A Long Island City homeowner persisted...

NY Post

They made him many offers he could only refuse.

A Long Island City man rebuffed what could have been a multi-million dollar payout for his home, and now a 45-story condo tower will be built surrounding his property.

Benito Barba’s brick rowhouse with its red trim will be all that’s left on a stretch of 23rd Street next to the elevated 7 subway tracks and a block from the Citigroup tower.

Tavros Capital snatched up seven similar surrounding homes on 23rd Street and on 45th Avenue for prices that ranged from $3.75 million to $6.8 million. Demolition permits were recently filed with the city.

But Barba didn’t budge. He didn’t even want to entertain the offers for his valuable corner property, which is more than 100 years old. The home still has Ely Avenue — the original name for 23rd Street — etched in stone on its front facade.

“This house is very precious to him,” explained his grandson, Omar Aboelneil, 24, who lives with Barba.

He said his 86-year-old grandfather was a retired baker who bought the house with a cousin decades ago.

Raccoons from an abandoned apartment building have invaded row houses in Jamaica

 Eyewitness News

Neighbors in Queens are furious after they say raccoons have moved into their shared attics and are wreaking havoc in their walls.
Residents say they can hear the critters fighting and scratching every night all because of the abandoned home in the 10400 block of 164th Street.

NewsCopter 7 flew overhead on Tuesday afternoon where it could be seen that the back door was wide open. An overgrown tree in the backyard also appeared to provide a path right up to the roof where there are more openings.

Rhonda Scott said she has repeatedly called the city for help, but says she was told it's her responsibility because they're in her house now.

So she hired a private company to remove the raccoons and paid hundreds of dollars out of her own pocket.

One was caught on Easter and another was caught Tuesday. They are believed to be diseased, but expert John Vazquez does not suspect it to be rabies.

"It's kind of like an Alzheimer's thing, it affects their brains, so it's a distemper," said Vazquez with Hunters Wildlife Removal.

Amry Conliff complains the raccoons have driven out any potential rental income from his home.

"I can't put someone to live in a house when it sounds like it's a fight in the walls," Conliff said. "Who is going to rent property like that?"

It's not clear who owns the abandoned property, but it is clear that no one is fixing it. And even worse -- it's now breeding season.

Crappifying Ridgewood by hook or by crook

From QNS:

Two Ridgewood residences in historic territory are slated for redevelopment to make room for more apartments, according to Department of Buildings (DOB) records.

In March, a three-story, three-family building at 1663 Madison St. received a permit to add a fourth story to its existing structure, records show. Two months later, a three-story, six-unit building at 1664 Woodbine St. — directly behind the first building on the same block — received a permit in May to add a fourth story and a penthouse to its existing structure.

With both properties located on National and State Registers of Historic Places, the new developments set an “unfortunate” precedent for the blocks of attached brick homes and make local residents fear gentrification, said Ridgewood Property Owners and Civic Association President Paul Kerzner.

“In theory, you can take any building in Ridgewood, Glendale, Maspeth and Middle Village that is not part of the city landmarks and that can happen to any property,” Kerzner said. “I’m also concerned about gentrification, because to me it’s the artificial transfer of property value because of speculation.”

A lifelong resident of Ridgewood, Kerzner explained that national and state historic status does not protect a building from redevelopment. Only city landmark status has that power, and the areas in question haven’t been designated as landmarks yet despite Kerzner’s efforts.

Ridgewood's "crap above" has progressed

The crap above featured in our August 2017 post appears to be just about done. Talk about out of character!

A crap above, Ridgewood edition

Here we are at 1874 Hart Street, which is on a nice, quiet, rowhouse-lined block in Ridgewood.

What we have here is a horrendous vertical enlargement.

The 4-apartment building will soon be an 8-apartment building.

Some of the complaints are quite interesting.

One resulted in a stop work order.

Looks like they're also moving the entrance over to the left and installing a ramp which no other building on this street has. Sigh.

Ridgewood rowhouse on steroids is ugly (as predicted)

Just about a year ago, our blog featured this corner house at Stockholm Street and Cypress Avenue.

It was in the process of being altered, and the remark made was, "This will no doubt look incredibly stupid when all is said and done."

