Councilman Threatens Ocean on the Park Historic District
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…
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.
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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,
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.
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.
Whoopes, “more”, not “morte”. The NYC Landmarks law is very much alive.
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:-)
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.
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…
I sent mine, and faxed it to boot. I am totally disgusted.
Arkady,
The email address is :
mathieu.eugene@council.nyc.gov
Please try again and thank you.
There’s a spelling mistake in the text – please change it to FEEL deeply betrayed.