Forest Hills Gardens Tour by Historian Jeff Gottlieb, June 12th & 19th - Happy 25th Anniversary!

Historian Jeff Gottlieb discusses how the Forest Hills Gardens was planned, how to distinguish its architectural styles, and which Forest Hills notables lived in homes some of us pass every day without a clue. These photos are from the June 15, 2008 tour. 2011 marks the 25th anniversary of his Forest Hills Gardens tours.

Mark your calendar! Summer is in the air, and so are walking tours. Residents of Forest Hills and beyond will have the privilege of embarking upon 2 Forest Hills Gardens tours this June. This walking tour highlights the 25th Anniversary of Jeff Gottlieb's first Forest Hills Gardens tour.

Jeff Gottlieb, a licensed tour guide, is President of the Central Queens Historical Association and Queens Jewish Historical Society. Established in 1909, the Forest Hills Gardens is the earliest planned garden community countrywide, which was inspired by Ebenezer Howard's Garden City Movement. It retains its high degree of Tudor architecture as well as Colonial design, and lush gardens.

Jeff Gottlieb will divide the walking tours into two parts, and each tour will take 2 1/2 hours:

1. Sunday, June 12, 2011, 10:00 AM: Meet at Station Square, and walk to Greenway North and Markwood Place.

2. Sunday, June 19, 2011, 10:00 AM: Meet at Greenway North and Markwood Place, and trek back to Station Square.

In early May 2011, Jeff Gottlieb was the recipient of the HDC Grassroots Preservation Award for his work as a preservationist and historian.

The Forest Hills Gardens tour is free, and no pre-registration is necessary. For further information, please contact Jeff Gottlieb at (917) 376-4496 or Preservationist Michael Perlman at unlockthevault@hotmail.com

Sample of freestanding homes

Rowhouses

One of a few religious sites

One of a few apartment houses

Trylon Theater in Forest Hills Patch - A 1939 World's Fair Legacy Never Ceases

The 1939 Trylon Theater as boasted in 1941 in The Theatre Catalog

The Trylon Theater after its 60-year run in Dec 1999. A time when the facade's most significant Art Deco features with international ties remained intact.

The TRYLON THEATER is your Rego-Forest Preservation Council Chairman's latest installation in the Local History column for Forest Hills Patch. 

This theater at 98-81 Queens Blvd, Forest Hills had cultural, architectural, and historical significance to the 1939 – 1940 World's Fair, which was held in Flushing Meadows Park, and categorized by the 700-ft spire Trylon (pyramid) and 180-ft Perisphere (globe) monuments. It was the “Theater of Tomorrow,” since the theme of the 1939 World’s Fair was the “World of Tomorrow,” where exhibits emphasized technological improvements. Social and cultural change led to new waves of immigrants. The marquee once boasted The Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind. 

With the exception of its closure in 1999, and the jackhammering of significant Art Deco features in 2005 despite a community preservation movement and political controversy, you can read an excerpt of its intriguing 60-year chapter of what defined a neighborhood theater with international ties. Please share your memories: http://foresthills.patch.com/articles/trylon-theatre 

Thankfully hosted on the 1939 New York World's Fair (Reaction Grid) website, you can read more about the Committee To Save The Trylon Theater (which led to the creation of Rego-Forest Preservation Council in late 2006): http://www.1939nyworldsfair.com/worlds_fair/trylon_theater.htm In short, when former councilmember, Melinda Katz, did NOT support landmarking sites in Forest Hills, the Landmarks Preservation Commission backed off from the Trylon Theater. Sometimes public officials forget why they were elected.

Art Deco glory! The Trylon Theater entrance pavilion after closure in Dec 1999. It features a Trylon Monument on the mosaic ticket booth with a central 3D mirror-image on the terrazzo floor, which is then accompanied by Art Deco chevrons in mosaic tiles.

Art Deco travesty in 2005: Hard to believe that this was all that remained of the above image, consisting of the priceless ticket booth and entrance pavilion, as a demolition crew was told to destroy this artifact.

2005: Bad enough the lobby was gutted, but the back-lit mosaic Trylon fountain wasn't even spared.

The World of Tomorrow-themed cloth mural for the Trylon Theater, a "Theater of Tomorrow." Sadly, this work of art alongside the proscenium wasn't preserved when the building underwent a conversion.

After viewing these photos and reading its history, the question on most people's minds becomes.........

 Wouldn't it have been much easier to work together to preserve and creatively reuse the Trylon Theater's historic Art Deco features, while undergoing conversion to a cultural center in 2005?

Forest Hills Tennis Stadium Recognized in National Trust For Historic Preservation's Preservation Magazine

This is a Nov 1922 ad which appeared in MIT's Technology Review. Designed by public building architectural specialist Kenneth Murchison in 1923, it became the country's first permanent concrete tennis stadium. There's no denying its strong foundation in more ways than 1!