Aaaaand...another nail was hit squarely on its head by the Crapper.

Several more complaints have been lodged on this project as well.

1-family rowhomes endangered

"If you walk along 80th Street from Eliot Avenue towards Juniper Valley Park in Middle Village, you will see a very disturbing development. Almost all of the houses in Middle Village are modest single-family homes. The building at 61-60 80th St. was recently sold and is being converted to a 2 or 3 family residence. As you can see from the picture, the front entrance has already been converted from a single entrance to two separate ones. There have been complaints filed with the NYC Department of Buildings stating that there may even be an illegal basement apartment.

The neighborhood is up in arms about this type of conversion! Converting one family homes into multiple dwellings puts a strain on the neighborhood’s infrastructure (school overcrowding, inadequate water pressure, sewer drainage, sanitation, policing, street parking, public transportation, potential fire hazard due to overcrowding, etc). It is also completely out of character with the neighborhood. Similar developments as well are happening in the nearby neighborhoods (Elmhurst, Maspeth, Woodside, etc).

As a neighborhood, we need to monitor this activity and report it to the NYC Department of Buildings and Queens Community Board 6. It’s one thing to pass along a home to an owner’s children or relatives or sell to another single family, but it’s absolutely terrible to sell to a developer who is only interested in collecting rent and couldn’t care less about preserving the quality of life in the neighborhood!

People in Middle Village need to take a stance on this now! Spread the word and let’s get ahead of the curve. Contact the our local Community Board 6, Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley and the NYC Planning Division!"

Signed,

Anonymous
(Long Term Middle Village Resident)

Unfortunately, the NYC Department of City Planning has repeatedly rejected a zoning classification for one-family rowhomes. - QC

A crap above: Brooklyn edition

There's nothing to say here. Let's just allow the photo to speak for itself. This colossal Brooklyn crap comes to us from IMBY.

Just think, someone went to architecture school to learn how to do this.

LPC sues homeowner over building neglect

DNA Info/James Fanelli

From DNA Info:

The city is suing the owner of a dilapidated landmarked rowhouse in order to hammer home a message — fix it.

In a rare move, the city Landmarks Preservation Commission filed a lawsuit earlier this month against Nina Justiniano to compel her to rehab her red-bricked home on historic Astor Row in Central Harlem.

The interior floors and walls of the 133-year-old three-story home have collapsed and most of the roof is missing after years of neglect.

The commission, which has only filed 13 lawsuits like this in the past 12 years, took the unusual step after repeatedly requesting the work since 2012. City law requires landmarked homes to remain in good repair.

The lawsuit asks a judge to fine Justiniano $5,000 a day until she renovates the home.

Momentum builds to protect small rowhouses

From the NY Times:

Some blocks are graced by quaint two-bedroom, one-story rowhouses — with small front yards, tiny porches and peaked roofs. These houses have become the latest focus in a clash throughout New York between homeowners who want to develop their properties to the limits allowed by law, and preservationists lobbying for stronger laws to protect those properties from development.

The preservationists argue that single-family rowhouses imbue some neighborhoods — particularly in Queens — with their essential character. But under existing zoning laws, there is no specific designation for single-family rowhouses that provides protection against increasing the number of units, or against out-of-scale and out-of-character expansions.

“It’s an absolute disgrace,” said Richard Hellenbrecht, the vice president of the Queens Civic Congress, an umbrella association of more than 100 community groups. “Lovely, affordable homes being squeezed out by monstrosities.”

The architecture is secondary, said Paul Graziano, an urban planning consultant from Flushing. “What it is is affordable rowhouses of modest means, and for people of modest means.”

“It’s stuff worth protecting,” he said. “We’re talking about the basic character of a neighborhood.”

Ms. Lin — unwittingly, she says — thrust herself into the center of the debate soon after buying her rowhouse at 146-15 56th Road for $558,000 in 2013. She had started to renovate, but quickly determined that it would make more sense financially to tear the house down and build a bigger place.

It also made logistical and emotional sense: She wanted a home big enough to house not only her two young children but also her father and brother.

Melinda Katz, a Democrat and the Queens borough president, has vowed to press for protections for single-family rowhouses.

