Where were our elected officials when we needed them the most?

To the editor:

(re: “Activist wants to rename street after developer,” Jan. 9)

Reading in the Jan. 11 New York Times about how elected officials in Queens stepped in to save Neir’s Tavern — a bar in the Woodhaven section of the borough that opened in 1829, making it the oldest continuous bar in New York City operating at the same location — I couldn’t help but think, why didn’t our elected officials in Riverdale step in early enough to save the Villa Rosa Bonheur, one of the most beautiful buildings in the Bronx — if not the entire City of New York — dating back to 1924?

Timber Equities, under Fieldston resident Jeff Torkin, bought the Villa Rosa after the death of Robert Rabinowitz (whose family had owned the building since the 1940s), and then Timber lied consistently about their intentions for the building. At first, Timber was going to renovate it, and simply enlarge it from seven units to 11.

Then they lowered the boom: They were going to raze it, then shove 55 units into a space that basically could not hold that kind of occupancy. But basically, again, there was no strong elected political will to stop them — even with the huge neighborhood resistance to it.

People from the neighborhood, under the aegis of the Save Villa Rosa Bonheur Coalition, organized a vigil last February, attracting close to 100 people and media attention. Timber was not going to budge. This was all simply more business than usual, even with a constant neighborhood loathing of the project.

And now Timber has succeeded in demolishing this gorgeous building. It’s gone.

Nothing this beautiful will ever be put up in the Bronx, or Spuyten Duyvil, again.

The building Timber will put up will be a concrete bunker to stuff as many small units as they can get into it, using at first the excuse that they were building “affordable housing.”

They have now even given up that excuse.

Few people today are stupid enough to believe the old Robert Moses adage, “You can’t stop progress.” Stopping it preserved Grand Central Terminal, one of the most beautiful structures in North America. Not stopping it destroyed the old architecturally spectacular Penn Station — but at least the U.S. government preserved the beautiful classical Farley Post Office building that is now being converted to be the new Penn Station, to the tune of $2 billion.

But we have lost Villa Rosa Bonheur — our elected officials did not come through.

I and many of my wonderful neighbors worked really hard to try to save it, and all we got were excuses and “business as usual” contortions from the community board and the politicians, some of whom didn’t even return phone calls or emails.

Sad and infuriating. But don’t worry. If you live in Spuyten Duyvil, and you take the Metro-North train into and back from the city, on the way down or up the Bradley Terrace step street to and from the trains, your eyes will be feasting on the concrete slab that Timber will put up to replace the Villa.

And when it’s time to park your car on the street — which most of my neighbors do every day — you will be competing with about 50 more vehicles in an area now jammed to the teeth with cars.

Donald Trump made the country safe for rapacious development. And we are seeing the fruits of it right here in our beloved Riverdale.

Perry Brass

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