Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance records, 1988-2014.
Collection Number: 6910

Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections
Cornell University Library


DESCRIPTIVE SUMMARY

Title:
Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance records, 1988-2014.
Repository:
Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections
Collection Number:
6910
Abstract:
Records from the inception of the Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance (2003) to the completion of their quest for Landmarks designation (2007); items from Oral History program.
Creator:
Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance
Cavallo, Dorothy A.
Garmendia, Nesbitt.
Jones, Robert W.
Lutzker, Marilyn.
Modica, Gerry.
Patterson, Suzanne.
Perrin, Gerald A.
Plimack, Ethel.
Westervelt, Liivia.
Reynolds, Herbert
Heinlein, Sabine
Nelson, Pamela
Rohling, Tony
New York (N.Y.). Landmarks Preservation Commission
Quanitities:
.3 cubic feet.
Language:
Collection material in English

COLLECTION DESCRIPTION

Records from the inception of the Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance (2003) to the completion of their quest for Landmarks designation (2007). Includes Sunnyside Gardens Historic District Designation Report by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, June 26, 2007.
CDs and typescript summaries from the Sunnyside Gardens Oral History program include interviews by Herbert Reynolds with Nesbitt Garmendia (2012), Robert W. Jones (2012), Marilyn Lutzker (2012), Gerry Modica (2012), and Ethel Plimack (2010); interview by Herbert Reynolds and Tony Rohling with Gerry Modica and Suzanne Patterson (2010); and interviews by Sabine Heinlein with Dorothy A. Cavallo (2011) and Liivia Westervelt (2011). Also two interviews by Pamela Nelson with Gerald A. Perrin (1988).

INFORMATION FOR USERS

Cite As:

Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance records, #6910. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

Biographical / Historical

The Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance is a neighborhood organization "dedicated to the preservation and revitalization of the Sunnyside Gardens National Register Historic District." The Sunnyside Gardens Oral History Program was funded by the Clarence Stein Institute at Cornell University. Tony Rohling serves as the Program Director and Herbert Reynolds as the Historian.

SUBJECTS

Names:
Stein, Clarence S.
Places:
Sunnyside Gardens (New York, N.Y.)
Subjects:
Historic buildings -- New York (State) -- New York.
Architecture -- New York (State) -- New York.
Historic districts -- New York (State) -- New York.
Form and Genre Terms:
Oral histories.

CONTAINER LIST
Container
Description
Date
Series I. Landmarks Preservation Campaign
Box 1 Folder 1
The heart of this collection-- all the flyers and newsletter produced by the SGPA and delivered to every household in Sunnyside Gardens. On occasion, this folder includes a message from a supporter or affiliate of the SGPA or an item delivered to a narrower group of supporters. Manila folder.
n.d.
Box 1 Folder 2
Copies of cards collected door to door within Sunnyside Gardens, chiefly during 2005. The aim was to reach property owners in order to show that an absolute majority supported designation. (Majority support is not a requirement for designation, but as so many owners were demonstratively in favor, this was evidence to expedite the political process by assuring elected officials.) These cards also include many tenants and enabled the SGPA to build its e-mail and phone networks of supporters in this campaign. The cards exclude the earliest supporters in Harrison Place, who had already voiced their support in the petition below. On legal paper.
2005
Box 1 Folder 3
Cover sheet containing "RESOLUTION". May 2003 petition from Harrison Place, a large homeowners association within Sunnyside Gardens that was the first to determine and declare the support of the great majority of its members-- in effect prompting the formation of the SGPA as the neighborhood-wide organization to conduct the campaign toward designation.
2003
Box 1 Folder 4
"To the Landmarks Preservation Commission... We the undersigned..." A general petition, intended for use outside of Sunnyside Gardens, although it includes some signatures from residents of the neighborhood.
n.d.
Box 1 Folder 5
Testimony-- in those cases where copies were shared with the SGPA-- that was sent to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) for its April 17, 2007, Public Hearing on Sunnyside Gardens. Reprints of e-mails [first page headed with "A sampling of written testimony..."] are followed by photocopies of letters. Pursuant to this hearing, the Commissioners voted to designate the Sunnyside Gardens Historic District on June 24, 2007, and the matter was referred to the Department of City Planning and the City Council.
2006-2007
Box 1 Folder 6
Headed "C - General Information." Testimony-- again, where this was shared with the SGPA-- from the August 8, 2007, Public Hearing before the Department of City Planning (also known as the City Planning Commission), whose Commissioners hear and then vote their approval or disapproval of LPC's designated historic district.
2007
Box 1 Folder 7
Two individual pages add some amplification to the above. A letter from the SGPA, dated June 11, 2006, addressed to the Chairman of the LPC, sums up the level of support (as yet incomplete at that date), implicitly to urge the LPC to place Sunnyside Gardens on its formal calendar for designation. The other page, headed "from the LPC's... page 3" (reprinting the LPC's summary of its Public Hearing to consider Sunnyside Gardens' designation), served as a cover sheet for supporting materials, like those above, which were delivered to members of the City Council in anticipation of their vote to affirm or overturn the LPC's designation at the conclusion the designation process in early Fall 2007.
2006-2007
Box 1 Folder 8
Flyers produced by the opponents of Landmarks designation, Dec. 2006 to Spring 2007. As generally happens during the formal process, once the LPC mails a procedural letter to every property owner announcing its interest in designation and then holds a public meeting within the proposed historic district (the Sunnyside Gardens meeting was on November 29, 2006), opponents are aroused, come to know each other at the meeting, and begin an opposition campaign.
2006-2007
Box 1 Folder 9
Sunnyside Gardens Historic District, designation report
2007
Box 1 DVD-3251
Sunnyside Gardens 1924-2014 90th Birthday
2014
Digital
The digital preservation copy may be made available on request if a delivery copy is not already online.
Series II. Sunnyside Gardens Oral History Program
Box 1 Folder 10
Oral History Program
2012
Box 1 CD-1654
Oral History Program, document disc
2012
Box 1 CD-4954
Mary Caulfield interview
2013
Digital
The digital preservation copy may be made available on request if a delivery copy is not already online.
Box 1 Folder 11
Dorathy A. Cavallo interview
CD-1511
2011
Box 1 CD-4949
Herbert Danska interview
2011
Digital
The digital preservation copy may be made available on request if a delivery copy is not already online.
Box 1 CD-4950
Herbert Danska interview
2011
Digital
The digital preservation copy may be made available on request if a delivery copy is not already online.
Box 1 CD-1652
Nesbitt Garmendia interview
2012
Box 1 CD-1651
Robert Jones interview
2012
Box 1 Folder 12
Marilyn Lutzker interview
CD-1512
2012
Box 1 CD-1649
Gerry Modica, 1st interview
2010
Box 1 CD-1650
Gerry Modica, 2nd interview
2012
Box 1 CD-1647
Gerald Perrin interview, parts 1 and 2
1988
Box 1 CD-1648
Gerald Perrin interview, parts 3 and 4
1988
Box 1 Folder 13
Ethel Plimack interview
CD-1513
2010
Box 1 CD-4951
Joan Vitolo-Curan interview
2013
Digital
The digital preservation copy may be made available on request if a delivery copy is not already online.
Box 1 CD-4953
Susan Vladeck interview
2012
Digital
The digital preservation copy may be made available on request if a delivery copy is not already online.
Box 1 CD-1653
Liivia Westervelt interview
2011
Box 1 CD-4952
Liivia Westervelt interview
2013
Digital
The digital preservation copy may be made available on request if a delivery copy is not already online.
Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance website
Digital
The digital preservation copy may be made available on request if a delivery copy is not already online.