|
 Beach
Hampton/ Napeague
A World War II block house/watchtower is located on
the dunes east of Amagansett at Whaler’s Lane.
The concrete bunker was carefully camouflaged as a fisherman’s
cottage. The block house was used as a  “look-out”
during World War II in connection with Coast Guard maneuvers.
An intrinsic part of the history of Long Island and
part of our cultural and military history, presently,
the owner has applied for a demolition permit.
Hopping House.
PHOTOCREDIT: SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF LONG
ISLAND ANTIQUITIES |
Bridgehampton
Community efforts are underway to protect the 160-year-old
Hopping House at the corner of Montauk Highway and Ocean
Road in Bridgehampton, designed and built by portrait
painter, Nathaniel Rogers. This once-elegant Greek Revival-style
house, noted for its handsome two-story columns across
the front, is called one of the finest remaining examples
of this type on the South Fork. A Connecticut development
firm is seeking to buy the 5.6-acre property and build
a shopping plaza. Though still in the planning stages
the building project is being met with opposition. In
July, 2000, more than 500 Bridgehampton residents signed
petitions to preserve the Hopping property as residential
space citing traffic and other environmental impacts.
In December the Bridgehampton Citizens Advisory Committee
formally opposed the project. In mid-December, the Southampton
Town Landmarks and Historic Districts Board met to discuss
designating the Hopping House as an historic landmark.
This past July, theTown of Southampton changed its landmark
ordinance to require owner consent before designation.
A group of about 25 Bridgehampton residents have created
the Bridgehampton Preservation Alliance to make sure
their opposition to the development is being heard.
More recently the developers have scaled down the project,
including preservation of the Hopping House on-site,
as part of their plans.
Arnold Constable.
PHOTOCREDIT:
ROBERT SARGENT |
Hempstead Village
Two buildings in Hempstead Village, the retail center
of Nassau County between 1920 and 1950, are threatened
by a newly proposed urban renewal plan to develop an
area bounded by North Franklin, High and Front Streets.
Within this area is the former Arnold Constable store,
built in 1940, the first New York City Department store
to open on Long Island. Proposed for demolition, it
presently houses a mix of commercial uses. The two story
building is clad in limestone and curves around the
block in the American modern streamlined style. The
two main entrances retain their original ornate grillwork.
There is also community concern for the Hempstead Post
Office, although specifically protected from demolition
in the new plan. It is a simple yellow brick building
decorated with elaborately carved limestone panels at
the cornice line and Art Moderne light torches at the
front door. Built in 1932, the architectswere Tooker
and Marsh, with James A. Wetmore serving as supervising
architect. Wetmore also designed the North addition
to the Brooklyn Post office in 1933 and the U.S. Post
Office in Flushing in 1932. Soaring walls at either
end of the interior are decorated with colorful WPA
murals painted in 1937 by the artist Mangravite. A striking
effect is created by the contrast of green marble panels
and aluminum trim on the walls. Also surviving are the
original spun aluminum tables with urn-shaped pedestals.
Twyford in 2001.
PHOTOCREDIT: SEATUCK
ENVIRONMENTAL ASSOC. |
Islip
The Seatuck Environmental Association’s
(SEA) efforts to renovate Twyford, the former home of
Charles and Natalie Peters Webster, to operate an environmental
education center atthe Seatuck National Wildlife Refuge
has again been denied by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service. The intention of the Fish and Wildlife Service
is to return the land on which the dwelling sits to
its natural state, a goal, the FWS feels, is best accomplished
by allowing the property to deteriorate to the point
of demolition. SEA believes that the opening of an environmental
education center will have minimal impact on the refuge
and will serve an important mission to educate Long
Islanders regarding Long Island’s native plants
and animals. Emphasizing that the house and outbuildings
are eligible for listing on the National Register of
Historic Places, New York State Office of Parks Recreation
and Historic Preservation’s Commissioner, Bernadette
Castro, has recently written the U.S Fish and Wildlife
Service, offering the assistance of the State Historic
Preservation Office and asking that the Fish and Wildlife
Service reconsider their position and allow the SEA
to pursue adaptive reuse of the house. A National Register
nomination is currently being prepared by the State
Historic Preservation Office.
Setauket Rubber Factory
Workers Housing |
East Setauket
The Setauket Rubber Factory Workers dwellings from the
late 1800’s on Old Town Road are significant as
one of the few remaining examples of 19th century employee
housing. They also represent a small pocket of affordable
housing. The property is located to the rear of the
Setauket Fire Department headquarters on Route 25A,
which has purchased it toexpand fire department facilities.
Presently these houses are vacant and are not being
maintained. The fire department has offered them to
anyone who will move them.
Parrish Art Museum
on Jobs Lane.
PHOTO CREDIT: SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF
LONG ISLAND ANTIQUITIES |
Southhampton
Expansion plans for the Parrish Art Museum
on Jobs Lane, have generated considerable controversy.
Officials of the New York State Historic Preservation
Office, the Village’s own Architectural Review
Board and alocally organized preservation advocacy group,
the Southampton Preservation Society, have criticized
the plans, not yet formally filed with the Village.
At issue are 35,000 square feet of proposed additions
which, if implemented as proposed, will destroy important
architectural, contextual, and landscape elements of
the National Register-listed site. The museum site contains
a Grosvenor Atterbury designed museum building, which
was constructed in 1913, a formal landscaped garden
designed by Warren H. Manning, with a lily pond, also
designed by Atterbury, within the garden. According
to the chair of the ARB, Samuel Parrish intended that
the garden serve as a screened public park in the middle
of the business district.
Rogers Memorial Library Building.
PHOTOCREDIT: SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF LONG
ISLAND ANTIQUITIES |
There is also concern for the impact to the streetscape
of the Southampton Village Historic District in which
the property is situated and to the adjacent Robert
H. Robertson designed Rogers Memorial Library Building
which is planned to be used for art education. The museum
purchased the building in 1999 and has renamed it the
Carroll Petrie Center for Education. The Village has
accepted a $15,000 grant from the Preservation League
of New York State to hire Patricia M. O’Donnell,
a landscape architect with offices in Norwalk, Connecticut
and Charlotte, Vermont to produce an historic landscape
report, to assist the village in evaluating potential
impacts to the formal garden and arrive at a plan acceptable
to all parties.
|
