Long Island City's Hackett Building Faces Demo

1.

Hey California Blondy cunts and Midwestern transplant fuckos, stay the hell out of Queens! You aren't satisfied with ruining Manhattan and northwest Brooklyn? Queens is for locals and recent immigrants only!Mark my words.

2.

Queensfinest, I bet you're a trust fund baby implant anyway. However, this is much more important than your shitty coverage of the Revere Sugar Factory - which nobody cares about anyway. At least this building can still function.

3.

What is unique and historic about this building worth saving besides its age? I mean, you put an old photo next to it and then its historic? Please. There's plenty of 'historic' buildings everywhere then. I think there needs to be a better explaination of why its important to save this building other any other building of age other than some old photo. If you look in the background, you can also see the row houses and church also have been their since about 1930 when that old photo was taken. If this building at least kept the same retail front looking the same, I could see it even remotely nostalgic but that has been destroyed by the present landlord. So what exactly is the distinct reason other than just age?

4.

I am often viewed as a knee jerk preservationist, but I dont really see it here. Now of course I prefer this building to most new contruction, but well designed modern building replacing this one would not be a loss.

5.

I think that age is a good reason to keep a building around. #3 is right though, the storefront is long gone. The old plan of adding floors to the existing building could have been very nice, especially with a restoration to the original storefront, but I guess asking a developer to be that sensitive to the fabric of the city (and forgoing some profit i'm sure) would be too much.

6.

nothing special here. protesters - please stop delaying the inevitible, and let the developer get on with its work.

curbed - the waterfront library story is much more deserving of your LIC spotlight.

7.

Man... if that first post isn't a cry for user registration here, I don't know what is.

Jake

8.

#3: Actually, it was the first Queens Borough Hall post-NYC consolidation in 1898.

Who are all you people? Do you actually know anything about NYC apart from what you see in blogs?

Do you even go outside?

9.

"Hey California Blondy cunts and Midwestern transplant fuckos, stay the hell out of Queens!"

Way to stereotype there buddy. I am sure a majority of the people are neither "californian blondy cunts" or "Midwestern transplant fuckos". You must be the moron who owns the creek/cave and posts ads for "420 friendly" employees on craigslist.

10.

Oh, that's a bit sad. It's not a UNESCO site or anything, but it's a quite nice building in a part of town that doesn't have many.

Would it be realistic to keep the facade and build more floors on top, or would the structural changes just make it ludicrously expensive?

11.

jake are the mayor of lic or what?

how long have you lived there? are you a pioneer?

stop coming on curbed what lic does not need i shipsters so stfu already

12.

The building was the original Queensborough Hall and afterwards had many different uses including early shopping malls etc.. The storefront for the majority has been destroyed but the interior of the building and the style of architecture is disappearing from all of NYC and quickly. I am the one who moved out of the building to allow them to develop it and after the developers got everyone out they changed their mind and decided to demo it instead. A classic bait and switch, doesnt LIC deserve at least one interesting brick building or does everything have to be new and shiny?

13.

do those who are so in love with this building plan on putting up the money to restore the historical features that are long gone at this point? it seems unreasonable to me to put such obligations on a developer now that the historically significant features of the building are no longer present. all that seems to be left now is history telling us that the queens boro hall was there. so let's just slap a plaque on the new building telling us that fact, and move on.

the fight for landmarking is moot now; it needed to take place before owners/tenants transformed the building to the insignificant form we see before us today. too little, too late at this point, in my opinion.

14.

anonymous @ 8.07: restoration and preservation requirements can an integral part of the zoning/planning process. If NYC as a community (discuss...) decides that a condition of construction will be retaining x architectural features, then the developer just has to accept it as an extra cost, or decline the project. Think of it as a kind of tax on development in areas which have a vague claim to architectural history - God knows that there are enough places in the US which don't have that.

Obviously it's too late for this building, that goes without saying.

15.

This is a fascinating building to me. The incredibly high ceilings make me covet it nightly. it's a striking, unusual space, which is obvious to anyone WHO'S ACTUALLY SEEN IT (which would seem to be about four people commenting on the thread.) even if you didn't know the history - which I didn't until this moment, even though I see the building at least once a day.

the point of, what is the character of new york city and what are we doing to preserve it is a valid one if you know what the place used to be like, or were raised on strip malls and would like a little more authenticity.

16.

When its replacement is built, it will be featured on Queens Crap.

17.

As a former employee of the architect, and the one who spent countless of grueling hours on CAD working on this project, I'd like to clear something up ( also realize that this post is about 6 months later than the orginal thread, but better late than never). The original plan for this site was to keep the existing building, and renovate it. But I have to wonder, of all of these people who are defending it, who really paid that much attention to it before word got out that it was coming down? I'm sorry the coffee shop had to close, I agree that it's sad, but what else was there? I agree with post #13, the historic features have been changed, and the integrity of the building has been lost, so why spend a few extra million to save it? "Queensfinest" needs to get over it, and stop stereotyping. Both of the owners and the designer are born and bred New Yorkers, and I truly believe that if the building were worth saving, it would have been.

18.

As a former artist with a studio in 1063 for 13 plus years, I was there years and years before the cafe. This building like many others that are becoming extinct, housed a very unique and diverse group of artists. We provided a special kind of energy to LIC like many others. The building itself was a beauty inside and out that needed saving, besides being an important part of Queens and the City's history. Shame on you ClemsonA for saying that no one paid any attention to it.
This artist is very upset and saddened to see it gone. Soon it will be replaced by another repulsive generic looking condo building. Like the world needs another of those! Farewell 10-63 you will be missed.