Angel Guardian Home landmarked
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COURIER LIFE, NOV. 13-19, 2020 3
BY ROSE ADAMS
City offi cials voted to designate
Dyker Heights’ centuryold
Angel Guardian Home a
landmark on Nov. 10 — making
the beloved former orphanage
the neighborhood’s fi rst historic
landmark.
The unanimous vote from
the Landmarks Preservation
Commission comes after years
of pressure from local activists,
who’ve pushed to save the
stately 1899 building that spans
12th Avenue between 63rd and
64th streets. The historic status
will now preserve the exterior
of the building from any unapproved
alterations, while still
allowing developers to renovate
the interior of the structure.
The Sisters of Mercy owned
the approximately 140,000
square foot lot for nearly 120
years, and ran an orphanage
out of the main building. The
home also served as a social
services hub for unwed mothers,
and later as a senior center,
which continued running until
the building’s hush-hush sale to
developer Scott Barone for $37.5
million in 2018.
The sale stirred outrage
among former Angel Guardian
Home residents and locals, who
slammed the Sisters for planning
to evict the site’s seniors,
and for threatening the future
of the historic campus.
About six months before the
sale was fi nalized, a group of local
stakeholders called Guardians
of the Guardian submitted
a request to Landmarks to designate
the whole lot, which housed
several other buildings on a bucolic
campus stretching to 13th
Avenue. However, the majority
of the campus was demolished
before the commission moved
on the proposal.
Developer Scott Barone has
since divided the campus into
three parcels and re-sold two of
them. The parcel facing 13th Avenue
will house a public school,
and the middle section between
the school and the main building
was sold to another developer
who has razed it to build
condos.
Barone plans to turn the
landmarked main building into
assisted senior living, and raze
an adjacent building, known as
the “mercy” or “convent” building,
to build additional housing.
The Commission announced
in June that it would consider the
Angel Guardian Home’s main
building for historic status, but
locals at a public hearing in August
urged the panel to also preserve
the mercy building — a
small structure behind the landmark
that was used as the nursery,
and is the only other structure
left on the lot.
Local historians say the
mercy building, built in 1906,
boasts the same architectural
and historic value as the main
building, and was central to
the identity of the Angel Guardian
Home. The Angel Guardian
complex, they argue, encompassed
not only the main structure,
but the entire campus.
“There were sidewalks, there
were landscape features, there
were trees. It was really was a
bucolic island,” said Kelly Carroll,
the director of advocacy and
community outreach for the Historic
Districts Council. “The Angel
Guardian building wasn’t a
lone structure.”
Local leaders penned a letter
asking the commission to
include the mercy building in
its designated site, but the director
of research for the commission,
Kate Lemos McHale
on Nov. 10 said she didn’t believe
the building held the same
historical signifi cance.
But three other commissioners
pushed back against
McHale’s characterization of
the building — saying they
traveled to the site themselves,
and believed the mercy building
was equally worthy.
One commissioner criticized
the slow process by which
the commission designates
buildings as landmarks, which
allows developers to demolish
historic lots before they come
for a vote.
Still, the chair of the Landmarks
Preservation Commission
said that Barone will work
with the commission to design
the building’s replacement and
to make sure that the new additions
match the landmarked
structure.
“The owner has entered into
an agreement with us to allow
us to regulate or oversee the design
criteria,” said Sarah Carroll.
Barone told the Brooklyn
Eagle in September that he
was planning to raze the mercy
building this year.
Landmarking offi cials designated Dyker Heights’ Angel Guardian Home a
historic landmark on Nov. 10. File photo by Caroline Ourso
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