Artist Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978) created a project called "The Fake Estates" that was examined in a collaborative two-venue and catalog exhibition last year (Cabinet Magazine, White Columns and Queens Museum of Art) called Odd Lots: Revisiting Gordon Matta-Clark's Fake Estates.
Exerpt from Cabinet Magazine: In the early 1970s, Matta-Clark discovered that the City of New York periodically auctioned off “gutterspace” unusably small slivers of land sliced from the city grid through anomalies in surveying, zoning, and public-works expansion. He purchased fifteen of these lots, fourteen in Queens and one in Staten Island. Over the next years, he collected the maps, deeds, and other bureaucratic documentation attached to the slivers; photographed, spoke, and wrote about them; and considered using them as sites for his unique brand of “anarchitectural” intervention into urban space.
When Matta-Clark died in 1978 at the age of 35, ownership of the properties reverted to the city. His collection of related documents was kept in storage, recovered in the 1990s and became part of the Odd Lots show. In addition to the exhibit, the Queens Museum of Art was offering bus tours of some of the locations in that borough.
After reading about Matta-Clark and this exhibition, I wanted to see the "fake estate" in Staten Island for myself. I couldn't help but feel that the Staten Island location deserved someone's visit. This tiny piece of land (a 2' by 25' rectangle) is located on Clooney Court between Richmond Terrace and Sylvan Place in Mariner's Harbor. Since I'm learning how to drive, I drove there with my driving teacher/husband, therefore doubling the trip function. But that's another story.
Clooney Court is a narrow street lined on one side with newly constructed vinyl-clad houses and older brick two-storeys on the other. After a walk up and down the block, we figured out the exact location of the "estate". There it was sandwiched between a grey building and a brick building: what was once Gordon Matta-Clark's "fake estate" on Staten Island. It was filled with garbage, forgotton by the city. It made me wonder if the area residents even knew of it's current existence as property of the City of New York, or of it's former "estate" status.
After we took a couple of pictures, I went into Vincenzo's Pizza at the corner of Clooney. I asked the man behind the counter and he said he knew nothing. I couldn't tell if he thought I was a nosybody or if he didn't want to stir up trouble because of the garbage dumped there. As I walked out, a customer sitting a table asked me about it. I told him the history and he said he never knew anything about it.
It all made me think about how little we know of our surroundings. Is it because we are lazy and limit our thoughts to our own property unless there's a problem with a neighbor? Or is it that the system isn't condusive to investigation? As a new home owner, I have become intrigued with value and use of property, the history of land use in New York City, how decisions are made and who makes them. How could these little plots of land be used to benefit the community? Could people care for them as gardens or mini playgrounds or something other than dumps, if they were informed of their existence?
I went to nyc.gov to find some answers. I typed "city owned land" in the search box. A list of documents appeared with titles like: HPD Owned Property Development, Watershed Recreation, Cornerstone Program: East 119th Street , and DEP Properties Open For Traditional Sugar Maple Tapping. I chose a press release that mentioned GreenThumb gardens in the description.
In September 2002 Mayor Bloomberg and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer set in motion plans to build more affordable housing and while preserving community GreenThumb gardens on City property. The GreenThumb program was a response to the financial crisis in the '70's, providing vacant land to communities to create gardens instead of letting them become dangerous, ugly, neglected lots. A couple of decades later, new times brought new financial conditions pressing the need for more housing. Plots that the GreenThumb gardens were on were being eyed for development, but the city decided that the gardens are essential. At the bottom of the press release it mentioned that "Gardeners will be offered licenses to operate gardens, and the GreenThumb Program will be continued."
I went to the website of the Parks Department and Recreation and searched for the GreenThumb Program. I called the Public Information phone number listed and was given some basic parameters about the program and another web address to visit: greenthumbnyc.org. To establish a new garden one must contact Edie Stone at, stone.edie@parks.nyc.org. There are no fees, except possibly insurance. Gardens must be open ten hours a week and should have at least ten members. A comprehensive map and other information is on the GreenThumb website.
I looked up the plot in question and found some specifics. This "vacant land" is worth is $1020.00 (2005-2006) and spiked up from $680 the year before and is owned by the Department of General Services. If the city wanted to sell it, it wouldn't be that difficult to buy. Maybe the Matta-Clark Fake Estate Park could be established! Hmmmm...........
Special thanks to David Strauss (thanks for the b/w photos!) at Queens Museum of Art and to Cabinet Magazine.
Fake Estate in 2006.
Gordon Matta-Clark
Matta-Clark taking a look at his estate
Making borders
On the map
Video stills from a 1975 video by Jaime Davidovick with Gordon Matta-Clark shot on site during Matta-Clark's Reality Properties: Fake Estates project.