Tuesday, May 7, 2024
The Merrick Gables Historic District consists of 251 properties located in an area roughly bounded by Sunrise Highway, Wynsum Avenue, Arthur Street and Henry Street. Of these properties, 212 are contributing (they add to the district’s historic value) and 39 are noncontributing.
The district has a mixture of one- and two-story dwellings that feature stucco exteriors, multi-pane windows, octagonal towers, stained-glass round arch windows, parapets, wing walls and terra cotta tile roofing in the Spanish Colonial Revival-style. Some dwellings have crenellated towers evoking the Norman style of architecture.
Criteria for inclusion in the National Register:
- Associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns in our history.
- Embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period or method of construction; represents the work of a master; possesses high artistic values; or demonstrates a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction.
Source: NYS Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation
The Gables were established in the 1920s by developers Joseph Frankel, a New York City-based promoter, and William Fox, founder of Fox Film Corporation. Construction began in 1926, centering on an eight-block area south of Sunrise Highway where as many as 400 structures were built.
The stock market crash of 1929 halted construction, leaving over 400 vacant lots to be auctioned off in 1931 due to bankruptcy.
The Gables showcase an era of Long Island’s past when bicoastal actors such as Errol Flynn and Ed Begley lived in Merrick’s “mini Hollywood” during their stints on Broadway.
Source: Preservation Long Island
Robert Fliegel said he still feels a twinge of enchantment every time he enters his home at 99 Fox Blvd. in Merrick, where he and his wife, Joyce, have lived for more than 40 years. When they first toured the house — a Spanish Mission-style ranch with 18-foot-high living room ceilings, stucco walls and stained-glass windows — in 1978, they bought it “on the spot.”
Last November, Fliegel, who sits on the Merrick Gables Association, submitted an application for the neighborhood to be recognized as one of Preservation Long Island’s Endangered Historic Places for 2019. The nonprofit works with Long Islanders to promote stewardship of local historic sites that are threatened by “demolition, inappropriate redevelopment” or other factors.
Merrick Gables was approved for the program in February. “As I was doing our application for them, I became more and more familiar with the laws and how the system works,” Fliegel said of the landmarking process.
In his research, he found a 2017 report by the state’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, which determined that 212 properties in the Merrick Gables Historic District — “an area roughly bounded by Sunrise Highway, Wynsum Avenue, Arthur Street and Henry Street” — are eligible for the National Register of Historic Places (see first box, left). Fliegel’s home was on the list.
In February, he submitted three applications to the town’s Landmark Preservation Commission for his home — as well as two of his neighbors’ homes — to be considered for landmark designation.
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