By Kathianne Boniello
By the end of the month the Queens Women’s Center could be officially evicted from Bayside’s Fort Totten and the group’s equipment may be sitting on the side of Bell Boulevard waiting to be retrieved.
That’s what the city will do if the women’s center does not obey its new eviction deadline of Feb. 28, founder Ann Jawin said this week.
“They threatened to get a marshal and put our equipment and materials out on Bell Boulevard,” Jawin said. “They told me to go find a church or something — like they’re all waiting for me.”
The Queens Women’s Center has been headquartered in Building #401 at Totten since 1997, but in November it received an eviction notice from the city Fire Department. After obtaining a lawyer, the women’s center got a new eviction deadline of Jan. 15 but did not leave.
In the latest development, Jawin said the city’s Corporation Counsel told her to move the group by Feb. 28.
Fort Totten, decommissioned by the U.S. Army in 1995, was to be taken over by the city this month and split between the Fire and Parks departments. Several nonprofits occupy buildings at the Civil War-era fort, but only the Queens Women’s Center has received an eviction notice.
Lawrence Kahn, chief litigative assistant of the Corporation Counsel, confirmed the women’s center’s new deadline but would not say whether the city will lock the group out at that time.
Jawin said she would like to negotiate a solution so the group could stay at Totten.
“If they meet with me, it’s to repeat the fact that I have to get out,” Jawin said. “Like I didn’t hear them the first time. I just feel there should be some negotiation.”
Although the Queens Women’s Center also has space at Borough Hall in Kew Gardens, Jawin said the group cannot duplicate its Fort Totten programs there because it is too small.
Getting space in other parts of Queens is difficult, said Jawin, who learned from experience when Totten was closed to the community immediately following Sept. 11.
Jawin said she hunted for temporary space for the group’s programs for several weeks after the attacks on the World Trade Center.
“It’s very tough,” she said. “Nobody has space.”
The Fire Department told the TimesLedger last month the group should apply to the Parks Department for space if it wanted to remain at the Bayside fort.
A Parks Department spokesman said the agency did not want the group as a temporary tenant but the Queens Women’s Center could apply for permanent space if it chose.
The Queens Women’s Center was founded in 1987 and provides a range of services to women and families, including job training, domestic violence programs, counseling, funding and training for women who want to start their own business, among other things.
The Fire Department and former Queens Borough President Claire Shulman, who oversaw the development of the Fort Totten reuse plan in the late 1990s, denied any inequity involving the Queens Women’s Center.
They said Jawin was informed of the impending eviction when she chose in 1997 to occupy a future Fire Department building. Other nonprofits at Totten have been using space slated to go to the Parks Department and are in the process of applying for permanent occupancy.
The Fire Department is planning to use the Queens Women’s Center building for administration and classroom space, a department spokesman said. The building will be part of the department’s educational campus, which will be based at Totten once the city takes over the land.
Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
