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April 14, 2009

Councilman Threatens Ocean on the Park Historic District

ocean-on-the-park-0409.jpg
According to an email that went out last night from the Historic Districts Council, the Ocean on the Park Historic District, which has received broad support at every step of the landmarking process, is in jeopardy of being sabotaged at the last minute by Councilman Mathieu Eugene. Calling the situation a "preservation emergency," HDC reports that the Councilman "seems to have been swayed by the anti-preservation rhetoric of one property owner, who has put their property up for sale and has marketed it specifically as a development site." A letter-writing campaign is already under way to make Eugene realize how many constituents and other Brooklyn residents he will permanently alienate if he stands in the way of this Historic District getting signed into law. You may call his district office at 718-287-8762, fax to 718-287-8917 or email mathieu.eugene@council.nyc.gov. We've posted some text on the jump that you can easily cut and paste into a quick email. Please take one minute to do so.

UPDATE: We're hearing that the Council Member has reversed his opposition to the Historic District. Wooohoooo! Hopefully there will be something in the papers in the morning providing some more detail on how the decision played out and what role the email campaign played.

Big Day Coming Up for Brooklyn at Landmarks [Brownstoner]
LPC Moves Ahead With Two New Historic Districts [Brownstoner]
LPC to Consider Ocean Avenue Historic District [Brownstoner]

Dear Council Member Eugene,

I am distressed to learn that you are contemplating voting against the landmarking of the Ocean on the Park Historic District in its entirety and urge you to reconsider. A large number of longtime community residents have spent years working to preserve the integrity of this important architectural grouping of buildings; they, and the many thousands of Brooklyn voters for whom the borough's history is of primary concern, would feel deeply betrayed by any move on your part to undermine this effort. Please do not compromise the trust the public placed in you by bowing to the wishes of one greedy property owner over the long-term interests of the community.

Sincerely,




Posted by Brownstoner at 9:00 AM | Comments (21)
Categories: Landmark, Prospect Lefferts Gardens

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Comments

I tried sending the email but was rejected. Is there an error or is it "operator failure" - i.e. me?

Posted by: Arkady at April 14, 2009 9:40 AM

email address should be correct....

Posted by: brownstoner at April 14, 2009 9:44 AM

Thanks for posting this Mr. B. My wife and I sent our somewhat more strongly worded Email to the good doctor last night.

Posted by: Bob Marvin at April 14, 2009 9:46 AM

I sent it and it went fine.

Posted by: daveinbedstuy at April 14, 2009 9:46 AM

There's a spelling mistake in the text - please change it to FEEL deeply betrayed.

Posted by: Deda at April 14, 2009 9:51 AM

Arkady,

The email address is :

mathieu.eugene@council.nyc.gov

Please try again and thank you.

Posted by: Bob Marvin at April 14, 2009 9:59 AM

I sent mine, and faxed it to boot. I am totally disgusted.

Posted by: Montrose Morris at April 14, 2009 10:05 AM

Eugene is such a fraud... I was involved with landmarking issues in Victorian Flatbush and we reached out to all the candidates during the election, trying to figure out who was really the preservationists friend. He talked the talk, then, of course...

Posted by: Architerrorist at April 14, 2009 10:06 AM

I emailed him and reminded him of the meeting we had while he was running for office, during which he promised to support landmarking issues.

Posted by: Architerrorist at April 14, 2009 10:11 AM

Architerrorist.

If you're writing about the HDC candidates forum, I recall Eugene saying that he'd "work very hard to pass a landmarks law in NYC. That showed that his heart was in the right place although, morte than 40 years after such a law was passed, it didn't exactly inspire confidence.

As to whether Eugene is a fraud, I'd never use that term to describe a politician who got on the Brian Lehrer show the morning before the primary and said that he didn't live in the district (thereby necessitating a second primary). I COULD think of some unflattering adjectives to use, but he WAS being refreshingly honest:-)

Posted by: Bob Marvin at April 14, 2009 10:42 AM

Whoopes, "more", not "morte". The NYC Landmarks law is very much alive.

Posted by: Bob Marvin at April 14, 2009 10:45 AM

Ha! What a scoundrel. Did he finally get a permanent address in the district? Preservationists should be heartened that Brooklyn politics has not changed a bit in the last hundred years.

Posted by: sam at April 14, 2009 10:46 AM

bob- I wrote him too. I reminded him his constituents will long remember that he screwed all of them for one guy, if he votes against it. I have a friend on that row- that house is lovely, and the block is perfect in that setting off the park.

Posted by: bxgrl at April 14, 2009 10:58 AM

Eugene is utterly worthless. How on earth did we wind up stuck with this guy?

Posted by: Brenda from Flatbush at April 14, 2009 12:13 PM

Matieu Eugene was hand-picked as Yvette Clark's successor after her previous chosen one (Rickie Tulloch) pissed her off by supporting the renaming of part of Church Ave. Bob Marley Blvd. That guaranteed him the election basically as all Yvette's (ie. Una's) people fell into line. He is also the first Haitian American elected to city office.

However, throughout the term of his office he has repeatedly shown himself to be completely clueless about most issues in his district -- let's hope he'll be out this time.

I sent my e-mail out last night, after Bob posted the HDC's message on our neighborhood listserve (and I've already received one snippy response from someone on the list who wasn't happy that I mentioned in my e-mail that "people in the 40th District support this," as he doesn't. Given the other comments on the listserve I'd imagine he is in a very small minority).

Let's hope that the LPC remembers that the ONLY people who testified against the landmarking of ALL Ocean on the Park houses were the owner of 187 Ocean, her lawyer, her mother-in-law, and Mathieu Eugene's representative, vs. about 20 pro-landmarking speakers.

Posted by: babs at April 14, 2009 12:43 PM

How on earth did we wind up stuck with this guy?

lol!! It's Brooklyn!

Posted by: sam at April 14, 2009 12:43 PM

The brick buildings on the northern edge of the proposed district do not merit landmark status.

Posted by: slick at April 14, 2009 1:28 PM

Unfortunately, slick, most people disagree with you -- and I hope the LPC does as well!

Posted by: babs at April 14, 2009 2:35 PM

Unfortunately?? Is that REALLY what you meant to write Babs?

Posted by: Bob Marvin at April 14, 2009 2:56 PM

Matieu Eugene has caved and will formally reverse his earlier position according to folks in the know. He know believes that all of the homes should be included in the proposed district.

Posted by: FlatbushMan23 at April 14, 2009 4:14 PM

Well, unfortunately for him (fortunately for the rest of us!) -- sorry, still doing taxes!

Posted by: babs at April 15, 2009 2:44 AM

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