Queens Tribune

The demise of a 101-year-old Long Island City building was mourned June 27 at a “wake” held by the Municipal Art Society of New York after the structure was stripped of its renowned feature, leaving it “demolished in every way except in fact,” according to a eulogist at the memorial service.

The smokestacks that sat on the roof of the Long Island City Power Station since it was constructed in 1905 by the Pennsylvania Railroad were “ripped off,” preparing the building for a conversion into residential condominiums.

A growing trend occurring all over the five boroughs has members of the Municipal Art Society fearing the complete death of New York City’s industrial heritage. The images of demolition and endangerment of historical factories and industrial plants, most of which reside along the East River, are devastating concerned residents, as the buildings are left in shambles or empty and disregarded.

“The buildings create an atmosphere and they give an area a personality,” Municipal Art Society Senior Vice President Frank Sanchis said sadly, looking at the large photographs of the “dead” structures hanging on the walls of the small room where the wake was held. These buildings are adaptable and reusable, he said, and can be added to or altered. Sanchis said developers and owners have no reason to obliterate representatives of New York’s past to step into the future.

With new developments sprouting all over New York City, particularly in Queens, the economy and demographics are rapidly changing. In response to the notion that preserving historic buildings interferes with the new look and feel emerging in Queens, such as the tall smokestacks atop the power station, Sanchis shook his head in disagreement.

“People remember these personalities,” he said of the buildings, likening them to human beings. In his eulogy, Sanchis spoke of the buildings as people who age, some less gracefully than others, whose presence speaks volumes, even though they are silent, who are appreciated, and who, he said, gesturing to the images looming behind him, are missed when they are gone.

But developers are approaching these buildings arbitrarily, looking to change the “aged, ugly and simple” face of the city, Sanchis said. These buildings seem of less value or are associated with working class people, he said, adding that Americans, who are unfamiliar with antiquity, equate “new” with “better,” leaving these ripe structures to mutely expire.

With five others already lost or in danger of extinction, the Municipal Art Society is fighting to preserve the buildings and get them designated as landmarks. Unsuccessful in all its attempts as of yet, the society is urging concerned residents to reach out to their local Council members, the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the New York City Council to save the Sohmer Piano Factory in Astoria and the Domino Sugar Refinery in Brooklyn.

The discussion of these recently lost or soon-to-be-demolished buildings was held at “Death Notice: Our Threatened East River Heritage,” an exhibition at the Municipal Art Society of New York. To learn more about this and other exhibits at the Municipal Art Society, go to www.mas.org or call (212) 935-2075. The Municipal Art Society of New York is located at 457 Madison Ave. (at 51st Street) in Manhattan.

Queens Inspires Artist

In New LIC Exhibition

Art-O-Mat L.I.C will debut a special exhibition “Staged Realities: Paintings Dioramas” by Kim Babcock, the first exhibition in the See LIC Art Series. This exhibition, which opens July 6 at 6 p.m., includes selections from an extensive body of paintings informed by complex dioramas created by Babcock from the seemingly prosaic materials she uses to teach art at Richmond Hill High School in Queens.

Raised on Long Island and currently living in Astoria, Babcock examines every day events from a smart, humorous perspective tempered by her day job of teaching art to high school students. Her working process is unique in that she incorporates everyday materials (and found objects) from the projects she does in class into her own paintings rooted in personal experience and private musings.

“My paintings are based on personal, everyday experiences and inquiries living in Queens, in my late 20s,” she said. “My process begins with a 3-D model, built like grade school dioramas. The models are made with school art materials I encounter each day as an art teacher such as: cardboard, construction paper, Styrofoam, etc. I build the models for a physical representation of my experience, which is painted from observation.”

“My intention with these paintings is to create an illusion of believable scenes while quietly revealing their artificial qualities,” Babcock added. “Such clues exist with the painted texture of cardboard and Styrofoam supports that I use in the models. This play between the real and artificial makes the paintings a kind of still life-landscape.

The painting “Frisky Kitty” is inspired by the presence of white tigers in the local news. In one instance, a Harlem man kept a white tiger as a pet while another loose tiger was found in Forest Park. “Big, Nutty and Beautiful” is a recreation of summer movie nights at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City – with an imagined movie title based on the label on a can of Goya Chick Peas. “Steinway Street Flood” was a recreation of an actual flood that occurred in the fall of 2004, where the artist witnessed water pouring down the steps at the Steinway Street subway stop. “’First Year Teacher’ is based on that overwhelming feeling I had during my first year of teaching high school art in Richmond Hill,” Babcock admitted.

“Staged Realities” includes nine beautifully realized paintings and six dioramas never before exhibited, including “Starry Night Mob,” a painting just completed about Babcock’s recent experience of going to the Museum of Modern Art where she witnessed the frenzied behavior of art lovers in the presence of an iconic masterwork such as Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.”