The Willowtown Association

Potluck Dinner and 2011 Annual Meeting

admin — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 20:10:25 +0000

Councilman Levin

To: All Residents of Willowtown

From: The Willowtown Association

Re: Potluck Dinner and 2011 Annual Meeting
Join your neighbors for a fun and informative evening…

Wednesday, November 16,
at the Alfred T. White Center, 26 Willow Place

6:30 – Happy Hour – Complimentary wine & hors d’oeuvres

7:30 – Dinner – Bring a favorite dish to share

8:30 – Annual Meeting
+ NYC Councilman Stephen Levin’s speaking on
“Brooklyn Bridge Park: From Vision to Reality”
+ Election of the association’s directors
+ Presentation of the Alfred Award

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’s Leaders Give Ideas for Park Funding Alternatives

admin — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 13:21:38 +0000

At public hearings held last November 30 and December 9 President Ben Bankson of the Willowtown Association and Vice President Linda De Rosa read statements on behalf of the association’s board giving ideas on alternatives to housing to raise the maintenance budget for Brooklyn Bridge Park. Their statements included all nine of the potential funding streams that the park board’s Committee on Alternatives to Housing authorized its consultant, Bay Area Economics, to analyze for a draft report to be released in February for public comment. In the spring the committee is expected to advance its recommendations on funding to the park’s board for final action.

President Bankson’s statement was as follows:

“The Willowtown neighborhood borders Piers 5 and 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park and is greatly impacted by whatever happens at these piers and anywhere else in the long and narrow waterfront park. We will watch with much interest the building of Pier 5 between now and its expected opening in the summer of 2012. Our focus too is on all of the activities that are slated to take place there and the park-goers they will attract.

“Since last March when Pier 1 was opened to the public followed several months later by the upland section of Pier 6, I have walked several times a week in a loop from Willowtown through Pier 6, along the pathway on the East River shoreline, around Pier 1, up to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and back home. My walks provide me with varying perspectives on this unique, beautiful and already very popular park and give me a deep appreciation for it. The Willowtown Association applauds President Regina Myer of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation and her team on their remarkable accomplishments to date and looks forward to what is yet to come.

“We welcome the present openness of the parcels of land at Piers 1 and 6 and along John Street that have been designated for the development of residential housing and a hotel within the park. We decry the construction of any buildings on these parcels and feel that this would be a desecration of our waterfront that is finally completely accessible.

“Common sense would seem to shout a loud no again to filling in these parcels with buildings. We urge instead that they be left as they now are but landscaped as integral parts of the park and made into inviting groves.

“If housing must be used as the means to raise the needed revenue to maintain the park, we urge that the present Watchtower facilities that front but are not in it and that are expected soon to be sold become instead the structures needed to fulfill the maintenance scheme. The large T-shaped Watchtower facility along Furman Street and extending to Vine Street already has the very look of a hotel. What a wonderful place it would be–Brooklyn’s Plaza perhaps?–without taking up an inch of park land.

“We are pleased that the Brooklyn Bridge Park Community Advisory Council is up and running and that the Willowtown Association is represented among the initial members. Could not the dozen or so groups on the council, all of whom have a deep interest in the park and its future, take upon themselves raising some part of the maintenance revenue? Or perhaps this could be part of the mission of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy. The park has quickly established itself as “an urban treasure” that I am sure all of us would be more than happy to help support through voluntary contributions.

“On my regular walks through Brooklyn Bridge Park, I am much inspired by what already is and being able now to see up close our amazing waterfront and especially the tidal flow. I can hardly wait for the park’s full completion. But, please, no new high-rise condos in the park! No hotel in the park! Certainly in our midst are enough creative minds to come up with ways to raise the needed maintenance revenue that are far more sensitive to what a park is supposed to be without more buildings in it. We hope that this will clearly be the conclusion of tonight’s hearing and the one next week and what the consultant Bay Area Economics will recommend.”

Vice President De Rosa’s statement was:

“As our president said in his statement given at last week’s hearing, Willowtown borders Piers 5 and 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park and is greatly impacted by whatever happens at these piers and anywhere else in the long and narrow waterfront park….

“In June 2005 the Willowtown Association adopted this seven-point platform regarding the park entitled, ‘Fighting for a Public Treasure on Brooklyn’s Waterfront.’ The seven points were:

“1. A park plan in keeping with the ’13 Guiding Principles’ adopted in 1992 by elected officials and local community groups.

“2. Creation of an affordable waterfront park that can become a real public treasure.

“3. No new residential housing in the park.

“4. Income-producing uses other than housing.

“5. Greater access to the park via public transportation and on foot.

“6. An affordable maintenance budget.

“7. Respect for the surrounding neighborhoods and their residents.

“The park is well along in becoming the very public treasure we called for as the crowds coming to the finished Piers 1 and 6 bear witness. And now we are here to push for alternatives to housing and a hotel in the park.