Centerfield! August 2010 photo by Patrick Lannan

The famed yet endangered Forest Hills Tennis Stadium is recognized in the National Trust For Historic Preservation's Preservation Magazine (May-June 2011 issue) as threatened. It is the hope of Rego-Forest Preservation Council that such exposure along with city, state, federal landmark status, and potentially an amended version of Transferable Development Rights (TDR), will yield funds for restoration and creative multi-reuse. Hopefully, exposure in this noteworthy publication will spark the interest of historically-sensitive visionaries, who will partner with the Stadium's owner, the West Side Tennis Club. Below is the excerpt from the magazine's Transitions section:

The greatest tennis players of the 20th century—Arthur Ashe, Billie Jean King, Rod Laver, Margaret Court, and Jimmy Connors among them—served, volleyed, and stroked backhands at this 14,000-seat stadium in the Forest Hills section of Queens, N.Y. After the U.S. Open moved to Flushing Meadows in 1977, the West Side Tennis Stadium hosted various professional tournaments but was eventually abandoned. The club that owns the badly deteriorated stadium discussed demolition with a developer interested in building condos. But in October, the club voted to retain the stadium and solicit ideas for reuse. About $12 million is needed just to repair the crumbling 1923 landmark.

Source: http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/2011/may-june/transitions.html

1968 US Open Tennis Championships press kit featuring Arthur Ashe

Golden glory awaits TLC! Photo by Michael Perlman, Sept 2010

Frank Sinatra at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, July 15, 1977

1937 news photo

Judy Garland at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium on July 17, 1965 at the annual Forest Hills Music Festivals, Courtesy of Robert Rauschenbach

Pastoral Rego Park Treasures Unearthed!

Shortly after our January 27th posting on Rego Park's Lutheran Church of Our Saviour, showcasing our historic find... a 10th Anniversary publication from 1936 (1931 church cornerstone), a congregant named Jackie Kilberg discovered us, and invited the board members of Rego-Forest Preservation Council on a tour of the charming Colonial frame church, slated for this spring. Jackie is an active congregant since 1969. At the request of fellow congregant Ruth Mueller, she provided scans of her rare photos of Rego Park. We greatly anticipate meeting Jackie Kilberg, Ruth Mueller, and staff members of this classic Rego Park church, within a pastoral setting on bustling 63rd Dr.

If you speak with Ruth Mueller, who was fortunate to grow up in Rego Park in the 1920s, you will feel as if you witnessed how it evolved from a pastoral scene with farmland, dirt roads with steep hills, and porch-fronted frame houses, to the development of 525 8-room Colonial homes off the south side of Queens Blvd bounded by 63rd Dr/Remsen Ave & Eliot Ave ($8,000 each), to the development of its late 1920s apartment houses along Saunders St, the 1939 & 1964 World's Fair, and the era of Howard Johnsons and the Trylon Theater, and all years between. The 1920s was the era when the Rego (Real Good) Construction Company coined Rego Park for real estate purposes, and initiated mass development which grants Rego Park its historic character. Ruth Mueller attends Our Saviour Lutheran Church to this very day, and takes pride in knowing that her photos are being featured.

The Ruth Mueller Collection offers scarce views, which depict 63rd Rd towards 108th St in the 1920s, and a more recent photo from 1937. That vicinity is now largely developed with apartment houses dating to the 1950s and 1960s. The final photo features a 25th anniversary dinner celebration of Lutheran Church of Our Saviour from November 1951.

Lutheran Church of Our Saviour's 25th Anniversary celebration - School Dedication Fellowship Dinner, Nov 9, 1951

Forest Hills Inn Awaits Restoration... Will The Promise Be Fulfilled?

If the Forest Hills Inn's co-op board is able to pull together the funding for a long-awaited restoration of this prominent tower, the facade will once again be appreciated for its historic Tudor appeal, cultural prestige, and the unsightly scaffolding and netting that was erected in 2004 will be a chapter of its not-so-memorable "recent past."

Rendering of Station Square with the Forest Hills Inn, gracing the skyline in a circa 1909 ad. Note the English garden community feel, and the $14 to $18 quotes for a week's stay, which includes meals, the tea garden, golf, tennis, squash, & billiards. Restore the recreational aspect to Forest Hills! Courtesy of Michael Perlman Postcard Collection

Wide-angle of Station Square from LIRR Station on July 27, 2009. A century after its establishment! Sadly, netting obscures the facade for nearly 7 years. Photo by Chair Michael Perlman, Rego-Forest Preservation Council

Aerial view from The Kennedy House at 110-11 Queens Blvd towards Austin St & Station Square, Sept 23, 2010 - Photo by Chair Michael Perlman, Rego-Forest Preservation Council

May the Forest Hills Inn once again be a framing opportunity! This ornate work enhances the ambiance of Nick's Pizza on Ascan Ave in The Tilden Arms apt house.

