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We're still here. Some thirty-five resident families have four lawyers arguing in Staten Island tenant-landlord court before Judge Phillip Straniere that the Spanish Naturopath Society shouldn't evict us. As you recall, the Society owns Spanish Camp's 17 acres on Raritan Bay in southeast Annadale, while the residents own their homes on lots they rent. Our lawyers have asked the court to void as improper the petitions of eviction that the Society has served on the residents. We are also asking for pretrial discovery. This would allow us to examine key Society documents, which might answer important questions about their policies and practices since their incorporation in 1929 and purchase of Spanish Camp in 1948. Such as: Has the Society abided by New York State laws pertaining to not-for-profit organizations? |
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Did they improperly deny membership to certain residents, while granting it to others? Did the Society seek to forbid residents from selling their homes (which Society members have done for years), freezing an important asset, in effect, until its liquidation by the sale of Spanish Camp? Did the Society arbitrarily set and raise rents? Did the Society purposefully neglect the Camp, the way a slumlord allows a building to deteriorate to drive away its tenants?
The apartment building analogy goes further. Citing precedent, our lawyers are claiming that the Camp should be considered a "horizontal multiple dwelling." In English: The Camp is the building, legally speaking, and the bungalows -which share the same water, electrical, and road systems-are its individual units. This would make us subject to the rent control laws with their safeguards against improper eviction.
We are still pursuing alternatives to luxury development for Spanish Camp. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is considering Dorothy Day's cottage and "some area around it" for landmark status. We have told them that preserving the modest dwelling of a woman whose lifelong commitment to the poor has made her a candidate for Catholic sainthood by surrounding it with mansions would be akin to preserving the Chrysler Building by moving it to a cornfield in Iowa. (While the prospect of an Art Deco skyscraper rising from the Middle American Plain has a certain surrealistic appeal, most would agree that wrenching the Chrysler from its milieu would be to render it, besides goofy-looking, socio-culturally meaningless. Likewise, imposing million dollar homes on bucolic, populist Spanish Camp would be like planting that cornfield in midtown Manhattan.) In short, context is everything.
Our immediate goals:
There's still time to encourage the Landmarks Commission to preserve Day's cottage and a significant area around it. Write to: Jennifer Raab, Commissioner, New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, 100 Old Slip, New York, NY 10005; fax: 212-487-6744; email: http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/lpc/home.html Then please forward those thoughts to the op-ed page of the Staten Island Advance, 950 Fingerboard Rd., Staten Island, NY 10305.
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Its time again for the Landmarks Preservation Commission to consider a Snug Harbor Historic District. The full site (grounds and buildings) is already listed as a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service. This is the highest level of historic designation by the federal government. (It does not offer protection against non-contextual changes or alterations.) Snug Harbor is probably our borough's most widely known place of architectural and historical significance-yet most people are surprised to learn that it is not a NYC Historic District. Such a designation would help to ensure that all of the buildings and certain grounds features would maintain their architectural and historical integrity as the site develops as a cultural center. |
Six buildings (buildings A through E, and the Veteran's Memorial Hall) were designated landmarks in 1965. In 1973, the North Gatehouse and the front cast iron fence were also designated. Beginning in 1984 the League began an effort to designate the whole site as an historic district. It failed after the Parks Department and the Department of Cultural Affairs opposed the designation and the Landmarks Preservation Commission chose not to pursue the issue.
To be sure, some recent projects are to be commended, including the restored Neptune Fountain, the Cottages and the ceiling mural in the Main Hall, each of which is a PLSI award-winning restoration. But almost emblematic of the situation at Snug Harbor, a current crisis involves three planned pre-engineered barns and associated improvements, to be located somewhere south of the Children's Museum. Also currently, the food caterer for Snug Harbor is planning to carve out a section of the yard as a catering space. These proposals have pointed up the need once again for all of this major cultural facility to be designated a NYC Historic District with a well planned, thought out master development plan. To protect and enhance the Snug Harbor complex, a master plan coordinating the restoration/reuse of the buildings and landscape is necessary-done in conjunction with its designation as an NYC Historic District. This new approach by the Landmarks Preservation Commission allows for the designation of the district and the master plan to be adopted concurrently, so that future restoration and adaptive reuse are pre-approved. Snug Harbor, Staten Island and New York City could only benefit from such a comprehensive approach to preservation. The truly rare combination of buildings and landscape at Snug Harbor deserve this enlightened approach-nothing less.
The Preservation League recognizes that full development of Snug Harbor is both necessary and desirable. Designation as a Historic District should proceed with a review, update and formal acceptance of a master plan for Snug Harbor. A well thought out plan, accepted and reviewed by the community, would serve as a development guide.
A resolution has been submitted to the Community Board #1 Land Use Committee (and then to the full Community Board #1) that states: Whereas Snug Harbor Cultural Center site is recognized as a "National Historic Landmark," and is acknowledged as one of the outstanding cultural facilities of New York City, SI Community Board #1 requests that the Snug Harbor Cultural Center site be submitted to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission for designation as a NYC Historic District, with the understanding that future improvements at Snug Harbor be considered in the hearing process and adopted as a part of the Historic District designation.