Queens Borough Hall Has Long History
BY VICTORIA CHU

Designed by architects William Gehron and Andrew J. Thomas, Queens Borough Hall has been the center of Queens government and different civic activities since it was built in 1940 and the borough's many municipal offices that previously were sprinkled all across Queens were finally consolidated into one building.

That same year, the building, which was planned and designed during the Depression and therefore built in only nine months on a low budget of $1,648,000, still managed to win a design award from the Queens Chamber of Commerce. Located at 120-55 Queens Blvd. in Kew Gardens, the 191,000-square-foot building currently contains the office of Queens Borough president, Helen M. Marshall. Although most of the Queens District Attorney's Office divisions and bureaus are located in buildings nearby, Borough HalI houses the District Attorney's Office/Intake Bureau. There are also many city offices in Borough Hall, such as the Departments of Buildings, City Planning, Environmental Protection and Housing, in addition to the City Clerk's Office, New York City Department of Transportation, the Police Department, Rifle/Shotgun Section and Queens Community Board 9, which deals with issues such as the city budget, land use and municipal service delivery within its borders. A retired Redbird 7 train car, now seeing duty as a tourism and visitors' center, has been installed on the Borough Hall lawn and the Queens Criminal Court building is nearby.

With all the activity within the building, few realize that the Borough Hall local Queens residents know today wasn't the first Borough Hall. There were in fact two earlier Borough Halls, both of which were rented commercial buildings in Long Island City. When Queens became one of the five boroughs of New York City on Jan. 1, 1898, the new borough formally established its Borough Hall, which was originally Queens City Hall, at the Hackett Building at 10-63 Jackson Ave. and 49th Avenue (previously known as 5th Street). The Hackett Building was built in 1885 and had a distinctive triangular shape similar to the Flatiron Building in Manhattan. Before it served as the Borough Hall, it was the site for businesses such as the O. Demarest and Company department store and Prudential Insurance.

Between 1898 and 1916, the Hackett Building was used as the Borough Hall, but a need for more space led to the establishment of the Borough Hall offices in a new building at Queensboro Bridge Plaza. More recently, the Hackett Building contained Renee's Fragrance Outlet and Cafe Ten63, appropriately named after the address of the building. The building itself was owned by Perry Fine, who works in Manhattan as a principal of Triangle Services, a maintenance company.

Despite protests from local preservationists, including Talitha Whidbee, who owned and ran Cafe Ten63, the Hackett Building was demolished in 2007. The Department of Buildings issued far fewer demolition permits in 2007 than in 2006, when 3,653 permits were issued. However, the permits issued in 2007 meant the possibility that 2,952 buildings could be destroyed, among them old favorites such as the Hackett Building. The Landmarks Preservation Commission had refused to protect the historic building. LPC spokeswoman Elisabeth de Bourbon was quoted in the New York Daily News: "We reviewed it and determined it did not rise to the level of an individual New York City landmark. [The building] has been altered over time and its integrity has been significantly compromised by major storefront alterations, making it impossible for us to consider designation."

The Hackett Building will be replaced by an 8-story, 31-unit, glass and brick luxury residential condominium. Although never officially considered a landmark, the Hackett Building nevertheless represented a significant piece of the history of Queens. It was the first Borough Hall, the center of the Queens community that still exists today, just in a new building. Its demolition took a piece of the borough's history with it.