The Forest Hills Inn is an anchor of Station Square, the Forest Hills Gardens, and the greater community. The Gardens, which was rated #1 in Cottage Living magazine in summer 2007, is our country's earliest and most highly regarded planned communities (1909), inspired by Ebenezer Howard's Garden City Movement. It is a superb and rare model of urban planning, with its Tudor mansions, few apartment buildings, private parks and streets, religious sites, community house, monuments, and the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium as another anchor. 

Station Square Photoset on Flickr by RFPC Chair Michael Perlman

According to published reports, when the deterioration of a pipe of the Forest Hills Inn came to its climax nearly 7 years back, it resulted in flooding, and some residents had to relocate. The facade was also in need of re-pointing and the replacement of some terra-cotta tiles. Netting and scaffolding was erected around that time.The restoration process has reportedly run overtime due to a dispute between the Forest Hills Inn's co-op board and the Forest Hills Gardens Corporation; the latter which ensures that the Forest Hills Gardens' extensive array of historic properties are safeguarded aesthetically, through historic Restrictive Covenants. The co-op board claimed that the Forest Hills Gardens Corp wanted them to remove the "unsightly" scaffolding. Litigation was pursued. A major concern was that if the Forest Hills Gardens Corp kept pursuing litigation, the funding secured for the Forest Hills Inn's restoration would be in jeopardy, in order to finance any necessary attorneys. In any case, it is important for a historically-sensitive restoration that would bring the Forest Hills Inn up to code, and not let legal matters play a major role, since it may jeopardize the future of what is known as a "landmark" by sight.

Let's party like it's July 4, 1919, as featured in a celebration poster. Station Square hosted patriotic festivals in its heyday. Will we schedule another celebration upon completion of the Forest Hills Inn's restoration?

 The Forest Hills Ledger has the full report of the Forest Hills Inn's current status, and hopes for a sightly future: 

http://www.yournabe.com/articles/2011/02/18/forest_hills/forest_hills_ledger/news/fh_forest_hills_inn_20110217.txt

Addisleigh Park Historic District Designated, Marking Queens' 10th Historic District!

113-02 175th St, Courtesy of LPC

Sayres Ave rowhouses, Courtesy of LPC

We are proud to announce the designation of Queens' 10th Historic District, known as the Addisleigh Park Historic District in St. Albans, which preserves 422 homes & natural landscapes. Addisleigh Park was calendared by the Landmarks Preservation Commission on February 9, 2010, and heard on March 23, 2010. On February 1, 2011, nearly 5 years of surveying and advocacy by the Addisleigh Park Civic Association, Historic Districts Council, and help from preservation grants, CM Leroy Comrie, residents, Historians Maxine Gordan &Jane Cowan, & the Addisleigh Park Historic District came to fruition, when it was designated unanimously by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, in addition to 4 Individual Landmarks in Staten Island's Sandy Ground section. The timing of the designation commemorates Black History Month, and will preserve a fine collection of architectural and cultural landmarks for neighborhood residents and preservationists citywide for future generations. This marks the city's Historic District #102. 

In the 1940s, prominent African American 20th-century figures including jazz musicians and sports champions began to make their home in Addisleigh Park. If you took a leisurely walk, you may have crossed paths with legends including Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Jackie Robinson, Percy Sutton, Milt Hinton, Roy Campanella, Illinois Jacquet, Lena Horne, W.E.B. DuBois, James Brown, Thomas "Fats" Waller, and Joe Louis. 

The area consists of Tudor and Colonial Revival, and Arts & Crafts freestanding homes with neatly landscaped lawns and mature tree-lined streets, rowhouses, the St. Albans Park, and places of worship. It is hard to grasp that homes were only available to whites when a number of properties were first developed circa 1910 - 1930s. This relates to the unrevised Forest Hills Gardens' Restrictive Covenants, which initially banned Jews and African Americans.

The collection of 10 designated Historic Districts in Queens, serves as a case study of potential Historic Districts in Forest Hills, Rego Park, and other deserving Queens neighborhoods. These are Queens designation reports to date: http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/html/forms/reports_queens.shtml

For more information on the history, architecture, and clever urban planning of the must-visit Addisleigh Park Historic District, check out the LPC's press release announcing the new designation: http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/press/11-02_african_american_sites_landmarked.pdf

This is a PowerPoint presentation from the LPC's Public Hearing, featuring a smorgasbord of historic homes, notables, and a proposed boundary map: http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/ppt/addisleigh_hearing_ppt.pdf

The LPC's 374-page Designation Report: http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/2405.pdf 

A history courtesy of the Addisleigh Park Civic Association: http://www.addisleighpark.org/id15.html

115-14 179th St, Courtesy of LPC

173-07 Murdock Ave, Courtesy of LPC

174-11 Murdock Ave to 113-10 175th St, Courtesy of LPC

176-15 Murdock Ave, Courtesy of LPC

The Count Basie House, 174-27 Adelaide Rd, Courtesy of LPC

114-37 178th Place, Courtesy of LPC

Our Saviour Lutheran Church: Early Rego Park History Revealed!

