Developers pose a threat to Sunset Park homes built more than a century ago for immigrants, according to preservation advocates.
About 30 activists and neighborhood residents testified at a hearing on Tuesday on four sections of Sunset Park the city Landmarks Preservation Commission is considering designating as historic districts.
“We’re losing our history,” resident Richard Faraino said at the hearing. “We’re losing our aesthetics.”
The rowhouses that line the blocks in question were constructed between 1885 and 1912.
They were built as two-family homes to make them affordable for working-class Brooklynites. Though smaller than houses built in affluent areas, Sunset Park’s rowhouses are the same fancy architectural styles: Neo-Grec, Romanesque Revival and neo-Renaissance.
It wasn’t until January that commissioners weighed the request — then voted unanimously to calendar the four possible historic districts with a combined total of 500-plus buildings.
Sunset Park residents bring signs to a Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing about the creation of historic districts in their neighborhood. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan
The districts, which are not contiguous, are located between 44th and 59th streets and Fourth and Seventh avenues.
“We’re here today because we worked really hard — but also because the Landmarks Preservation Commission recognizes the threat Sunset Park is under,” Lynn Massimo of the Sunset Park Landmarks Committee said at the hearing.
“The LPC sees, as we do, how the architectural changes are taking away the sense of place,” she said.
More than 3,000 Sunset Park residents have signed a petition in favor of landmarking and more than 400 homeowners have written letters of support, Massimo said.
“Fabric of the future” vs. “right to develop”
City Councilmember Carlos Menchaca testified at the hearing. He said residents’ struggle to win landmark protection for their homes is a fight to “preserve the fabric of the future of Sunset Park.”
In written testimony, Sunset Park Business Improvement District Executive Director David Estrada said the neighborhood is “at the front line of wildly speculative real estate development that has accelerated the loss of unique, beautiful and irreplaceable buildings.”
Here’s a glimpse of rowhouses on 50th Street in Sunset Park. Eagle file photo by Lore Croghan
One pro-landmarking neighborhood resident said when his grandparents purchased the house that’s now his, it had an outhouse in the backyard and was equipped with gaslights and a coal boiler.
Sunset Park’s “beauty is undeniable,” said another pro-landmarking resident, Cynthia Felix.
Lisa Alpert of Green-Wood Cemetery testified in support of the historic districts’ designation.
Several people suggested that additional blocks in the neighborhood should also be considered for landmarking.
A small number of people expressed their opposition to historic-district designation.
One man said he was against landmarking, and so were several Sunset Park property owners at the hearing who didn’t speak English. Landmarking would be a “big restriction” on their “right to develop” or to sell their properties to developers, he said. He explained that’s why they’d purchased Sunset Park homes in the first place.
Landmarks Chairperson Sarah Carroll said the LPC will schedule a vote on the four historic districts’ designation in the very near future.
SUNSET PARK — “As a resident of Marine Park, one of the great surprises I found biking around Industry City and visiting Japan Village was to discover Bush Terminal Park. I continue to be amazed at the serene hideaways that the city offers in some of the busiest places — and, still, with an iconic view.”
BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — ‘A miracle that no one was killed …’ That’s what neighbors are saying about the collapse of the Hotel St. George marquee. Shown in this photograph are workmen beginning the removal and repair of the historic, old neon sign at the corner, referencing a relic of Brooklyn Heights’ past: the St. George Hotel.
ATLANTIC AVENUE — Exhausted shopper with cluster of bags and goods from mall at Boerum Place stops to look at huge construction site across the street. “Is that REALLY going to be a jail??” Her male companion is reassuring, “Nothing like Rikers … this is 21st Century.”
BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — Overheard in line at one of most popular pastry outlets on Montague Street: “Hope I can get them into a camp …” A mother with two pre-schoolers in tow was showing a friend the Dodge Y flyer for Healthy Kids Day on Saturday, April 18.
