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Newsday, September 29th 1998
Saving Local Treasures
By Melanie Lefkowitz
In April, after years of wrangling, $700,000 was finally set aside in the state budget to study the possibilities of renovating the ailing St. Monica's Roman Catholic Church, a 142- year-old landmark building on the campus of York College in Jamaica.
On May 9, however, the building collapsed. And as an engineering firm investigates restoring the once-magnificent church, only its front facade remains standing - a reminder to Queens preservationists and historians of what may be irrecoverably lost.
"If this building were located in Manhattan, it would never gotten to this point," said Paul Graziano of Flushing, an activist involved with several groups dedicated to preserving Queens' historic buildings and neighborhoods. "But because we're in Queens, we got the short end of the stick, and everybody knows it."
Last week, the City Council Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Sitting and Maritime Uses sponsored a hearing at the State Supreme Court in Long Island City to discuss the new Landmarks Protection Bill. The law, which went into effect in June, gives the City Landmarks Preservation Commission the authority to financially penalize property owners who neglect or mistreat designated landmarks. Fines can go up to $5,000.
But to Graziano and nearly two dozen local preservationists who spoke at the hearing, the law is too little, too late for Queens' official landmarks.
"Queens has, per capita, by far the fewest landmarks, and yet the incidence of collapse, fire and vandalism seem to be centered here," said Councilman John Sabini, who chaired the hearing and whose neighborhood of Jackson Heights is one of three historic districts in the borough. There are 70 historic districts citywide.
Of 1,000 individual landmarks throughout the city, Queens, the borough with the largest land area, has 39. "In defense of the number of landmarks in Manhattan, Manhattan was settled first and has older buildings," Sabini said in an interview after the hearing. "But that doesn't mean that what we have shouldn't be preserved."
The hearing focused on four Queens landmarks, which are considered by the landmarks commission to be among the most dilapidated in the city: St. Monica's, which is owned by the City University of New York and the Dormitory Authority; the Terra Cotta Building in Beechhurst, owned by Citibank; the RKO Keith's Theater of Flushing, owned by Tom Huang, a developer, and the Hammerstein House in Beechhurst, which belongs to Kiska Development.
Under the new law, the city has denied permits for storefront development to the owner of the RKO Keith Theater, who bought the property with the plan of converting it to a shopping mall, until he repairs the theater's decaying lobby.
"Now, we can give owners the incentive to develop their landmark properties," said Jennifer Raab, chairwoman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission. "When you threaten to sue, they start putting real resources into renovation."
Raab said that Hammerstein House, a mansion built on five waterfront acres by Arthur Hammerstein in 1924 and long decried by residents as an eyesore, is now a success story. For 15 years, the house stood without a roof or any protection, slowly deteriorating from exposure and several fires. Commission pressure on the owner finally led Kiska Development to renovate the roof and employ guards who have prevented further vandalism, Raab said. She added that even St. Monica's was a "near-success," about which she remains hopeful.
Susan Tunick, president of Friends of the Terra Cotta Building, said that although the new law may help, the condition of Queens landmarks is an "embarrassment."
"There are a lot of good success stories in other areas of the city," said Tunick, who grew up in Rockaway. "But they're not doing such a good job here. These buildings have not been maintained for years."
Tunick also noted that the penalties will not affect landmarks, such as St. Monica's, that are publicly owned.
"It's very frustrating. Some of our worst violators are our own government agencies," she said.
Stanley Cogan of Bayside, president of the Queens Historical Society, credited Queens' lack of official landmarks to its history as a "developer's paradise."
Since the borough was opened to development in the 1840's, he said, it has been viewed as an outlet for Manhattan overflow, instead of as an area that ought to be appreciated in its own right.
"There never seems to be enough social consciousness in Queens to treasure our treasures," he said. "There are a certain number of preservationists and historians, but in general, there is just not enough public awareness of the need to save our landmarks."
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