Landmarking Leads To Bad Sex As City Emasculates Developer

Man sues City for lost manhood:

The builder who exactly three years ago spray-painted his Tottenville house in a fit of pique says in a federal lawsuit that the mayor and other city agencies forced him to spend several days in a hospital psychiatric ward, barred him from municipal buildings and even put him off sex with his wife after his house was designated a protected landmark.

John Grossi’s lawyers seek $10 million in damages for their client and charge, among other things, that the city violated the builder’s free speech and unlawfully detained him last spring, after he told police he would protest the landmarking by staging a mock crucifixion on his front lawn.

Grossi planned to hold a sign reading: “Mayor Bloomberg and the City of New York have Crucified me to this house,” according to the civil rights suit filed in Brooklyn federal court.

A short time later, the suit alleges, Grossi was arrested and taken to Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze. The lawsuit also alleges that the city’s “continuous and systematic harassment and depravation” of Grossi’s rights affected him so adversely that he couldn’t be intimate with his wife and prevented the couple from “procreating their first child through a natural means (sexual intercourse).”

Lori Grossi, John Grossi’s wife, seeks another $2 million in damages for loss of companionship in a suit that also names the Police and Fire departments and the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

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Grossi told the Advance in 2005 that he planned to build four “upscale” townhouses at the site and five in place of another 19th-century Amboy Road home, which he did demolish.

When the mayor became aware of community concern about the other home and the spray-painting incident, he sided with the community and “publicly” vowed at a town hall meeting to landmark the house — ensuring its designation at the next meeting of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, according to court papers.