Preservation Resolutions 2011: We Revolve Around YOU!

Rego-Forest Preservation Council's Resolutions for 2011

Our organization flyer reflecting our neighborhood's diverse architecture. It contains our mission statement  how you can volunteer. Please print & help distribute to friends and shop owners to post on windows & bulletin boards.

RESOLUTION #1: Our organization will continue to survey Forest Hills and Rego Park through written and photo documentation (flickr.com), in order to preserve historic stretches of the neighborhood's residential and commercial corridors, and advocate for official city landmarks via the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, which is long overdue on their part in regard to calendaring public hearings for potential designations. We have a wealth of "landmarks at heart" in Tudor & Georgian Colonial styles, to name a few. Our neighborhood dates to 1906 & 1923 name-wise (1906 cumulatively), and we need to utilize the architectural and cultural provisions of the 1965 Landmarks Law to our community's benefit. We only have 2 officially designated city landmarks to date, which are the Ridgewood Savings Bank (designated 2000) and the Remsen Cemetery (designated 1981). Saving our Forest Hills Tennis Stadium is one of our various landmarking & creative multi re-use priorities. NYC LPC website: http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/html/home/home.shtml

RESOLUTION #2: We also hope to help property owners of historic properties by nominating their properties for State & National Register of Historic Places status via the State Historic Preservation Office, to commemorate history, and assist them in obtaining tax credits and grants for restoration and much-needed historically-sensitive site upgrades: http://nysparks.state.ny.us/shpo

RESOLUTION #3: We will also be spearheading tree planting causes under our affiliate, the Four Borough Neighborhood Preservation Alliance, to restore the "forest" and "park" in our neighborhood names, after experiencing a macroburst with 2 tornadoes on 9/16/10: http://regoforestpreservation.blogspot.com/2010/09/downed-trees-represent-loss-of-history.html


RESOLUTION #4: One of the most integral research methods so far is the digitization of rare & priceless promotional booklets and blueprints containing facade renderings, maps, and advertising, showing how Forest Hills & Rego Park was developed. These are primary sources, which we will make a continuous effort to digitize and uncover from dusty shelves after 50-80 years. This is our collection to date: http://regoforestpreservation.blogspot.com/2010/12/historic-blueprints-promotional.html

 Why Preserve? Why Volunteer?

Preserving the rich character of Forest Hills and Rego Park is most essential, since if we sit back as "armchair preservationists" and watch the bulldozers in the Cord Meyer section, for example, we will resemble Anytown USA, stripped of identity. Our neighborhood is the product of some household architects (i.e. Philip Birnbaum, Kenneth Murchison, Benjamin Braunstein, Henry Morgenthau, Frank Grad, Thomas Lamb, Joseph Unger, Manoug Exerjian, Benjamin Dreisler, Robert Tappan, Theodore Engelhardt, Eric Kebbon), builders (i.e. The Foundation Co), developers  (i.e. the original Cord Meyer), and urban planners (especially evident in the Rego Park Crescents, Forest Close & Arbor Close, buildings with recessed wings and substantial green areas, etc). 

Power to the leaders and teammates who "fight the good fight" for our neighborhoods out of passion! Even if your time is minimal since you work a full-time position and raise children, a small amount of time can make a mighty difference! Your contributions will be recognized in print & in your heart. Please volunteer to help your community by contacting unlockthevault@hotmail.com 

A Healthy and Productive New Year Like It's 1911!

As we make the transition into 2011, let's reflect upon our traditions, enriched with art and personality through direct humanly touch, prior to the digital age, when most people can design something by clicks of the mouse in Adobe Photoshop (not to discredit current times entirely). Let's take a journey to 1911, as the above postcard creatively exhibits the year in lace. A number of hand-colored and sometimes embossed postcards with poetic greetings, penmanship, and ornate illustrations were sent to family and friends, and were indeed sold in Queens in your corner convenience shop or in soda fountain drugstores such as the former Sutton Hall Pharmacy on Ascan Ave in Forest Hills. Queens became part of the City of NY on January 1, 1898, and on Dec 24, 1901, "post card" was authorized by the act of congress, and was allowed to be printed on the back of the undivided postcards of the era (previously known as private mailing cards). Postcards were a novelty each year, and the medium was relatively new within itself.

We wish everyone a year filled with health, happiness, and great productivity personally. May historic preservation be productive for Forest Hills, Rego Park, and our neighbors who are advocating for landmarking and the general preservation and creative reuse of the built cornerstones of our neighborhoods, which create the very essence of an appealing and diverse city. Let's be neighborly, and progressively defend our neighborhoods from greedy developers by expanding our coalition of volunteers and supporters. Let's not forget where we came from as a nation, in order to have a greater understanding of the principles we are built upon, to pave the way for a culturally and architecturally richer future.