“Last March the Willowtown Association’s president along with representatives of three other nearby neighborhood groups met with staff members of the century-old independent advocacy organization New Yorkers for Parks. Interestingly, the organization did a study during 2008-09 on the very subject of this hearing. The result is entitled ‘Supporting Our Parks: A Guide to Alternative Revenue Strategies.’ We recommend it to members of the committee and their consultant Bay Area Economics. The study zeroes in on the very situation facing Brooklyn Bridge Park with its ‘self-sustaining mandate’ and the difficulties of creating such a park especially in a poor economy.

“Here are just a few suggestions based on the study:

“+ Leverage concessions to support directly or provide maintenance, operations and security within the lease footprints.

“+ Create conservancies and/or friends groups to generate private support.

“+ Generate income from fee-for-attendance events in the park or for its use such as to make a film. Encourage events that will make park improvements thereby reducing maintenance and operations needs.

“+ Seek out revenue-generating ‘sponsors’ of the park.

“+ Seek a tenant for the Empire Stores in the park that will lift up their history such as a museum focusing on all that has taken place on the very footprint of Brooklyn Bridge Park not the least being that our first president, George Washington, once escaped across the East River from here.

“+ Establish a Park Improvement District or PID modeled after the far more common Business Improvement District.

“We know that no one magic bullet can meet the self-sustanting mandate. Other excellent ideas already put on the table include Senator Dan Squadron’s Park Increment Recapture program–the PIRC–which Mayor Michael Bloomberg has already rejected; the Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund’s Park Improvement Optional Tax Fund, modeled on what is done in Polk County, Florida; and Tony Manheim’s concept for the Watchtower properties bordering the park.

“There certainly is an answer that is not dependent on new housing and a hotel in the park as the testimony at these hearings has shown. It lies in the will to make the park as completed a true amenity for the community in keeping with our original vision. The answer lies in multiple-funding schemes that can weather the ups and downs of the economy and that do not rely 90 percent on luxury housing. That bubble, as we all know, has burst.”

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.

Tree Trust Plants ‘Peggy’s Tree’

admin — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 13:13:51 +0000

Wids De La Cour, left, and his son Russell next to him watch the unloading of the cherry tree planted in memory of wife and mother Peggy.

A cherry tree was planted in the Palmetto Playground in Willowtown on Thursday, November 18, in memory of Margaret “Peggy” De La Cour by the Tree Trust of the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation. Peggy lived with her family just across from the playground at 27 State Street for 35 years and was a former president of the Willowtown Association that helped finance the planting.

Peggy died unexpectedly in February 2008 at age 63. She was a native of Brooklyn who earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1966 and a master’s degree in public administration from New York University in 1984. She worked in senior positions at the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, the Water Board and the office of the Brooklyn Borough president.

Those present at the tree planting included Peggy’s husband Willis “Wids” De La Cour and their son Russell. They and other members of the family invite Willowtown neighbors to come to the Palmetto Playground on Saturday morning, December 4, at 10 o’clock for a follow-up gathering at the tree and a light brunch and to help plant spring bulbs. Those wanting to do bulb planting are asked to bring gardening gloves and trowels.

Bob Stone of 23 State Street oversaw arrangements for “Peggy’s tree” with the Tree Trust and in consultation with the De La Cour family.

Willowtown Association Elects 2011 Board

admin — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 13:06:31 +0000

Three new directors were elected by acclamation to the 12-member board of the Willowtown Association at its 2010 annual meeting held Wednesday, November 17, at the A.T. White Community Center on Willow Place. Their terms are for the year 2011.

The new directors are Clair Brew of 10 Willow Place, Clint Padgitt of 277 Hicks Street and G. Bradley Smith of 10 Columbia Place. They replace the retiring directors Jean Campbell and William “Bill” Ringler, both also of 10 Columbia Place, and Joseph Merz of 48 Willow Place.

The association’s following officers were all reelected: Ben Bankson of 14 Willow Place, to his second term as president; Linda DeRosa of 47 Joralemon Street, to her second term as vice president; Stephanie Zancolli of 21 State Street, to her second term as secretary; and Andrew “Andy” Reynolds of 37 Joralemon Street, to his third term as treasurer.

Reelected as directors were Franklin Ciaccio of 43 Joralemon Street, Elizabeth “Libby” Cooper of 30 Columbia Place, Mary Goodman of 10 Willow Place, Seth Murphy of 37 Joralemon Street and William “Bill” Newbury of 23 Willow Place.

A native of Chorleywood, England, Clair Brew has lived in New York since 1999 and been a resident of Willowtown since last year. She is an artist who works in lighting from a studio in Red Hook. Her website is, www.clarebreew.com. She and her husband, Chris Scarafile, a cinematographer, became first-time parents last August with the birth of their daughter Darwin Rose.

