Professional Design Center

Borough President Claire Shulman and Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen will hold a meeting on Dec. 18 to decide the future role of the Fire Department at Fort Totten, the Tribune learned this week. 

Probationary firefighters wonít be able to take advantage of the waterfront view at Fort Totten, since fire officials pulled the idea of a FDNY Academy at the fort. Tribune Photo By Ira Cohen

"Essentially the reuse plan will stay in effect and the Fire Department will still
have some sort of presence at Fort Totten," said borough president spokesman
Dan Andrews, noting that the Dec. 18 meeting will specifically iron out exactly what that "presence" will entail. "The Fire Department is still the landlord of the fort, now as far as what they are going to be doing there . . . [that will be decided]."

Assuming responsibility for the maintenance and security of the historic post when the federal government expressed a desire to relinquish control of the land several years ago, the Fire Department subsequently submitted a proposal to create a full state-of-the-art training facility there.

"There were studies done," said David Billig, a Fire Department spokesman, "and we found that it is probably cost prohibitive to relocate our entire division of training to Fort Totten." The department initially proposed to finance the move by selling its property on Randallís Island. 

Despite the departmentís decision to stay put, they still have something in the works for Fort Totten, said Dan Andrews, spokesman for Borough President Claire Shulman, who co-chaired the Fort Totten Redevelopment Authority (FTRA) along with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. 

The committee was formed in 1995 to develop a reuse plan for the federal installation and received dozens of proposals from both the public and private sector. 

"Itís obviously something weíll be watching," said Jordan Goldes, a spokesman for Congressman Gary Ackerman, noting that neither he nor the congressman, who worked extensively with the FTRA, knew anything about the departmentís intentions to remain on Randallís Island. 

Councilman Mike Abel, also heavily involved in the redevelopment plans, was equally surprised by the recent development. 

The departmentís Fort Totten proposal included increasing public access to the site, environmental preservation and the renovation of some of the peninsulaís 310 buildings. 

"[The community] was receptive that they had an official agency willing to put up the money and maintain the fort," said Bernard Haber, chairman of Community Board 11 and member of the FTRA.

For some time it appeared as though the plans were moving forward. 

In the Shulmanís 2000 State of The Borough, the borough president report noted that the Fire Department continued "to manage Fort Totten" and that part of it "will become the cityís new fire training academy."

The federal government is still the proprietor of the fort and will continue to have a presence through the Coast Guard and Army Reserves, which will remain on the site. 

Nevertheless, Haber said ownership would soon be turned over to the city, perhaps in the next year. 

"When we started the redevelopment commission there were a lot of fears from the public that we would give [Fort Totten] off to private developers," he said, such as St. Johnís University, which hoped to use the land for campus housing. 

Several non-profit organizations, such as the Bayside Historical Society and the Queens Women Center, currently operate facilities within Fort Totten on an interim basis, according to Haber.