“The rowhouses and the communities that form around that are so important to our future,” she said in an interview. “We value the low-density portion of our neighborhoods.”

“Where will our parents live when they come over from China?” asked Lin Xin, an employee with a contracting firm that had been involved in several of the projects in Queensboro Hill. “Why do you think we work so hard? Why do we scrimp and save? This is why. We want to be reunited with our families. We want to sit around the same table together.”

Bed-Stuy building gets crappified

From Brownstoner:

Take, for example, this two-story Neo-Grec with a bay window at 580 MacDonough Street, close to Ralph Avenue. If you click through to see the rendering on the construction fence, you will see that the owners are planning to add one more story and completely redo the facade so it looks like a modern “Fedders”-type building.

It’s unfortunate for the block and, we think, a wasted opportunity. The developer could have kept the original facade and maximized FAR with a setback. And not only that, if he had, the house would be more valuable and he would reap a bigger profit, we bet.

A crap above: Bushwick rowhouse edition

From Wyckoff Heights:

396 Cornelia Street (between Wyckoff and Irving Aves) sold in June for $450,000, and was flipped three months later for $725,000. The new owner has filed with the Department of Buildings to add a mezzanine and two additional floors, doubling the square footage and converting from two-family to six-family occupancy.

Queensboro Hill nightmare continues

"Hey Crappy,

In less than one year, a third oversized house is now being built on 56th Road in Queensboro Hill. The second house I wrote to you about a few months ago is nearly complete (it went up so fast I could have swore they brought in some Amish men to build it).

It looks like all the faux grandstanding "Mr. Useless" Peter Koo did (along with the even more useless Nily Rozic) just energized another resident to build this skyscraper-esque monstrosity in-between quaint row houses. Once this third one goes up, the block is officially ruined. The aesthetic of the neighborhood means nothing to many of the new residents in the area.

I've attached pictures of the house being prepared for demolition, along with images of the nearly completed second building. You can see the dramatic difference. It's astonishing to many residents how rapidly and dramatically the neighborhood has gone down hill and turned into the wild west of overdevelopment. RIP Queensboro Hill." - anonymous

Rowhouses, interrupted

From the Times Ledger:

A second house is about to spring up on a Flushing block where neighbors have been raging over another recently constructed, two-story dwelling which they said dwarfs the size of their own homes.

The new house, at 146-21 56th Road, like its predecessor three doors down, will replace a one-story dwelling that was built in 1935 in a row of attached houses, according to city Department of Buildings records.

“I’m gonna fight like hell to stop what they’re doing up there,” said Mildred Higgins, who has lived on the block for 38 years with her husband John. “I was so upset when they put up the crane to rip out the front of that first house, I almost had a heart attack.”

Neighbors have said the new houses will completely change the character of their Queensboro Hill block and have caused a number of residents to sell their longtime homes.

City Councilman Peter Koo (D-Flushing) has called for a moratorium on any more houses being built on the block before the Department of City Planning conducts a zoning study of his district, which he has requested but the department has not committed to.

Koo’s office is set to meet with Planning officials in August over the issue.

Queensboro Hill monstrosity getting a twin

Hey Crappy,

It looks like the huge eyesore that is causing all the controversy on 56 Ave in Queensboro Hill is getting a twin just a few doors down.

I passed today and noticed foundation poured in the front of the house and signs with illustrations showing the huge monstrosity set to be built.

These pictures were taken on the weekend, and the whole right side of the work area was exposed as seen in the pictures. I would think there should be boarding surrounding the entire work site.

The ironic part is I know the people who used to live in this house -- and the huge eyesore down the block was a prime reason they moved. And, I know for a fact they were told by the new owners that no expansion would be made to the original house. Lies Lies Lies.

As someone who grew up on Queensboro Hill, watching a once well maintained working class neighborhood turn into the mess it is today is truly sad. It's too late for Queensboro Hill -- Peter Koo is absolutely useless -- but hopefully other neighborhood can take action to prevent what is happening here.

Thanks for your great website!

- flushingstreetsafety@gmail.com

1-2-3-Crap

352 West 123rd Street in Harlem. Just a little bit out of place, don't you think?

And then there's 342 West 123rd Street, which was started in 2001, stopped, was vested under the old zoning and still is yet to be completed because it has a stop work order.