THEN: Lutheran Church of Our Saviour's 1932 assemblage circa 1936 at 92-14 63rd Dr, Rego Park

NOW: Mostly unaltered from its origins. Happy 85th, congregation! Happy 79th, charming landmark!

 Most memorabilia Rego-Forest Preservation Council collects can be found on eBay and at postcard shows. Every so often, comes that one find that's the opener of eye-openers! That happens to be the case with a soft-covered booklet from 1936, commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the Lutheran Church of Our Saviour, which was distributed to congregants. Situated at 92-14 63rd Dr in Rego Park, this church is a proud sight in midst of Rego Park's bustling business district, alongside 1930s & 1940s Art Deco canopy-infested retail developments, and the church's character represents a throwback to Rego Park's humble origins with Colonial wood homes on generous landscapes, and its Colonial origins as Newtown with its farms and frame houses featuring porches. The Remsen family owned an extensive parcel of farmland, and Remsen Ave was the neighborhood's first street, which became 63rd Drive.

It is phenomenal how Our Saviour Lutheran Church's 1932 establishment survives mostly intact inside and out, and how its landscaped lawn is always maintained. Our flickr link shows Rego Park, Elmhurst, & Queenswide business ads from 1936, in addition to the historic text and photos also found below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8095451@N08/sets/72157625914608940/

The 10th Anniversary publication features the first ministry, the church on Booth St, the first chapel, Pastor Kuechle's early ministry, early church finances, the first council, dreams of a new church, dreams answered with the Oct 25, 1931 groundbreaking ceremony led by Pastor Kuechle, the current establishment's Feb 28, 1932 dedication, its years of growth, the Rego Park Lutheran publication, and its religious education, the choir, church societies, and its leadership.

December 20, 1931 marked the corner-stone laying ceremony, where a photographer from the NY Times took a photo of the building committee, which appeared in the Rotogravure section. The contents of the cornerstone were a New Testament, a copy of Luther's Catechism, a Hymn Book, a copy of the Lutheran Annual (1932), a copy of the Lutheran Witness, a Constitution of the US, a copy of the Atlantic Bulletin, coin of the US, $1.00, issue of 1931, history of Lutheran Church of Our Saviour, roster of Communicant Members, the names of congregational officers, members of the building committee, the architect and the builder, a copy of the financial campaign prospectus and a list of the workers, a program of the ground-breaking service, a copy of the Rego Park Lutheran, a copy of the Daily Star (local paper) bearing the story of the corner-stone laying, a program of the corner-stone service, and a copy of The Post (a Rego Park paper).

Unsurprisingly, Benjamin Braunstein was commissioned to design this charming Colonial-style church on 63rd Dr and Wetherole St on land that was owned by the Real Good Construction Company, which named Rego Park in 1923. Lutheran Church of Our Saviour's congregation accepted a bid by the Auserehl & Son Contracting Corp of Jamaica, NY at $12,696, non-inclusive of plumbing, heating, hardware, lighting fixtures, and the pews. Fine facade and sanctuary finishes were produced at a modest cost. The facade presently bears arched multi-paned windows, a pilaster-flanked biblical stained glass arched window on its western exposure, a lattice unifying the transition from the garden to the church, a bell tower, and a tiled pitched roof, amongst other features. The interior is bright, being that it is served by arched windows on its northern and southern exposures, and its double-sided layout of pews in a humble, arches space is graceful, and is embellished by the ornately carved detail on wainscoting, which leads the eye to the ornate woodwork on the triumphant altar. Architect Benjamin Braunstein is well-known for his generous quantity of 6-story garden-style (Georgian) Colonial apartment houses in Forest Hills and Rego Park in the 1930s and 1940s around the period of the 1936 IND subway and 1939-1940 World's Fair, and his earlier Tudor designs, best depicted in Sutton Hall apartments on Ascan Ave in Forest Hills.

Upon reading the 10th Anniversary publication from 1936 below, think of how Our Saviour Lutheran Church on 63rd Dr embodies the spirit of our community in context of early Rego Park history, its fine craftsmanship and landscape, and its timeline and contributions to the present. One should never take anything for granted. HAPPY TREASURE HUNTING!