Historic Lost Battalion Hall community center gets fix-up Service goes with the name

by Michael Gannon Associate Editor

The Lost Battalion Hall Recreation Center in Rego Park dates back to 1939, when the Great Depression-era Works Progress Administration authorized $100,000 to construct a two-story structure on city property on Queens Boulevard to serve as a home for the Queens Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion.

Converted to a multifaceted community center after it was transferred to the Department of Parks and Recreation in 1960, it is in the final stages of a $22 million renovation project that began in July 2022.

The Parks and Recreation website, as of Tuesday, said construction is scheduled to be completed in January 2024. But an emailed statement from the department Monday night left completion open-ended.

“The overall reconstruction of the Lost Battalion Hall requires additional attention before the project can be completed,” the statement said. “We will keep the community board, and Queens residents updated as we move forward with repairs and evaluation of the facility.”

The name of the building comes from the old 77th Infantry Division, known sometimes as the “Metropolitan Division.”

“It was made up mostly of New York City residents,” Rego Park historian Michael Perlman told the Chronicle. He said he’s looking forward to the reopening, and hoped Parks and Rec will have some sort of ceremony befitting the site’s place in Queens and American history, from its architecture to its distinguished visitors over the years.

Starting, he said, with a pair of military-themed murals in the gym.

“I had an extensive tour in 2020,” Perlman said. “I was able to see those murals up close and personal. And they’re incredible.”

Called the Sailor, Soldier and Marine Works Project Administration Murals, they were painted by artist Oscar Julius. Much like the WPA hired out-of-work people to work on government-financed projects to give them income, it also regularly commissioned painters, sculptors and other artists for publicly displayed works to keep them employed.

“It was rare for Rego Park, Forest Hills and nearby communities to have WPA commissions on display,” Perlman said. The murals underwent some restoration work in 1995, which the Parks website says was done as part of a $350,000 allocation from then-Borough President Claire Schulman.

Perlman said the Forest Hills Post Office, also on Queens Boulevard, also was a WPA project.

Perlman was disappointed to see them marred by graffiti during his tour, and hopes they will be restored before the building reopens.

He said the Art Moderne structure — “The brick facade is unique, too” — used to have a firing range and drill hall for both the veterans organizations and its later function as a civil defense post.

It also had a boxing ring.

The basketball court in the gym was used over the years by the likes of Hall of Famers Bobby McDermott, a Queens native who starred in professional leagues from the mid-1930s to 1950; and Willis Reed, captain of championship New York Knicks teams in 1970 and 1973, who once lived in the nearby Park City Estates apartment complex.

“They even used to host square dance festivals in the 1940s,” Perlman said.

A photo from Perlman’s collection shows fighter Emile Griffith, a champion in three different weight classes in his career, visiting the evening of a boxing card.

Perlman and the Parks said programs offered at the center include afterschool activities, exercise and workout facilities, computer instruction and a full roster of senior programs. The senior center was added to the basement in 2001.

There is even a playground that was first built by AT&T in 1976 as part of an agreement to place an underground telephone exchange on the site. The telecom giant’s own modern-design building is next door.

Mayors, of course, also have frequented the building either attending events or hosting them.

In 2003, Mayor Mike Bloomberg attended an event and unveiled a plaque commemorating the 85th anniversary of the founding of the unit that through a series of unfortunate miscommunications would become known as the Lost Battalion. The naming was a tribute to the heroism and sacrifice that took place over less than a week in the infamous Ardennes Forest.

According to the official website of the U.S. Army, the descendants of the 77th Infantry Division — now the 77th Sustainment Brigade — still wear the Statue of Liberty uniform patch that its members wore when it became the first Army Reserve division to deploy to France in World War I.

On Oct. 2, 1918, 687 men under the command of Maj. Charles Whittlesey entered the Charlevaux Ravine to help secure a major road.

They had no way of knowing that an American unit on their right flank and French soldiers to their left had not advanced as quickly as planned until enemy infantry units came in behind them that night, trapping them behind German lines.

Despite increasingly heavy losses, the encircled 77th repelled every attack over five days, first running out of medical supplies, then food and water, as headquarters repeatedly tried to rescue or relieve them.

They even had to use the last of their carrier pigeons — the only communication method left available to them — to implore Allied artillery to stop shelling their position with friendly fire.

A story from 2008 on the Army’s official website, written by Sgt. Maj. Cameron Porter, said American reporters chronicling the 77th’s increasingly hopeless stand coined the term “Lost Battalion.”

“[The] name was a gross examination of the facts,” Porter wrote. “Whittlesey and his men were not lost in the sense that no one knew where they were. In fact, everyone knew where they were, especially the Germans.”

Only 194 would walk out of the ravine following a forced German pullback on Oct. 7-8.

The only fighting that has taken place at the center since 1939 has been limited to things like youth boxing programs and professional wrestling cards.

Perlman said the history, the architecture and even the murals should bring it up for a decision by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.

“I’d like to see that in conjunction with this being Rego Park’s 100th anniversary,” Perlman said. Q

Serving