A preservation debate develops in Yonkers, N.Y.

Story by Lisa Selin Davis / Apr. 23, 2004

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The C.H. Martin store, built in 1930 (Lisa Sellin Davis)

Four, maybe five years ago – he can't recall exactly when - Harvey Goldman wanted to replace the rotting, wooden window frames on the second floor of his Yonkers, N.Y. store with less costly metal ones. But someone from the city – he can't recall exactly who – told him that the building was historic, and the new windows must remain compatible with the original architecture.

"We fixed them and kept the original look," he says, adding, "It was significantly more expensive than what we were going to do."

So when he received a letter from the city in April of 2002, inviting him to attend a meeting about the construction of an Atlantic League baseball stadium where his C.H. Martin store and nineteen other stores now stand, Goldman was confused. "How can they knock it down if they wouldn't let us put in the windows because it's a historic building?" he asked.

Since then, Mr. Goldman has become much more proficient at record keeping, and much more knowledgeable about the historic importance of his building. After unsuccessfully suing the city to halt the development of the ballpark, he has enlisted a new weapon to defend against demolition: trying to nominate the building to the national, state, and local historic registers.

Goldman's family acquired the 1930 neo-Gothic building, located in the Getty Square neighborhood, in 1979. "There was nothing going on in Getty Square then," he says. "It was a 40,000-square-foot majestic power of a building sitting empty." Over the past 25 years, the Goldmans have built a thriving business in this working class community. The Yonkers branch is the most successful in the chain of ten C.H. Martin discount department stores, all in the northeast. Getty Square may not be the most manicured of places, says Goldman, but "it gets better year by year."

"There's a great deal of dispute about whether it's vibrant area," says Dennis Lynch, a lawyer representing the Yonkers Industrial Development Association (YIDA) and their subsidiary Yonkers Baseball, Inc., both of which are negotiating the stadium proposal. "It's been designated as an urban renewal area for years." Designation or not, the area teems with people shopping in discount stores like Rainbow and Easy Pickins. It's not a Saks Fifth Avenue crowd, but it's a crowd nonetheless.

Getty Square (Lisa Sellin Davis)

Since 1995, Yonkers—the fourth-largest city in New York State and 20 miles north of Manhattan on the Hudson River—has embarked on a waterfront-revitalization project, including a $43 million makeover of the Metro North stations that link the city to Manhattan, conversion of abandoned buildings into residential lofts and construction of a new library and office buildings. They want that renewal to include Getty Square and the massive parking lot behind it known as Chicken Island.

YIDA's plan includes razing twenty buildings and donating the Chicken Island parking lot to developers to make way for a 6,000-seat ballpark. But Goldman and a dozen other tenants and property-owners have formed the "Save our Stores" coalition and filed two lawsuits to block the project. The first suit, still pending, alleges that the city's environmental impact study was improperly conducted. The second contends that YIDA illegally created Yonkers Baseball Development Inc. as a for-profit corporation. A judge recently dismissed the latter suit, claiming the statute of limitations had expired, but Goldman is appealing. "In trying to revitalize Chicken Island, a local development corporation (LDC) was formed for development purposes," says Lynch. "YIDA always forms LDCs."

Frank Rubino, Jr., corporation counsel for the city of Yonkers, says some did not understand that YIDA is legally allowed to create offshoot corporations, either for-profit or not-for-profit. "The city has been made out to be some sinister entity," says Rubino. The Save Our Stores coalition has created so much negative spin, he adds, that "we finally said, if that's the reason everybody's so upset, we'll simply change the corporation to non-profit." But when asked if that had happened, he admitted, "This city council doesn't seem to want it."

What they do want is to develop the ballpark in Getty Square, partly because it falls within a New York State Empire Zone, a designated area that offers tax credits and benefits to businesses that develop there. Taxes paid on the ballpark could be returned to the city if jobs are created.

According to the Yonkers Downtown/Waterfront Business Improvement District, the ballpark will bring 455 temporary construction jobs, 140 full-time ballpark jobs, and 250 jobs in the 100,000 square feet of complementary retail space that will surround it. "It becomes an anchor for all of the economic development for all of downtown Yonkers," says Mary-Jane Foster, co-founder of Baseball for Yonkers and owner of the Atlantic team Bridgeport Bluefish. "It will be great for business."

