By Alex Davidson
But from that same window, the lifelong Richmond Hill resident also sees vivid red sunrises that remind her why she is fighting so hard to preserve the only neighborhood she has called home for eight decades.
“I would hate to see Richmond Hill lose its character,” Werner said. “It has been a beautiful residential area.”
Werner, born in 1924 to Irish immigrant parents, is just one of a few remaining residents on 110th Street who have spent their whole lives in the garden suburb, as Richmond Hill residents like to call their community. But recently, this group of elderly Irish and Italian homeowners and their homes are slowly being replaced by a new wave of immigrants who have been moving into multi-unit buildings built on the sites of the demolished Victorian residences.
What is at stake, according to Werner and other members of the Richmond Hill Historical Society, is the character of the neighborhood once surrounded by vast green fields that have since given way to the Van Wyck Expressway and Kennedy Airport.
For Werner, who has worked to preserve the Victorian feel of Richmond Hill, the fight is now literally next door: a home's porch was destroyed to make way for a questionable two-family home that could jeopardize a bid to create a historic district on 110th Street.
“Even if something is illegal, if you put up some cinder blocks, it then becomes permanent,” Werner said, who realizes that neighborhoods have to change. She wants Richmond Hill to renew itself with more community input than was the case in the development of a few homes down the road.
Werner grew up in a part of Queens then called Hayestown, near the junction of Metropolitan and Hillside avenues across from what is now the Kew Gardens Long Island Rail Road station. She still remembers street vendors coming to her block and yelling for residents to come out and buy everything from fresh fish to dried goods.
She said those horse-drawn carts were staples in the neighborhood, along with the ice boxes that sat in homes with residents who had not yet been introduced to radios or television.
“That was a whole other life,” said Werner, who graduated from PS 54, Richmond Hill High School and later Hunter College.
The mother of 10 children who was and is still active in the nearby Holy Child Jesus Church, Werner and her two sisters and two brothers grew up at a time when College Point was viewed as a secluded area and people preferred to think of themselves as living in villages rather than the city of New York.
It was in the '60s and '70s, as Werner's children were growing up, that she said longstanding buildings in the community started to disappear, to be replaced by bigger complexes.
Since then Werner, who has 11 grandchildren, began collecting newspaper clippings to chronicle the ongoing changes in Richmond Hill.
Now on her second album, Werner goes through and shows how the area's proximity to public transportation, the ocean and other areas of open space have transformed the once quiet and isolated village into a bustling part of the city.
“I think a bit of neighborliness has been lost,” Werner, a former school teacher, said. She points to the rise in walls and fences popping up around Richmond Hill homes as new residents come in and either alter or tear down the Victorian homes.
Werner predicted that in the next few years as the core of homeowners who own the larger residences moves on, their homes will be sold and redeveloped into multi-unit complexes because of high property values. She said this situation means the Richmond Hill of today could disappear quickly into tomorrow.
The lifelong Richmond Hill resident conceded there has to be growth in Queens and the neighborhood's evolution is inevitable. But she has no plans to leave and will continue to fight for the preservation of parts of her community so that future generations can know what kind of residences and environment people first called home.
“I think this is still a wonderful area,” Werner said. “But if I can in any way speak up for our concerns, I will.”
Reach reporter Alex Davidson by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by calling 718-229-0300, Ext. 156.