Clint Padgitt is a native of New Orleans and Ridgewood, N.J., whose descendants were Texas saddle makers. He has lived in Willowtown since 1983. He is an ordained pastor/chaplain in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America serving at Zion-St. Mark’s Lutheran Church on the Upper East Side and at the German Seamen’s Mission and Seafarers & International House also in Manhattan. He plays the bassoon in the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra.

Brad Smith is a native of Kalamazoo, Mich., who has been a resident of the Riverside Apartments in Riverside for exactly 50 years. He has always been active in its tenants association. He worked as a customer service representative for publishers and has served as a longtime Big Apple greeter giving individualized tours of the city.

TOGETHER! Annual Potluck Dinner & 2010 Annual Meeting of the Willowtown Association

admin — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 13:30:59 +0000

Wednesday, November 17
Alfred T. White Community Center on Willow Place

6:30 – Happy Hour – Complimentary wine & hors d’oeuvres
7:30 – Dinner – Bring a favorite dish to share
8:30 – Annual Meeting – Election of 2011 board of directors

Featured guest speaker – Assemblywoman Joan Millman
Presentation of the association’s first Alfred Awards

Any Willowtown resident can make nominations for the association’s 12-member board made up of the president, vice president, secretary, treasurer and eight directors.

Nominations are to be submitted by Monday, November 1, to the secretary–Stephanie Zancolli, szancolli@indigoing.com, or 21 State Street, Brooklyn NY 11201. For each nominee please include (1) name and for which board position, (2) address, (3) hometown, (4) how long a Willowtown resident, and (5) occupation.

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.

Willowtown Association Celebration Day in Brooklyn

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 15:48:03 +0000

The following proclamation was made by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz at Willowtown’s 2010 Spring Fair on Saturday, May 15:

Willowtown president Ben Bankson receives proclamation from borough president Marty Markowitz

WHEREAS, it is a time-honored Brooklyn tradition to recognize those outstanding individuals and organizations dedicated to the betterment of the neighborhoods they serve and the great Borough of Brooklyn; and

WHEREAS, President Ben Bankson and the officers and members of the Willowtown Association–a 57-year-old neighborhood-based organization, whose mission is to address the issues that impact the quality of life for residents–have gathered once again to host a Spring Fair to take note of the organization’s ongoing efforts to ensure the economic vitality, safety, maintenance and sense of community in Southwest Brooklyn and featuring entertainment, food and fun, all in support of the organization’s ongoing endeavors and to pay tribute to Willowtown Visionaries Joe and Mary Merz; and

WHEREAS, on behalf of all Brooklynites, I salute President Bankson and Vice President Linda De Rosa, who serve as Spring Fair coordinators, the officers and members of the Willowtown Association as they host this festive and exciting event that pays tribute to Willowtown Visionaries Joe and Mary Merz, whose projects include the redesigning of what became Palmetto Playground. I commend the Willowtown Association for their ongoing dedication to improving the quality of life for so many of our residents, I congratulate them as they celebrate the annual Spring Fair that coincides with the 45^th anniversary of the designation of Brooklyn Heights as New York City’s first historic district, and I thank all those present for helping to make Brooklyn a better place to live, work and raise a family.”

Worthy of Our Highest Respect and Esteem

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 15:47:33 +0000

The following proclamation was made by State Sen. Daniel squadron at Willowtown’s 2010 Spring Fair on Saturday, May 15:

State senator Daniel Squadron praising Willowtown

WHEREAS, a great state is only as great as those organizations that perform exemplary service on behalf of their communities; and

WHEREAS, it is the sense of this legislative body to commend the Willowtown Association as it convenes for its 2010 Spring Fair to be held on Saturday, May 15; and

WHEREAS, the Willowtown Association was formed in 1953 out of a group of committed residents who organized themselves to discuss and address neighborhood concerns; and

WHEREAS, since it began nearly 60 years ago, the Willowtown Association has proven to be a strong advocate and protector for the unique neighborhood for which it is named, having won many important battles; and

WHEREAS, some of the Willowtown Association’s victories include convincing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to reroute the B-63 bus off of Hicks Street; working with former Mayor John Lindsay to convert a vacant lot at Columbia Place and State Street into a basketball court, supporting the design and construction of an inclusive and accessible Brooklyn Bridge Park and fighting alongside the tenants of the Riverside Apartments to preserve the building’s historic courtyard; and

WHEREAS, the Willowtown Association acquired not-for-profit status in 1997, allowing it to expand its projects and services with increased efforts at rehabilitation and beautification of public spaces throughout the community as well as strong and effective advocacy on issues such as affordable housing and historical preservation; and

WHEREAS, it is the sense of this legislative body that when organizations of such noble aims and accomplishments are brought to our attention, it is appropriate to publicly proclaim and commend those organizations for the edification and emulation of others; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that I, State Sen. Daniel Squadron recognize that in the Willowtown Association we have an organization worthy of our highest respect and esteem; and be it further

RESOLVED, that a copy of this proclamation be transmitted to the Willowtown Association on the occasion of its 2010 Spring Fair.