The Staten Island Advance Moonlights As Adaptive Reuse Consultant
Too far gone
by Staten Island Advance Editorial
Sunday June 07, 2009, 3:30 AM
When it opened in 1890, Staten Island’s first hospital was called the county’s “greatest charity.” Today, the structures have fallen into terrible disrepair and the site’s future is uncertain.
Ardent preservationists are calling for the original Staten Island Hospital building in Tompkinsville to be designated as a city landmark. And understandably so. The Frost Memorial Tower, known as “The Castle,” was built in 1889 and is a unique piece of 19th-century architecture. It was Staten Island’s first hospital.
Here’s our question for the preservationists, however: Once you get the landmark designation, then what?
Are there lots of ideas about what to do with the building? Sure, there always are when it comes to such remarkable structures. Make it a museum or a school, some say.
All great ideas. In a perfect world, some philanthropic gazillionaire would swoop in to buy the building, pay whatever it takes to rehabilitate it and transform it into this magical public place.
But in this decidedly imperfect world, exactly who do the preservationists expect would do that? The city? In this economy? Facing a $5-billion deficit and the permanent loss of Wall Street tax revenue and tens of thousands of high-paying financial-sector jobs?
Much as some like see government as a bottomless cornucopia of funding for nice things, there is no government office assigned to fulfilling the wishes of wishful thinkers.
So back to the question: If the long-abandoned Frost Memorial Tower is landmarked, then what?
Landmarking, in and of itself, saves nothing. It prevents the owners of landmarked properties from making changes perhaps. But it does nothing to protect abandoned buildings. If anything, the designation often deters potential buyers.
We learned that the hard way with the New Brighton Village Hall, another elegant old (1871) structure that fell into disuse and then into disrepair. Preservationists managed to make it one of the first structures designated by the newly created Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1965.
That saved it from the wrecking ball then, but it didn’t save it from the ravages of abandonment and neglect.
Long story short: It was finally torn down in 2004 after the city declared it a threat to public safety.
The Frost Memorial Tower as well as other buildings on the former Staten Island Hospital site have suffered much the same fate. The hospital moved to Ocean Breeze in 1979. Subsequent owners tried and failed to turn a larger hospital building of more recent vintage into a residential complex. Police raided the place in 2004 to dislodge squatters who were paying rent to a con artist posing as the owner.
Now, to complicate matters, the entire six-acre property is tied up in legal limbo over back taxes owed by the current owner.
The 110-year-old “Castle,” especially, has been hard hit by time. It’s been unoccupied — at least legally — for 30 years. But the homeless, drug addicts and vandals have made it their playground all along, which is why many neighbors want it razed.
The Fire Department has to pay regular visits there to extinguish fires. The Buildings Department has called several structures, including the Frost Tower, “imminent hazards.” “As long as they stand, and the property remains neglected, we leave ourselves and the community open to limitless tragedies,” an FDNY battalion chief wrote in a recent memo.
Now, with rare unanimity, all of Staten Island’s elected officials agree. In a joint letter to the mayor, they called the site “a burden to the community” and asked the city to use the power of eminent domain to claim the property and condemn the buildings.
That prompted preservationists to launch their third attempt landmark The Castle.
One said the Fire Department’s dire assessment of the Frost Building’s danger is “overly cautious.”
She said with the Tower landmarked it would become “the anchor for revitalization of the whole complex.”
Or the dilapidated white elephant that turns off any prospective buyer in his right mind.
Another said the castle “gives our neighborhood a sense of place.”
For many, it mostly gives a depressing sense of fear and urban blight — as it has for three decades. Preserve it for what? So the low-lifes have a hangout for decades to come? That’s exactly what will happen because no one’s going to restore it and no amount of “securing” the building, as the preservationists urge, is going to keep the creepy-crawlies out.
In an ideal world, the Frost Tower would have been maintained and preserved — in reality, not theory — all along. It was once a beautiful building.
Now, it’s way too far gone.