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Longwood Historic District Community Association

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Key Dates in Preservation Activity

1980 - Founded by Thom Bess and Marilyn Smith.
1983 - Achieves an extension of the Longwood Historic District along Macy Place.
1987 - Lobbies to name Kelly Street Park after William F. Rainey.
1995 - Disbanded due to the majority participants having grown too old or having passed away.

 

History

According to Thom Bess, the Longwood Historic District Community Association was created at the suggestion of Kent Barwick, then chair of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, after Longwood was designated a historic district in 1980. Comprised of homeowners and other residents of Longwood, the community association helped gather funds and other resources to put toward improving the Longwood Historic District. Thom Bess and Marilyn Smith served as the association's co-chairs. It disbanded in 1995.

 

Involvement with Preservation Campaigns

The Longwood Historic District Community Association was most active in the early 1980s. It spurred early efforts to fund the rehabilitation and improvement of Longwood homes.
"The very first thing that we got that was really spectacular was a grant to do a facade and street improvement program," Bess said. "This gave each homeowner $2,000 to fix up the facades of their building"1. Money came from the city's Facade Improvement Program2.
In 1982, David Dunlap reported that the Association was also negotiating to buy eight abandoned, city-owned houses that it planned to rehabilitate. The cost, which was estimated to be around $1 million, seemed prohibitive. The homes were needed, Thom Bess believed, "to attract young, stable, moderate-to-middle income families" to Longwood3.
The extension of the historic district along Macy Place in 1983 was also a product of the Community Association's efforts. The Community Association was able to refurbish "the derelict city-owned brownstones within their neighborhood4," which they had since purchased along Macy Place with funds from the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal and the Inner City Ventures Fund operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation5.
In 1987, the Longwood Historic District Community Association lobbied to name a new park on Kelly Street after William F. Rainey, who ran the Police Athletic League center on Beck Street for 20 years until his death in 1986 and was regarded as instrumental in getting the park built6.
In September 1987, the issue was still unresolved7. The seven and a half acre park is now known simply as Kelly Park.
October 28, 2008

 

Archives, Personal files, and Ephemera

Thom Bess Interview with Inna Guzenfeld
October 28, 2008
The New York Preservation Archive Project
174 East 80th Street
New York, NY 10075
(212) 988-8379
info@nypap.org

  • 1. NYPAP - Thom Bess Interview with Inna Guzenfeld.
  • 2. David Dunlap. "South Bronx Neighbors Hold Devastation at Bay," The New York Times, October 10, 1982.
  • 3. Evelyn Gonzalez. The Bronx (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).
  • 4. Ibid.
  • 5. David Dunlap. "South Bronx Neighbors Hold Devastation at Bay," The New York Times, October 10, 1982.
  • 6. "In South Bronx, A Park's Name Splits Community," The New York Times, April 16, 1987.
  • 7. "Fight to Name A Park in Bronx," The New York Times, September 13, 1987.