By Kelsey Durham
About 60 members of the Little Neck community joined elected officials outside the former Leviton property Tuesday morning to protest the construction by E. Gluck Corp. that has led to a 35-foot-high wall being put up on a property line that faces a residential area.
After announcing it would be moving from Long Island City to Little Neck this year, the watchmaking company has come under fire recently over renovations to the property, at 60-15 Little Neck Pkwy., that officials say are drastically different from the plans they were shown last year.
E. Gluck could not be reached for comment this week.
The biggest issue lies in a solid gray wall facing the corner of 262nd Street and 60th Road that residents said is detracting from the beauty of their neighborhood.
“It’s a horrible eyesore and there’s an injustice being done to the people who live here,” said Marcia Kops, who lives a few blocks from the construction site.
State Assemblyman Ed Braunstein (D-Bayside), who organized Tuesday’s protest, is one of a handful of elected representatives in northeast Queens who said they have received dozens of complaints since the wall was erected at the edge of the property from residents complaining that it is not only unsightly but is also interfering with television, radio and phone signals to their properties.
Braunstein called the wall “disgusting” and said it was proof that E. Gluck was not following the construction plans that were agreed upon before the move was finalized.
“They have not been truthful with these plans,” he said. “We feel they misrepresented their plans to elected officials and community leaders, and when you couple that with the fact that they’re getting $13 million in tax breaks over the next five years, it’s absolutely disgraceful.”
Braunstein was joined by City Councilman Mark Weprin (D-Oakland Gardens) and state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside), and all three officials said they have been in frequent contact with the city Department of Buildings in hopes of persuading the agency to take a closer look at how the work being done compares to the approved plans.
As of Wednesday morning, the DOB website stated that the borough commissioner had ordered a stop-work order for the site due to “failed audit objections.”
Weprin said there was little objection to the company moving to the former Leviton property when plans were first drawn up because E. Gluck promised to be “good neighbors” to the residential community surrounding the lot, and the plans that were discussed with elected officials called for a simple one-story addition to the current building.
After seeing the wall that went up without warning, the councilman said he is concerned with the direction E. Gluck is taking the property and the effect it is having on the neighborhood.
“I can’t imagine that I could design anything uglier than his wall,” he said. “It looks like the wall of a prison and this is not what we want here.”
Little Neck residents at Tuesday’s protest said that before the wall was put up, the property was an open lot with shorter buildings that caused no harm or ire in the neighborhood. Since the structure was built, homeowners say they are unhappy that the gray concrete is now all they can see when they look out their windows.
“I escaped a concentration camp, and this feels like I’m back in one,” said 91-year-old Margaret Zentner, who lives on the corner just outside the warehouse fence. “I was behind those walls once and now I have to see and look at this. I hope they take it down and put up something nicer, actually worth looking at.”
Representatives who attended Tuesday’s gathering said they will continue to push the DOB to make sure construction is being done according to law.
If the agency finds that any errors were made in the building of the wall, Avella said he will fight for it to be torn down immediately.
“E. Gluck lied to us, there’s no other way to put it,” he said. “They made an enemy out of us when they didn’t have to and now we’re going to fight for our community.”
Reach reporter Kelsey Durham at 718-260-4573 or by e-mail at kdurham@cnglocal.com.
