July 26, 1998, Sunday
Section: Real Estate Desk

In the Region/Long Island; Reviving Main Streets by Historic Preservation

By DIANA SHAMAN

THE two-story building at 17 Second Avenue, half a block off Main Street, looks nothing like the graceful firehouse capped by a 50-foot tower that it was when it served this South Shore community from 1887 to 1914.

The tower is long gone and all that remains of the firehouse is a dilapidated structure covered by crumbling asphalt shingles that most recently was used as a rooming house.

The original front facade is hidden behind a shed added by later owners. The cheap exterior changes hide the original wood-sided main structure, which has survived intact along with such features as the birdseye molding around the windows and a wainscotted barrel-vault ceiling on the upper floor.

A restoration of the building to begin this fall is part of an overall plan to revive Bay Shore's downtown, which for years had suffered from blight and decay. Now, like many main streets around the country and around Long Island, Bay Shore's is once again being rediscovered and its historic buildings are being restored.

According to the local Chamber of Commerce, vacancies in the business district have fallen from 50 percent 10 years ago to 25 percent today, and will drop even more as buildings now in the midst of renovation are completed and rented.

Restoring historic structures like the firehouse is an important part of that revival effort, said Susan Barbash, the president of the South Shore Restoration Group, a nonprofit organization of local residents and business owners that purchased the firehouse six months ago for $65,000 to restore it.

The estimated cost of $185,000 for the restoration will include reconstructing the tower, which had an observation room, a belfry and a cupola that now will be topped by a brass eagle.

Funds will have to be raised through grants and private donations, said Ms. Barbash, who also is president of Barbash Associates, a development group based in Babylon, but "it's time to put our money where our dreams are."

"Not only will restoring this building have the effect of giving the neighborhood a new identity and turn this into a landmark block," she added, "but it will also have a significant effect on the values on Main Street."

Anthony Szekalski, a local architect, is in charge of the restoration. Once the work is completed, the building will have gallery space on the lower level and a one-bedroom apartment on the second floor with additional studio space. The nonprofit group will then look for an artist in residence who would contribute his or her time to various community programs.

This Second Avenue block between Main Street and Union Boulevard, which now has several freshly painted houses with flowers brightening front yards and porches, was until recently one of the most blighted streets in Bay Shore.

The turnaround began in 1997 when Ms. Barbash and other local residents and business people formed a corporation called Artco, which is separate from the South Shore Restoration Group. The corporation, with the help of $330,000 in market-rate loans from three member banks of the nonprofit Long Island Housing Partnership, purchased seven houses on Second Avenue at an average cost of $65,000 each and is gradually renovating them to become residences for people in the arts. Each of Artco's 25 members has contributed a minimum of $5,000 to the project. The banks are the Roosevelt, Long Island and Roslyn Savings Banks.

Several of the houses, including 19 Second Avenue, next door to the firehouse, already have new windows, porches and new coats of paint. Empty one- to three-bedroom apartments in the mostly two-family houses are being rented for $500 to $950 a month. The goal is to establish an artists' enclave on the block and several musicians already have moved in, invited there by Jon Mayer, a local publisher of magazines for and about musicians who is an Artco member.

AROUND the corner, at 93 East Main Street, Marilyn Schulman, the owner of Bay Shore Lighting and Home, which sells lighting and decorative products, is completing the restoration of another Bay Shore landmark, an 8,600-square-foot Tudor structure built in 1911 as law offices upstairs and retail downstairs. It has been fully rented to the Eschen & Frenkel law firm, which moved there from Syosset a month ago, bringing with it 30 jobs.

"When I originally looked at the building, I almost fell over," Ms. Schulman said. "It was like a Norman Rockwell painting, with an upstairs library all paneled in oak, big windows, beautiful hardwood floors, and marble stairs leading up."

Ms. Schulman, who purchased the house for $215,000, estimates that she will spend $200,000 on renovations, including $100,000 for the facade. Smiros & Smiros Architects, of Glen Cove, is in charge of the restoration.

David L. Frenkel of Eschen & Frenkel said seeing local property owners putting money into the town drew him to select Bay Shore as a new location. "I saw its potential," he said. "What killed main streets across the country were the malls, but now I think there is going to be a reversal of that."

Helping that reversal is a growing interest in historic preservation, said Robert B. MacKay, director of the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities in Cold Spring Harbor.

"We are seeing many more grassroots efforts to save historic buildings than we have seen in a long time, and more public interest in using the past to revitalize communities," he said.

Downtowns are coming back because there is a role for them, he added. "They often contain the kinds of stores and restaurants that you wouldn't find in a mall and that people want and are looking for," Mr. McKay said.

Another example of downtown revitalization can be found in the hamlet of Oyster Bay, which, like Bay Shore, is also capitalizing on its rich historic past to make a comeback. A recently adopted waterfront revitalization plan includes plans for a museum that will recapture Oyster Bay's maritime past.

One of 31 historic buildings in the downtown area is the three-story, 96-year-old Queen Anne-style Moore Building, where President Theodore Roosevelt had his summer executive offices on the second floor from 1903 to 1908.

The building began life with a food market on the street level, which later was occupied by several restaurants with names like Charley's Inferno, Teddy's Bar, and Rancho Ribs.

The current owner, the B.G.I. Realty Corporation of Oyster Bay, wanted to find a more fitting use for a structure that played a historic role and that has been designated a local and national landmark.

The company recently completed a facade renovation begun about six years ago, which included repainting and repairing the exterior and the wooden gutters and restoring the turret. The final touch, a weather vane, was hoisted up by crane earlier this month.

The current downstairs tenant of the Moore Building is the Book Mark Cafe which serves lunches and dinners in a 40-seat restaurant adjoining the book racks.

B.G.I. REALTY has been in this community since the early 1970's and has seen a lot of changes," said Jerrit Gluck, the company's engineer in charge of the Moore Building's facade restoration. He refused to discuss what was spent, saying only that the company felt "that Oyster Bay was a worthwhile community that potentially could get better or worse," depending on commitments that others will now make.

"We are hoping that what was done to the Moore Building will be contagious," said Thomas A. Kuehhas, director of the Oyster Bay Historical Society.

The departure in the early 80's of a large Food Town supermarket in the center of the hamlet "took the heart out of the downtown, but by making a concentrated effort, we can find our niche and attract new businesses back," he said.

At the same time, said John Venditto, the Oyster Bay Town Supervisor, "the feedback I get from residents is that they want a certain level of activity, but they also want to preserve and maintain what's here because this is an area of great historical significance."

Local residents and business owners and the local Chamber of Commerce are in the early stages of working with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The trust has a Main Street Center program that helps local groups revitalize their downtowns by providing background material and technical services on a fee basis.

"The goal is to create livable villages and get away from shopping malls and to do it in an historically and environmentally sensitive fashion," said Daria Lamb, who with her husband, David, owns the Book Mark Cafe. "We don't want to wind up becoming another Hyannisport, with cotton candy and tee shirts on every corner."

Copyright ©The New York Times, June 26, 1998.