Update Bonanza: Coney Island is Historic and Being Demolished / Community Garden Advocates Break Out the Big Guns

Busy times over here at Preservator HQ with updates regarding some topics recently covered on these pages. And you thought summer was a slow news season!


Coney Island:
Last week Coney Island's historic resources received a nod for their importance, as well as demolition permits.

Coney Island's Boardwalk is eligible for listing in the State and National Registers of Historic Places. Photo by Preservator.

On the upside, the staff from the New York State Department of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation trekked out to Coney Island and found that its historic resources - including the boardwalk (!) - are eligible for listing in the State and National Registers of Historic Places. Even though this determination provides no protections that some form of designation would, it's validation of the significance these resources.

Save Coney Island posted the August 12th Determination of Eligibility on their website. In it, the state wrote: "While much of historic Coney Island has been lost through the years due to neglect, fire, or urban renewal beginning in the Moses era, the core of surviving buildings, structures, objects, and landscape features that have remained are valuable cultural assets worthy of recognition and consideration in preservation planning." It also called the amusement district "nationally significant...as the birthplace of the modern American amusement industry."

Almost immediately Thor Equities pulled two demolition permits.

Shore Hotel, Coney Island, Photo by Preservator.

Wrecking has begun at the Shore Hotel and the Bank of Coney Island. Also on the chopping block are the Grashorn Building and Henderson's Music Hall, where Thor is so eager they're even working without a demolition permit.

Henderon's Music Hall, Coney Island, Photo by Preservator.

Careful observers will note that the state's proposed historic district boundaries are much larger than those put forward by advocates. The state, wisely, included the boardwalk. Huzzah!


View Coney Island - DoE boundaries in a larger map

 Note: The blue line is the state boundary for eligible resources, and the pink is the initially the proposed boundary. 

Previously on Preservator: Keep Coney Island Real



Community Gardens:Last week's public hearing about the contentious new rules for New York City's community gardens was apparently well attended and got lots of press. A good list of links is on the New York City Community Garden Coalition's (NYCCGC) website.

City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn speaking with people waiting to testify at the August 10th public hearing on new rules for community gardens. Photo by Matthew McDermott, Flickr / Creative Commons License.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and parks committee chairwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito made the case for the city's community gardens, in a New York Times op-ed yesterday, titled "Constant Gardens for New York." They call for community gardens to become more stable and long-lasting features of New York's urban fabric. They advocate for more permanent and protective rules, a more straightforward process for license renewal and site turnover, and conditions for city eviction. The Council Members are on the mark.

NYCCGC also links to the testimony from former Assistant Attorney General, Christopher Amato, who was the lead lawyer for New York State in 2002 during the case which resulted in the current garden agreement that provides more protections than the current proposed rules. at the August 10th hearing on the new proposed rules. If you're into it, read the 7 page letter. It's a barnburner.

Amato contends that the new rules weaken the protections for community gardens, and violate the spirit of the 2002 agreement. He, more interestingly, makes the case that these gardens are parks by common use (think common law), even if they're not treated the same as other parks run by the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. Treehugger breaks it down here. While Amato offered his testimony as a private citizen, he happens to be the Assistant Commissioner in the Department of Environmental Conservation Office of Natural Resources.

Previously on Preservator: Machines in the Garden