Yacht club leases patch of land

For the past three-and-a-half years, members of the Williamsburg Yacht Club in College Point have been hammering out a lease with the City of New York for a piece of waterfront property - an 18-inch triangular plot on which the Yacht Club was built.
In the end, the Yacht Club agreed to pay double the amount that they had been shelling out for the past 15 years under their original lease and will now hand over $60 per month for the next three years.
&#8220Who knows how long that is going to last?” said Steve Addelson, past commodore of the Yacht Club, saying that he hopes the lease price jumps higher each time the Club has to sign with the City. &#8220I don't know why [the City] they just don't sell it to us?”
Addelson said that the Club had tried to buy an abandoned marina bordering their Club - Lot 200, which includes the patch now in question - after the Yacht Club burned down during a &#8220suspicious” fire in 1988, but they were also turned down. Therefore, for two years, members went without a place to park their boats and kick back with other sailors.
In 1990, the members decided to resurrect the Club and accepted the offer of a friend, who poured the concrete foundation now at the heart of the dispute. A city inspector, who visited the Club in 1991, told members that their building encroached onto City property. The sailors could either tear down their building or work out a lease with the City, the inspector said.
Since then, the Yacht Club has regularly tried to buy the patch of rocky land, but they have always been refused.
&#8220From what I understand, the City doesn't want to sell any waterfront real estate, but half of the time, the piece is underwater.”
During low tide, members can climb underneath the Club's wooden deck and over piles of waterlogged rocks to get a better look at the now-famous patch.
&#8220You can't even stand on the piece,” Addelson said.
Above ground, however, the space equates to the southeast corner of the building - a patch of counter and windows looking out onto Flushing Bay and the LaGuardia airport runway.
The picturesque patch is even a tight fit for its newest resident - a miniature three-masted schooner. Club members placed a tiny boat - so named for its three masts - onto the City-owned space, but the replica boat barely fits without its bow sticking into space that the Club actually owns.
&#8220We've been saying, ‘If we've got to pay rent on it, we're going to put a boat on it,” Addelson joked.