents.”
While both sides claimed that a majority of residents were behind them in the debate, speakers in favor of landmarking on Tuesday outnumbered opponents by more than a 2-1 ratio. Many offered written and oral comments from others who couldn’t attend, the vast majority of which favored the designation.
Several speaking against landmarking remarked that they would like to explore alternatives, using more community input. While several European immigrants came out in favor, the majority of South Asian residents spoke against it. Badruh Khan said he spoke for many of his Bangladeshi neighbors when he said “no one has been listening to us.” He urged the commission, “If you love the diversity of Sunnyside, don’t landmark.”
On the other side of the debate, some said time was of the essence and landmarking is truly the only way to preserve the attributes cited by both camps. Bliss Street resident Patricia Dorfman riffed a bit on the reverie offered to her neighborhood’s past, describing her home as a “brick dollhouse” built by “1920s do-gooders,” but went on to urge the commission to move before it was too late. “We have never been this close to saving the gardens,” she said.
Support for the district also came from Assemblywoman Margaret Markey (D-Elmhurst), Borough President Helen Marshall — who said she is “most definitely in favor”— and the Greater Astoria and Richmond Hill historical societies.
During the hearing, opponents lobbed some serious charges across the proverbial aisle, including unethical money-making, slander and spying. Resident John Ward warned that the commission could be facing a “protracted legal fight” if it moves forward.
According to Mark Silberman, the commission’s legal counsel, landmarking decisions are sometimes challenged but a historic district has never been overturned in court.
There is no time frame on the commission’s decision and a vote has not been scheduled, a commission spokeswoman said Wednesday.