By Kathianne Boniello
Months after a state judge ordered the city to give the Queens Women’s Center a building at Bayside’s Fort Totten, another nonprofit at the fort publicly contended this week that it has had a right to the center’s future home for the past five years.
In May, State Supreme Court Judge Duane Hart squelched the controversy between the women’s center and the city by ordering the women’s center to leave its Fort Totten home — Building #401 — by June 15. In exchange, the judge required the city to offer the group other space, which turned out to be Building #207.
Now the Bayside Historical Society is crying foul, saying it was given claim to the building in September 1997 by the city. According to documents provided by the society, the city Fire Department awarded the group the “right of entry” to both Building #207 and another nearby building in addition to the Officer’s Club where BHS is headquartered. Both Building #207 and the other structure, Building #211, are badly in need of renovation.
Both Geraldine Spinella, head of the Bayside Historical Society, and Ann Jawin, founder of the Queens Women’s Center, said they do not want a battle between their groups over Building #207. Jawin said she was offered two vacant buildings by the city Parks Department and chose Building #207 because it was in better condition.
The U.S. Army decommissioned the Civil War-era Fort Totten in 1995, and the property was expected to become city parkland, with control split between the city Fire and Parks departments. Nonprofits such as the Queens Women’s Center and the Bayside Historical Society received interim leases to help maintain some of the fort’s historic buildings.
The women’s center flouted its December eviction date from the Fire Department, and Jawin claimed she was not told her group would have to leave its building. Jawin’s battle with the Fire Department dragged on for six months, delaying the transfer of Fort Totten from the federal government to the city. The May court deal cleared the way for the city Fire Department to take over its side of Fort Totten, which it did this summer.
But the Parks Department had yet to take control of its portion as of this week, a spokesman said.
The Fire Department could not be reached for comment on Building #207.
Spinella, Bayside Historical Society executive director, said “we had an implied assurance that we would have the first right to make a proposal on that building.”
While the right of entry gave the historical society a claim to Buildings #207 and #211, it also prevented the group from obtaining grants to help kick-start the renovation process, Spinella said.
“The grant of this right of entry to the (Bayside Historical Society) shall not be construed as a commitment on the part of the [Fire Department] or the federal government to any future … use of the premises,” according to the document.
But a city Parks Department spokesman cited the above clause as the reason why the historical society did not have a claim on Building #207.
“There was no permanency to any of these agreements,” the spokesman said Tuesday. “It was always established as that.”
The spokesman, who also said the right of entry did not give the historical society claim to Building #211, said the court-ordered resolution on the women’s center issue forced Parks to alter its plans for the fort.
Spinella said that clause, coupled with the city’s slow takeover of Totten from the Army, made it impossible to get grants for renovation work because the historical society could not guarantee its permanent claim on the building.
In a letter to the TimesLedger, Spinella said the society was offered leases to both Buildings #207 and #211 in 1997, but could not afford the insurance or asbestos removal for either structure and settled for the rights of entry to each building instead.
Jawin said this week her group was still trying to work out the details of the women’s center’s use of Building #207, including how much restoration money the group would have to raise before repairs could begin. In May, both Jawin and the city Parks Department told the TimesLedger her group would have to raise all of the $475,000 needed to repair Building #207 before renovations could begin.
“I heard about that,” said Jawin, when asked if she was aware of the historical society’s claim on Building #207. “They’d have to go to the judge.”
The Queens Women’s Center has already raised more than $230,000 toward renovating Building #207.
Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
