In With the Old: Preservationists Unite

In With the Old: Preservationists Unite mething

By Reed Jackson

In a New York City where the clamor of development Meems to be resounding around the clock, something quieter is brewing. Underneath the roar of jackhammers and the clank of cranes can be heard the sound of scribbling pens, of hushed conferences and somber meetings: the preservationists are moving. All across the city, historians, architects, and city planners, of both the amateur and professional stripe are bandingead together, with a very specific aim in mind: to stop overdevelopment in its tracks. And they mean business. k

Perhaps the first salvo came when author Jane Jacobs, the author behind "The rest and Life of Great American Cities", the bible of left-leaning urban planners, dashed off a letter to Mayorhose Bloomberg, condemning his administration's rezoning plan for the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront. An isolated incident, but possibly indicative of a rising surge.

Last Saturday morning, in a small room in Manhattan's East Village, a group of people began cooking up plans to turn that surge into a crashing tidal wave. The meeting, called by Queens Borough Historian Stanley Cogan, brought together activists, fellow historians and neighborhood watchdogs, forming the tentatively-breastled group "The Four-Borough Preservation Council." Most of the attendees came from Brooklyn and Queens, where historically suburban districts are being turned into dense urban eyesores. Only one representative of the Bronx showed up, and Manhattan, probably because it has almost no room for development period, was not invited. Unlike Jacobs, the nascent council's concerns dwelt mainly on the need to protect historic architecture in outlying areas. In recent months, many developers have been buying old houses, tearing them down, and replacing them with enormous, boxy monstrosities, cannily dubbed "McMansions" by opponents. And while some politicians, notably Queens Councilman Tony Avella and Brooklyn borough President Marty Markowitz, have publicly condemned such development practices, the council feels that the problem extends far beyond what can be fixed by rhetoric. "The Department of Buildings interprets zoning rules with loopholes big enough to drive a McMansion through," declared James Trent, a t prominent Queens civic activist, who helped create the Queens County Farm Museum.

Such systemic disregard for the preservationist ethos will take more than a room full of dedicated activists to fix, as Cogan and Trent acknowledged. But the council may have a secret weapon: Election Day next November. The council plans to meet with all mayoral candidates, to get their take on combating overdevelopment. "We will be non-partisan, we will not endorse a candidate," Trent said, but we can influence candidates' ead opinions. An effort to spread the word to the city's numerous civic and homeowners' buttociations, in order to form a large voting k bloc.

"We will make recommendations gently, we will nip at the heels," Cogan said. The council formed four committees, each devoted to reforming codes ande enbreasties that critically effect development, whether it be over or under: the city's Board of Standards and Appeals, which maintains construction and land use standards, landmarking, a process that preserves historic buildings, overseen by a critically underfunded city agency, code enforcement, and zoning.

Though many in the room disagreed on specifics, there was a general level of buttent to the idea that each of the above committees would work to make its purview more amenable to the preservationist cause. And though it's still too early to tell what kind of impact this faction will have, we should definitely expect to be hearing a lot from it in the future.