To take a good, hard look at Steamboat Road is to see a cross-section of the process of slow, painful gentrification. Boarded up, ramshackle houses languish in the shadows of brand spanking new houses with freshly sprouting grass; a vacant, disputed lot contains litter, broken glass, whiskey bottles, old tires (all the better for breeding mosquitoes), and a potentially dangerous, crumbling retaining wall; parked vehicles with fading tickets on their windshields sit on side streets month after month; houses, listed as single family homes, by the assessor's office have unusually large numbers of people filtering inside as evening falls according to neighbors; garbage bags left outside at night are raided by raccoons adding rotting food to the mounds of litter; large temples with huge parking lots border neatly tended homes. The service station lot is jam packed with old, rusting cars and trucks and even a school bus. It is a real hodge-podge of a neighborhood in transition.

Or as one angry neighborhood leader, Rabbi Aryeh Spero puts it, "It looks like Appalachia. There are two Great Necks. There are the affluent, well cared for areas and then there is this underbelly, the hidden Great Neck ... I know the politics in the village has caused a deadlock and inertia, but people are suffering. We are asking for basic city management. The art of politics is to get things done ... this situation reflects the artlessness of politics in our village."

Some of the neighbors we spoke with asked not to be named in this article because of fear of reprisals from property owners being criticized.

The issues of the neighborhood exploded at the April 17 board meeting of the Village of Great Neck. Rabbi Spero says that once he started talking it unleashed "an emotional floodgate" from years of frustration. The Record was not present at the meeting, so the reporting here is based on interviews conducted after the meeting.

First, we walked around Steamboat Road and Cornelia Avenue and took pictures. We are not qualified to comment on the conditions of 3 Cornelia because obviously we did not see the interior, but neighbors are concerned about the number of people living in a house that is not supposed to be a multi-family rental.

We have confirmed from several sources, including Mayor Deem, that there was a fire at 37 North Road in which 27 mattresses were found and many people were displaced, some allegedly to 3 Cornelia.

Certainly, neighbors in the area are willing to testify that unusually large numbers of people appear to be living in some of the area houses. They point to electrical cords running from windows wondering if they meet code. They wonder why the village has not inspected these houses. According to village code, the building inspector may inspect rentals, but the houses in question are not listed with the Nassau County Assessor's website as rentals.

In regard to the alleged illegal housing, trustee Mitch Beckerman who had visited the area in December had suggested some investigative work to monitor the amount of garbage, even checking through it for names, bills, etc and noting the water usage. But obviously, the village took no action at that time.

We spoke with Mayor Richard Deem who had also taken a tour of the area after the April meeting. He informed the Record that four direct summons have been issued and that 30 notices of violations were issued as well. Those served have between 10 - 30 days to rectify the conditions depending on the seriousness of the situation. If they do not comply within that time, they will be taken to court.

According to him the village is now taking steps to obtain search warrants to determine the status of the houses in question.

Rabbi Spero and his wife Beth live in a neatly painted frame house complete with a white picket fence and attractive plantings. It faces a vacant lot on the corner of Cornelia and Steamboat; its future use has been contested for years. It is important to note that most of the lot is well below grade on the portion that borders Steamboat Road.

Originally, the owner, Sharak Jacobi asked the village for permission to build four-family houses on the parcel. The village turned him down. He then proposed a mixed-use building with commercial space on the ground level and apartments above which was also rejected. Since that time, the village rezoned the area for single-family dwellings. Mr. Jacobi filed an Article 78 against the village which is still pending.

Rabbi Spero says that he attended many of the hearings on the fate of the lot. He says, "I am not against development. I am opposed to what appears to be a sign of abandonment. It is demoralizing." It was at these hearings that he took the opportunity to complain about the overall poor condition of the neighborhood.

The village has the authority to take action when a lot is not being maintained. Building inspector Arthur Chenault says, "It can be pretty expensive if we clean it up and charge the property owner. I always ask, do you want the village to cut your grass for $1200?"

While the lot is fenced off, the gate was open when we visited the area. We saw the tires, the whiskey bottles, and the garbage bags. Ms. Spero said, "This lot invites trouble. Men come there to urinate, park vans and trucks ... sometimes in the middle of the night." She and her husband have twin boys who are toddlers and often she is awake at odd hours and sees cars or vans pull up together briefly. It is her opinion that drug deals are being done. "This situation," she says, "is a magnet for all kinds of disreputable people. Remember when Giuliani was criticized for coming down on the squeegee guys. Well, it went a long way toward making the city safer ... this situation is small potatoes compared to New York City...fixing it is so doable...We are playing plenty in taxes and this is what we get."

According to the Speros, two families lost hope that things would ever change on Steamboat and put their houses up for sale. "We don't want to lose hope," they concluded.

While many of the neighbors on Steamboat Road feel that theirs is a neglected area, there have been frequent complaints throughout the village that village laws are not being enforced sufficiently. Middle Neck Road is badly littered, gardeners flout the "no leaf blower" ordinance, construction sites do not rigorously uphold tree root protection or soil erosion barriers, renovations occur without building permits, work begins before allowable hours or continues past the cut-off time to name a few of the complaints. Some attribute this lack of governance to the breakdown in communication and teamwork on the board of trustees, others to a lack of aggressiveness and savvy in the Building Department while others think that with all the construction in the village, the code enforcers are overwhelmed with too much to oversee.

Whatever has contributed to the neglect of the area is in the past and is behind us now. What is most important is what can be done now to improve the quality of life for our neighbors who are striving to make it a pleasant, safe place in which to live.

Drive by and ask yourself, "Is this Great Neck?"