Corey Kilgannon reports on the relentless sublimation of all that is old and/or unique, this time the destruction of the beach bungalows lining the path to Far Rockaway Beach in New York:
Richard George lives in a charming little beach bungalow just off
the ocean on the eastern end of the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens.Like
the homes of his neighbors, his small, three-bedroom shack is cooled by
the salty breeze and surrounded by wildflowers and the sandy walkways
leading to other lovely old wooden homes that form a beach colony,
parts of which look more like Fire Island than New York City.Mr.
George’s home on Beach 24th Street has cotton bedspreads, quaint
tablecloths and kitschy artwork. But don’t be fooled by the
surroundings: it’s really a war bunker from which he defends his
ever-shrinking seaside neighborhood.At the table in his
galley-size kitchen, he assembles legal briefs used to sue developers
and city agencies to ward off efforts to demolish the bungalows for
newer, bigger housing.Back when the Rockaways was still a
popular ocean resort for New Yorkers, these bungalows were abundant,
with many built in the 1920’s. Groucho Marx is said to have invested in
24 of them. Now the largest remaining patch of the historic shacks are
the roughly 120 that line three city blocks leading to the dunes in Far
Rockaway.With each passing year, more of the bungalows along
Beach 24th, 25th and 26th Streets between Seagirt Boulevard and the
boardwalk are demolished by developers building new housing. So far,
Mr. George has not been able to get the city to declare the bungalows,
many of which are abandoned, landmarks. So he fights local development
by filing lawsuits claiming that the projects violate federal coastal
regulations by illegally diminishing public access to the waterfront.
Read the complete article online at nytimes.com.
give them hell, richard!