New call for landmarking Cornell Farm

From the Times Ledger:

Several civic organizations have joined state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) in calling on the city Landmarks Preservation Commission to grant historic preservation status to the 200-year-old William Cornell Farmhouse in Little Neck.

Avella and the groups claim they have been submitting applications to the LPC to landmark the site for about a decade, but it has never approved them.

The property was purchased for $2 million in 2014 by the Harvest Church of New York, which has since razed the greenhouse adjacent to the farmhouse that it plans to modify to use as a rectory, and has proposed building a house of worship on the property’s front lawn.

I wonder what happened to this plan to buy it.

Cornell Farm may be in trouble

Forgotten-NY

From the Queens Chronicle:

Cornell Farm, a space hidden from view behind approximately 150-year-old trees, on the Nassau-Queens border in Little Neck, has been sold to a church, and historical preservationists are lamenting the sale.

The approximately 1 1/2 acre farm, which is located at 54-47 Little Neck Pkwy., was bought by The Harvest Church of New York, and the sale was filed in January 2014, according to records from the Department of Finance’s website.

The church was also approved as of May 5, 2015 for a permit to construct a new house of worship, according to a Department of Buildings spokesperson.

Jim Trent, who founded the Queens County Farm Museum in Floral Park, said he worked to obtain capital money for the space to be used by the farm museum to purchase the property, raising $1 million from Borough Hall, but fell short of the asking price.

The previous owners, the Patriy family, who purchased the plot from William Cornell’s daughter, had been asking $5.8 million, but the property sold for about $2 million to The Harvest Church.

The area is about 55 percent in Queens and 45 percent in Nassau, Trent said.

On the property are a number of buildings, the oldest being a farmhouse built in 1826. There’s also an 1880 barn nearby, a newer house with an adjacent carriage house — and there used to be a 1905 greenhouse.

Although there are no demolition permits on the property’s history, according to the DOB spokesperson, the curved-glass greenhouse no longer stands.

A spokesperson for The Harvest Church said the greenhouse had been taken down before the church bought the land.

Questions remain as to whether other buildings on the site will be taken down to accommodate the new worship hall.