A CHURCH AND ITS NEIGHBORS GRAPPLE OVER A PATCH OF GREEN
By Alex Mindlin
The New York Times
June 24, 2007 Sunday
Late Edition – Final
AT the corner of 234th Street and 39th Avenue, in the wealthy Douglas
Manor section of Douglaston, Queens, a narrow plot of grass abuts a
sprawling brick church.
The lot is a ghost of 1960s city planning, lately risen to haunt this
waterfront neighborhood near the border between Queens and Nassau.
The property was condemned by the city in 1969 for a road-building
project that never got off the ground.
For 17 years, the grassy area has served as an unofficial lawn for its
neighbor, St. Sarkis Armenian Apostolic Church, which at one point
had eyed the site for use as a day care center. That plan has been
abandoned, and now the church wants to buy the land from the city’s
Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which owns the
roughly 80-foot-by-100-foot property, and use it as a parking lot.
But not if the neighbors can help it. Community groups have lobbied
the housing agency to turn the property over to the Parks Department
so that it can be converted to a park.
"Over 300 doors I’ve knocked on, and no one has said this should
be anything but a park," said Dawn Anatra, a board member of the
Douglaston Civic Association, as she stared at the site one recent
afternoon. "It’s city property right now, and the proper use is to
give it back to the community."
To some degree, the fight has raised larger questions of class and
neighborhood identity. For one thing, many Douglaston residents
contend that church members do not live in the neighborhood and so
are not entitled to use of the property.
"You see plates from New Jersey, from all over," said Ann Jawin,
chairwoman of the Doug-Bay Manor Civic Association. "We don’t know
anybody that’s a parishioner that lives in our neighborhood."
In response, Aram Cazazian, chairman of the church’s board, said
that some of the roughly 140 families that belong to the church live
in Douglaston.
Dr. Cazazian also noted that the plan would free up much-needed
parking spots on local streets. And in his opinion, a community like
Douglas Manor, which is home to many large houses surrounded by lawns,
has no need for a park.
"I would say that the whole of Douglas Manor is a park," said Dr.
Cazazian, a dentist who lives in Bayside. "Everybody can have a
barbecue in his back garden. I wish that I had something like that."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
