By Kathianne Boniello
After four years and a lot of hard work to renovate its headquarters at Bayside’s Fort Totten, the Queens Women’s Center was given an eviction notice by the city Fire Department, Women’s Center Director Ann Jawin said last week.
Jawin said the eviction notice received by the nonprofit listed Dec. 13 as the exit date for the group, which has been on the Civil War-era fort since October 1997.
With the help of Community Board 7, Jawin was expected to have a meeting with the city about the eviction notice Friday, she said.
CB 7 District Manager Marilyn Bitterman said Monday the meeting was organized so the community board and the Queens Women’s Center could discuss the eviction with the city Parks and Fire departments.
The eviction notice came as a surprise, Jawin said, because the group was not given the chance to apply for a permanent lease.
“There was supposed to be a procedure giving the organization a chance to file for permanent status,” said Jawin, who lives in Douglaston. “None of the organizations were given that chance.”
But Dan Andrews, a spokesman for Queens Borough President Claire Shulman, said the Queens Women’s Center was “on an interim lease which clearly did not give them permanent status at the fort.”
Jawin and Bitterman said the Queens Women’s Center was the only nonprofit at the fort which got an eviction notice.
The city has been in the process of taking over Fort Totten from the federal government for several years and in the interim a number of nonprofit groups were allowed to move into to help maintain the property, including the Queens Women’s Center, the Bayside Historical Society and the Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association.
The land has been administered by the Fire Department, which was expected to build a training facility in the northeast corner of the property in the next few years.
Fort Totten was decommissioned by the Army in 1995 during a wave of base closures around the country. In 1996 the FDNY agreed to take over the property and develop the majority of it as parkland.
Andrews said some of the buildings now housing nonprofit groups are under the control of the Parks Department, while others are to be administered by the Fire Department. Andrews said the Fire Department appears to be moving forward with its evictions faster than the Parks Department.
The majority of the fort was under the control of the U.S. Army while another 10-acre portion is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Coast Guard.
According to the borough president’s office, the transfer of Fort Totten to the city has been in the works for four to five years, with about two thirds of the property to be used for city parkland under the aegis of the Parks Department and one third to be used by the city Fire Department as a training facility.
Several acres of Totten will be retained by the U.S. Army. The Old Fort, a large complex on the western edge of Fort Totten featuring the historic battlements that would have offered protection to the city in case of invasion during the Civil War, was in the process of being rehabilitated.
Several groups now occupy buildings on the Army portion of the fort or use sports fields there, including the Bayside Historical Society, the Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association, the Queens Women’s Center and Little Leagues and soccer teams.
The Fire Department set off alarm bells throughout the community in December when it announced plans for a $44 million training facility on Randall’s Island. According to a 1996 proposal the Fire Department was expected to finance its plans for Fort Totten by selling Randall’s Island.
The Fire Department Training Academy and Life Safety Campus were expected to be built on 10 acres in the northeast corner of Fort Totten and include training that simulated controlled fires.
Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