Manhattan has a long way to go before it looks like Queens, but at least they're trying.

Craphouse owner compares it to renaissance painting

From the Daily News:

The owner and designer behind Queens’ first ever energy-efficient “passive house” rebuffed critics of the three-story home’s Lego-like façade Tuesday.

The future home of Tom Paino and his partner at 45-12 11th St., which Paino called “The Climate Change Row House,” features black, grey and white tiles in a sky pattern that local bloggers maligned in a barrage of posts last week.

But Paino compared the naysayers to yokels who attacked three-dimensional paintings during the Renaissance.

“People tried to throw rocks at the pictures because they weren’t used to paintings that had depth,” he said. “This house is going to be an example in the architecture world.”

But Paino’s design provoked viral putdowns on the web last week. Real estate blog Curbed ran a post about the house entitled , "Could this row house be the ugliest building in Queens?,” and popular local blog Queens Crap wrote that the house must have been designed by "Frank Lloyd Crap" in a Wednesday post.

A more supportive blogger admired the façade because the cloud design "reminds me of Legos," but Paino said he isn't paying any of them any mind.

"I have no idea who these people are," said Paino. "All I can tell you is that the façade is dramatic enough so that people walking by stop to look at it."

Ah, leave it to the Daily News to feel it necessary to get the crapmaker's side of the story when blogs poke fun at the crap. Here's the major part of the story that they left out:

Tom Paino bills himself as a preservationist. In fact, he was once a board member of the Greater Astoria Historical Society. For years, he claimed he was "restoring" his early 20th century rowhouse. Instead, he rebuilt it like this. Hypocrisy knows no bounds, especially in Queens where actual preservation is a joke, and this house is a punchline. But at least people are stopping to look at its dramatic façade!

You can either laugh at this stuff, or cry.

Ridgewood landmarked but what about the rest of Queens?

From the NY Times:

Its two square miles are packed with eye-catching designs; about 10 percent of it — 350 buildings — has landmark status, even if it isn’t on the radar of most New Yorkers. And with an additional 940 buildings coming up for a vote before the Landmarks Preservation Commission in the next two years, Ridgewood could soon have nearly 1,300 with landmark status — about the same number as Brooklyn Heights — which would mean 40 percent of its cityscape was protected.

It's great that the LPC landmarked so much of Ridgewood. Not only was there no real threat of demolition because most of the area is comprised of rowhouses, but designating such a large district means that the LPC can play the numbers game and brag about how many Queens homes they designated to "prove" how much they care about the borough.

Retired firefighter owns firetraps

From the Daily News:

For years, landlord John Mayo was cited repeatedly for renting out illegal apartments - just the kind that fire officials deem dangerous death traps.

City inspectors hit his buildings again and again with violations, including citations for apartments with no second exits and a blocked fire escape.

What makes Mayo's case different from the average accused slumlord is this: Mayo is a retired New York City firefighter.

Since 2005, the city has repeatedly cited four of Mayo's South Bronx buildings for illegal apartments or SROs, missing and defective smoke detectors, exposed electrical wires, apartments with no second egress, even a blocked fire escape, records show.

Since 2007, when Mayo retired from the FDNY, three rowhouses he owns on one Bronx block have been the subject of 15 illegal apartment complaints, including two this month. One building has 150 outstanding housing-code violations, records show.

Residents on the block say Mayo turned the buildings into illegal boarding houses that are potential firetraps - a growing concern since a fire in an illegal Bronx SRO last month killed a 12-year-old and his parents.

As a former firefighter, neighbors say, Mayo should know all about the dangers of illegal apartments.

Wind spreads fire in Laurelton

From Eyewitness News:

Firefighters battled a three-alarm fire in a row of homes in Laurelton, Queens.

The fire broke out at about 4:30 p.m. at 225-06 Mentone Avenue.

High winds caused the fire to spread quickly to four other neighboring homes.

12 firefighters suffered burns but are in stable condition.

No civilians were injured.

The cause of the fire is not yet known.

Police did find a badly decomposed body inside a nearby home as they were evacuating people in the area.

The investigation is ongoing.