The Willowtown Association » Riverside Apartments

Riverside Tenants Receive BHA’s ‘Outstanding Community Service’ Award

admin — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 17:51:21 +0000

Following is the statement read as part of the presentation by the Brooklyn Heights Association of an Award for Outstanding Community Service to the Tenants Association of the Riverside Buildings in Willowtown at the BHA’s 101st annual meeting Monday evening, February 28, at Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims in the Heights. William “Bill” Ringer and Jean Campbell, leaders of the Tenants Association, and attorney Frank Ciaccio, who has given it legal help along with others, were present to receive the award. Ringer and Campbell are former directors of the Willowtown Association. Ciaccio is presently a director.

Brooklyn Heights Association Associate Award

From left, Ciaccio, Campbell and Ringler pose on an outside Riverside stairway with the BHA award.

Anyone who lives in a designated historic district…knows that there’s not a building within its boundaries that does not deserve the protection of historic preservation. Still, some buildings are, well, more historic than others. Not because they are older, or because someone famous lived in them, but because they have actually had an impact on the life of the city.

You could not find a better example than the Riverside Buildings on Columbia Place. This remarkable six-story apartment complex, constructed 120 years ago by Alfred T. White, a Brooklyn Heights philanthropist, was designed specifically to make life pleasant, safe and healthy for the working poor. Amazing idea! It was our great good fortune that Mr. White’s good
intentions were expressed in wonderful architecture.

Because the worst aspects of turn-of-the-century tenements were their filthy, dangerous stairways and putrid air shafts, Riverside put its stairways on the outside of the building–graceful iron stairways, strong yet elegant. Instead of dark, airless air shafts, Riverside was built around a vast park-like courtyard. There was light. There was fresh air. There was space.

Sooner or later a remarkable achievement like Riverside was bound to be threatened. In 1950 “Moses the Hun” [Robert Moses, 1888-1981] descended on Furman Street, sword in hand. In order to create our beloved Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, he amputated the western arm of the complex. Astonishingly, the central courtyard was scarcely damaged. Now a half-century later the current owner of Riverside is trying to compete with Moses’ callousness with plans for a parking garage right in the courtyard.

That is when the Riverside tenants took up arms. With limited resources–this is, after all, a rent-controlled building–they valiantly and, so far, successfully challenged the landlord. The owner responded with significant changes, but Alfred T. White’s original intent would be gone. The 14 75-year-old trees would be gone. The protection from BQE noise and emissions would be gone. There would no longer be a park-like courtyard but a serviceable, utilitarian space.

You need stamina, conviction and a good pro bono lawyer to take on a challenge like this. Consider what the Riverside tenants had to go through to get what they rightfully demanded. Warning: do not try to decipher what follows.

First, they had to fight the landlord’s ACM with the RA, then the PAR with the DHCR’s DC, and after that there was RFR at the DHCR. Not to mention the LPC hearing and appeal, side by with the BHA. Even with the pro bono legal help of Heights [and Willowtown] resident Frank Ciaccio, an army of lawyers and preservation and housing advocates, it was the Riverside tenants who supplied the courage and tenacity that are carrying the day. Although the final decision has not been handed down, the Brooklyn Heights Association wants to honor these tough, principled folk right now. We are proud to have such valiant neighbors. They are proving that fresh air, trees and wide open space are worth preserving. And so is Alfred T. White’s democratic vision.

Willowtown Gives First Alfred Awards

admin — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 13:18:35 +0000

From left, Newbury, Marvel, Ringler and Campbell

The retiring chair of the tenants association at the Riverside Apartments in Willowtown in Brooklyn Heights, William “Bill” Ringler, and the restorer of a long neglected brownstone also in Willowtown, Jonathan Marvel, are the first recipients of a new award, The Alfred, established by the Willowtown Association.

Named for pioneer neighborhood developer Alfred T. White, the new Alfreds were presented to Ringler and Marvel at the potluck dinner and 2010 annual meeting of the Willowtown Association on Wednesday evening, November 17, at the community center on Willow Place that also bears White’s name. The presentation to Ringler was made by Jean Campbell, an association director and also a Riverside resident, and the presentation to Marvel by William “Bill” Newbury, another association director and Marvel’s next-door neighbor.

The evening’s special guest was Joan Millman, just reelected as the area’s representative in the New York State Assembly. She is a lifelong Brooklyn resident and former schoolteacher and librarian who has served in the assembly for the past 13 years. She discussed such subjects as the state’s new voting machines that leave a previously lacking paper trail and the veto power she now has to the development of housing in Brooklyn Bridge Park through her representative on the park’s board.

The new Alfred Award, says Willowtown Association President Ben Bankson, is a way to recognize significant contributions made by residents to the quality of life in the neighborhood
and express appreciation to them.

Ever since his move in 1979 into an apartment in the historic Riverside complex built by A.T. White in 1889-90, Bill Ringer, a copywriter and printer, has been active in the tenants association and was its chair since 2007. He spearheaded the so far successful fight with the landlord to block his plan to build an unwanted commercial parking facility on the property.

Jonathan Marvel, who was born and grew up in Puerto Rico–“a Brooklyn outerborough,” he calls it–is a founder of the Manhattan-based firm, Rogers Marvel Architects. Last year he bought the brownstone at 25 Willow Place that the descendants of the last residents finally agreed to sell after it stood empty for more than four decades. He has restored and enlarged it as his own residence with a rental unit on the basement floor.

