LONG ISLAND CITY — The owners of the former Elks Lodge building were slapped with a stop work order Tuesday after a construction crew was spotted illegally removing the facade of the property — outraging local residents who've recently pushed to landmark the site.
The Department of Buildings inspected the three-story building at 21-42 44th Drive and issued a violation for doing work without a permit, a spokesman said. The violation cites "dangerous and illegal construction" at the location, DOB records show.
The infraction comes after workers began dismantling chunks of the Lodge's ornately-decorated molding Tuesday morning, what locals believe was an attempt by the owners to remove one of the building's most distinctive features to prevent it from being landmarked.
"It was so vindictive and malicious," said Zoe Morsette, an artist who lives and works in the neighborhood and was one of several locals who rallied outside the building Wednesday calling for its preservation.
"It's just infuriating to me that they couldn't save it, that they went out of their way to destroy it," she said.
More shots of what crews dismantled at the Elks Lodge before stop work order was issued #lic pic.twitter.com/lIRJ4JuH4J
— Jeanmarie Evelly (@JeanmarieEvelly) March 9, 2016
Locals began a push to landmark the Elks Lodge after developers Alwest Equities and Planet Partners told a local news site in December that they planned to tear down the building to construct condos there and on the lot next door.
They've been fingered by locals and officials as the same parties behind 44th Drive Owner LLC, an entity that bought both properties in February, records show. Neither developer responded to emails seeking comment about the buildings.
"It is so obvious and so transparent — what they have done to this beautiful building is try to make it ugly, to try to scar so that we wouldn't care anymore," said City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer.
He called on the developers to restore the parts of the building that they tore down, and said he plans to introduce legislation to increase the fines for building owners that do construction work without proper permits.
The Elks Lodge was built in 1908 to serve as the home to a local chapter of the social group the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, according to the Greater Astoria Historical Society, which is involved in the landmark push.
Its decorative facade — which includes carvings of a wreath and an elk's head — is believed to have been added a few years later by architect Harold Van Buren Magonigle, the group says.
Bob Singleton of the Greater Astoria Historical Society says the group recently sent a request to the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission to evaluate the Lodge.
An LPC spokeswoman said that they have yet to receive that request, but that the agency did review the building last month and initially determined that it didn't warrant landmark status.
The site "does not rise to the level of other designated early-20th-century clubhouses and masonic buildings," spokeswoman Damaris Olivo said.
However, the LPC will review any future requests it receives about the site and re-evaluate it "in light of any new information submitted regarding the building’s cultural, historic, or architectural history," she said.
Those who came to support the building Wednesday said they'd keep pressuring the developers to preserve the Lodge.
"This is the kind of developer that we all need to be extra vigilant with," said Richard Mazda, founder of The Secret Theatre nearby. "We need to continue to shine the light on people who have no respect for the community."