But Andrew Zimbalist, Professor of Economics at Smith College and an expert on the economics of stadiums, disagrees. "The available evidence is that a stadium by itself doesn't generate much revenue," he says. "They can make the claim that there are cultural benefits, but claiming that there are economic benefits just doesn't wash."

"The goal is not purely profit," says Lynch. "but to promote general economic development by having cultural activities. No one's going to get rich off of a baseball project."

Yonkers waterfront (Lisa Sellin Davis)

Opponents say business is already booming in the area, that a ballpark will not serve the existing working-class community, nor will the kind of upscale retail the city hopes to court. Says Zimbalist, "The retail will most likely be nationally-owned chain stores instead of locally owned stores, so even more money leak out of the community."

"The area is surrounded by seniors and low income people," says Goldman's lawyer Debra Cohen. "The noise and traffic and the loss of businesses are not going to enhance the quality of life for people who live in the area. How is a ballpark more important than supporting and maintaining businesses in the area who are willing to be a part of the revitalization?"

When Goldman recalled the city levying its power five years ago to prevent his altering the windows, he decided to look to the past to save his building's future. He hired historic preservation consultants Phillip Esser and Paul Graziano of Associated Cultural Resource Consultants to prepare the nomination to historic registers, in the hopes that it would offer some protection against razing. "There's a lot to be said about the architectural integrity of the building," says Mr. Esser. Designed by W. T. Grant Company staff architect P.A. Cunnius, the flat-roofed building is coated in a veneer of Weymouth granite and punctuated by steel frames. Terra cotta coping trims the parapets, and large casement windows line the streets. The store underwent significant makeovers in the 1950's and 70's – the upper windows are painted over and the bright neon letters beam from a stucco backing - but Mr. Esser says that 80% of the original architecture is intact.

The State Historic Preservation Office found the building eligible for the register, not only for its architecture, but for the historical site on which it sits. Once home to the original Saw Mill (the Saw Mill Parkway is a major highway linking Westchester County to New York City), Flagg Hall was erected after the mill was dismantled in the 1850s. It was the village's first three-storey brick building and first public meeting hall.

For some, the fact that buildings have come and gone on that site before is proof that it's time for the next incarnation, and that the façade's alteration negates its historical value.

"That building has been changed many times. The best thing we can say about the W.T. Grant building is that is has very little noteworthy architectural features," says Rubino. "Maybe [Goldman] wants to keep his building. Maybe he wants to drive the price of that building up. The more resistance he puts up, the more we need it, the more he'll get for it."

Lynch agrees. "Preservation is a laudable goal, but when it's used by people to drive the price up, it's a discredit to the great work of historic preservation."

New development on the waterfront (Lisa Sellin Davis)

Debra Cohen calls this assertion offensive. "Mr. Goldman could have anytime in the last couple of years made life a lot easier and rolled over," she says. "He has been clear and consistent that he just wants to stay in business."

"We retiled the store, we redid the foyer," adds Mr. Goldman. "We're running the business like we're going to stay."

In March, when the team presented its application for the state and national registries to the Yonkers Landmarks Preservation Board for approval, all members but the Chairman seemed eager to comply, according to Goldman. They asked them to return a month later with an application for the local register, as well, which offers the most protection from demolition. The process requires that the board vote on the application and, if approved, hold a public hearing on the matter. But at the meeting last Wednesday, board Chairman Leonard Winstanley said they would hold a public hearing first, and then make the decision. He said he did not want to influence the public by approving or rejecting the application first.

"Whatever happened to due process?" Goldman exclaimed before storming out of the meeting. It's unclear whether a local landmarks committee is allowed rewrite the nomination process, but for now, the fate of the W.T. Grant building is subject to the whims of the board, and how the public weighs in. "There will be economic revitalization activity at that site," says Dennis Lynch. "What it will be and who will be involved, only time will tell."

Goldman wants to work hand in hand with the city to improve that economic climate. But Debra Cohen says, "The only hand the city's offering is the hand that's trying to push them out of town."

Lisa Selin Davis is a writer living in New York City.

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