Role Models for All Seasons

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 15:49:02 +0000

The following talk was given by historic preservationist Otis Pratt Pearsall at the rally opening the 2010 Spring Fair of the Willowtown Association on Saturday, May 15:

Ben Bankson, Otis Pearsall, Daniel Squadron and Marty Markowitz

I ask you, what could be finer on this gorgeous day than to be right here in beautiful Willowtown–this wellspring of preservation where the fervor is still palpable, thank God–to celebrate Mary and Joe Merz, my preservationist running mates of literally 50 years, who in various combinations together and with others have done it all.

In sum, what they’ve done is no less than secure amidst the swirling turbulence of New York this tranquil node of sheer architectural beauty that as a living, breathing, vibrant community is just about as perfect as it gets, anywhere. How’s that for a legacy!

And while we’re at it, let’s not forget the early contributions of other Willowtowners, such as Malcolm Chesney of 8 Willow Place, one of the organizers and treasurer of CCIC, the Community Conservation and Improvement Council, which kicked off the whole movement; Arthur Hooker, the first head of our statutory drafting effort, who lived just beyond the powerhouse; and Joe Maggio of 11 Willow Place.

By 1960 Joe had assumed his place as a member of the Brooklyn Height Association’s Preservation Committee. He and Mary, both graduates of Edward Larrabee Barnes’ architectural office, were just setting up their own practice in their carriage house home on Grace Court. And it wouldn’t be long before Mary and Joe, as natural-born idealists bent on neighborhood improvement and not al all as money-grabbing developers, began eyeing the empty lots on a very fragile Willow Place.

But meanwhile, the Heights had a problem. Four years after attempting to jump-start preservation for the very first time in New York, its initiative was stymied and appeared likely to remain so while unsympathetic renovations hostile to the neighborhood’s historic fabric accelerated along with its popularity. Something had to be done to hold the fort. And so, when the BHA in 1962 sponsored establishment of the Design Advisory Council to provide free architectural guidance to property owners, Joe and a tiny band of colleagues volunteered and over the next five years worked unceasingly in more than 100 separate cases to safeguard our architectural heritage.

This was an absolutely invaluable service to the cause of preservation, now, of course, lost in the mists of time. But fate had in store for Mary and Joe a singular preservation contribution more important by magnitudes–the rescue of Willow Place and, by extension, the rescue of Willowtown, which was then under the baleful eye of the Housing and Redevelopment Board and facing the imminent threat of a fateful “Urban Renewal Study.”

I hope that Mary and Joe will write up and document the dramatic story of how, along with another former Edward Larrabee Barnes colleague, they were able to purchase the vacant lots on Willow Place at city auction and with help along the way from Mrs. Darwin James to complete in 1965 their meticulously scaled, award-winning houses in a startlingly appropriate modern idiom.

Willow Place was already an architecturally conspicuous block, boasting multiple houses on the Municipal Art Society’s 1957 listing of buildings that should be preserved. But construction of the Merz houses, with far less bulk than zoning allowed, and handsomely designed for their specific sites, was the crucial vote of confidence.

And what’s more, their Modernist idiom directly inspired the BHA philosophy, welcomed by the early landmarks commissions, that continues contributing to the treasure trove of Heights architecture–each new building should represent the finest architecture contemporary with its date of construction. So it was that the influence of the Merz houses was specifically responsible for the Modernist architecture of the first new building in an historic district, Ulrich Franzen’s well-received Watchtower building at the corner of Pineapple Street and Columbia Heights.

While, of course, all of this took place quite some time ago, Mary and Joe are hardly ones (unlike some today) to take the ongoing preservation of our historic architecture for granted. Far from complacent, they have recognized all along that vigilance and the community’s tenacious readiness to push back, not a gentle reliance on big brother, is the only practical way to defend the integrity of our historic district. And so, at the sound of the bugle, they spring to the barricades, just as comfortable, for example, defending the Candy factory sculpture garden in the northeast corner of the Heights as rising to the defense of the Riverside courtyard here at home.

Mary and Joe are indeed role models for all seasons, and we are both humbled and inspired by their example.

DHCR Upholds Riverside Apartments Parking Garage Decision

admin — Sun, 02 May 2010 17:25:05 +0000

This week in Willowtown tenants of Riverside Apartments rejoice in the news that the Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) upheld it original decision and denied the appeal of the landlord for administrative review of an earlier decision. This decision was short and to the point; The building of a parking garage after the common courtyard was illegally demolished almost 2 decades ago is not restoration of services lost.

Leslie Toress, Deputy Commissioner, replied to the landlord in a brief three page response. Selected quotes show the tone of the letter was very distinct as it seems the DHCR is tiring of the landlords games and frivoulouse use of public resources as he tries to push his plan through, in spite of the logic of the situation.

The letter mainly responded to the fact that the DHCR did not have sufficient evidence to conclude that the existing trees, as tall as the 6 story buildings, were better for the area than the replacement trees proposed. In a single paragraph, containing a single sentence Leslie Torres stated:

While deference should be given to experts when appropriate, the decider of fact must not check their logic and reason at the door.

She went on to say:

. . . no expert opinion is needed to determine facts that are self-evident . . .

In reponse to the traffic that the landlord said would not be increased it was stated:

. . . it must be remembered that there was originally no vehicular traffic in the courtyard . . . this is clearly more than existed . .

The landlord, Joel Wiener of Pinnacle Management, LLC, still has the option to challenge the decision in the New York Supreme Court. We are confident that the decision will stand and applaud DHCR for taking such a strong stand in this case. The Willowtown Association has and will continue to be a proud supporter of the efforts at Riverside to both protect the tenants rights and maintain the charm that makes our neighborhood such a wonderful place to live.