Years-Long Preservation Effort May Come to Conclusion Soon

"There was great excitement last fall in the part of Brooklyn known affectionately as Victorian Flatbush when the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission recommended that Midwood Park and Fiske Terrace, two neighborhoods within this network of communities south of Prospect Park, be designated a historic district."

"On Tuesday, five months after the original hearing, the commission is scheduled to announce its decision, and for those who support the designation, the outlook seems rosy."

"Barring any last-minute change of heart on the part of the commission, only a rejection by the City Council or the mayor would undo the designation."

"The effort to protect these two communities, with their trove of turn-of-the-century wooden houses adorned with hand-cut gables and fronted by spacious porches, has been almost a decade in the making."

"And it has been watched with a mixture of happiness, envy and impatience in neighborhoods throughout Victorian Flatbush. Many of these communities are also fighting to preserve their own history and distinctive nature, and they are fearful that the city bureaucracy will move so slowly that by the time they are considered for protection, there will be nothing left to protect."