{"id":290439,"date":"2026-07-08T16:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T16:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/290439\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T16:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T16:37:12","slug":"local-express-bill-gati-queens-gazette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/290439\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Express: Bill Gati – Queens Gazette"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"\u00a0\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bill Gati, AIA, RIBA, NCARB, is a licensed architect and the Principal of Architecture Studio, PLLC, based in Richmond Hill, the neighborhood where he has lived and practiced for decades. His firm focuses on residential design, historic restoration, and DOB compliance work across New York City, earning a 2021 AIA New York State Honor Award and a 2024 AIA Queens Design Award for Historic Restoration. Bill is an active leader in the pro\u00adfession and the community. He serves on the AIA National Board, chairs the Scholarship Committee at AIA Queens, and holds the office of Secretary of the Queens Foundation for Architecture (QFA). He is also Vice President of the Architecture Alumni Chap\u00adter at The City College of New York, where he earned his degree in architecture.<\/p>\n

Beyond the drafting table, Bill is an accomplished jazz musi\u00adcian \u2014 a tenor saxophonist and pianist who leads jam sessions and performs at beloved Queens venues including the Forest Park Bandshell and Brownson Center at Maple Grove Cemetery. His next public performance is Midsummer Night Swing with Paul Capo on July 24 at Maple Grove\u2019s Celebration Hall.<\/p>\n

\"\u00a0\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A lifelong Queens resident, Bill is a fixture in the civic life of Richmond Hill, serving on Community Board 9 and contributing to neighborhood organizations including the Richmond Hill Block Association and the Richmond Hill Historical Society. He brings the same passion for craft and community to everything he does \u2014 whether designing a home, restoring a landmark, or playing a standard at a summer concert.<\/p>\n

QG: Other than the amazing diversity, what do\/did you love most about living in Queens? How has Queens changed over the years?<\/p>\n

BG: I\u2019ve lived and practiced architecture in Richmond Hill for decades, and what\u2019s kept me here is the texture of the place \u2014 Vic\u00adtorian frame houses, tree-lined streets, a housing stock that still tells the story of how the neighborhood was built. I\u2019ve spent much of my career on the preservation side of that story: legalizing vio\u00adlations, restoring historic details, helping homeowners keep what makes Richmond Hill worth keeping. As Secretary of the Rich\u00admond Hill Historical Society and a board member of the Richmond Hill Block Association, I\u2019ve watched the neighborhood absorb tremendous change while still holding onto its architectural iden\u00adtity \u2014 that\u2019s rare in New York City, and it\u2019s worth fighting for.<\/p>\n

QG: How does Queens inspire you? What are some of your favorite places to be inspired in Queens?<\/p>\n

BG: Maple Grove Cemetery is probably my most unlikely source of inspiration \u2014 it\u2019s where I perform, at the Brownson Cen\u00adter\u2019s Celebration Hall, and it\u2019s also a landscape with an extraordi\u00adnary architectural and musical history. The Forest Park Bandshell is another touchstone; it connects me to a long line of musicians who\u2019ve played outdoors in this borough. Professionally, I find the same inspiration walking Richmond Hill\u2019s blocks looking at cor\u00adnice details and porch columns [I recently restored one by hand] as I do sitting at a piano.<\/p>\n

QG: How important is personal connection and communica\u00adtion (networking) in your industry?<\/p>\n

BG: It\u2019s everything. Architecture is a collaborative profession \u2014 you\u2019re constantly translating between clients, contractors, and city agencies \u2014 and the same is true of civic life. My work on the AIA National Board, as Scholarship Committee Chair for AIA Queens, and as Secretary of the Queens Foundation for Architec\u00adture is really about building those bridges: mentoring the next gen\u00aderation of architects, connecting them to opportunity, and making sure Queens has a seat at the table nationally. I try to bring that same connective instinct to music \u2014 leading jam sessions is its own form of networking, just with instruments instead of business cards.<\/p>\n

QG: What is the best piece of advice you\u2019ve ever received?<\/p>\n

BG: The best advice I\u2019ve received has come from my wife of over fifteen years, Kim Gati: every person you meet has a story \u2014 connect with them. Share something vulnerable, and ask for help. She\u2019s also taught me that not every comment deserves a re\u00adsponse, and that the oldest rule still holds: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It\u2019s advice that works as well in a client meeting or a community board hearing as it does at home.<\/p>\n

QG: Who are some of your favorite artists, writers, perform\u00aders, entrepreneurs, and other creatives with a Queens connection?<\/p>\n

BG: I have enormous admiration for the muralists who\u2019ve shaped the Woodhaven and Kew Gardens art scene \u2014 public art that\u2019s given these neighbor\u00adhoods a visual identity of their own. I\u2019m also a great admirer of Nathan and Susan Spondike, whose art studios in a historic Ridgewood ware\u00adhouse I\u2019m currently designing; it\u2019s been a privi\u00adlege to help build the space where their work happens. And I love the exhibits at Maple Grove, curated by Helen Day and Carl Balanis, which bring real cultural weight to a place most people only think of as a cemetery.<\/p>\n

QG: What are your favorite restaurants, cof\u00adfee shops, theaters, galleries, communities, and venues in Queens?<\/p>\n

BG: Neir\u2019s Tavern is my favorite \u2014 I\u2019m cur\u00adrently designing an extension for them, so it\u2019s both a client relationship and a genuine favorite spot. I\u2019m also a regular at Nick\u2019s Bistro on Met\u00adropolitan Avenue in Forest Hills, and NTK on 80th Street in Glendale.<\/p>\n

QG: What was the most important concert in the history of Queens?<\/p>\n

BG: History would point to The Beatles at Shea Stadium in August 1965 \u2014 still one of the most consequential concerts in American pop culture, and it happened in Queens. But if I\u2019m being honest about what\u2019s shaped me personally, it\u2019s the ongoing tradition of live music at Forest Park Bandshell and Maple Grove\u2019s Celebration Hall \u2014 rooms and stages that have hosted gen\u00aderations of Queens musicians, myself included, and that carry the borough\u2019s musical life forward one summer night at a time.<\/p>\n

QG: What are you working on right now that you\u2019d like to highlight?<\/p>\n

BG: On the architecture side, I continue to focus on historic restoration and DOB compli\u00adance work throughout Queens \u2014 the kind of practice that earned Architecture Studio a 2021 AIA New York State Honor Award and a 2024 AIA Queens Design Award for Historic Restora\u00adtion. I still carry the lessons of my favorite CCNY professor, Peter Gisolfi, who taught that space should facilitate flow and circulation \u2014 a principle you can see in his own design for the new building at Maple Grove Cemetery, which happens to be where I perform. On the music side, I\u2019m preparing for Midsummer Night Swing with Paul Capo, July 24 at Maple Grove\u2019s Cele\u00adbration Hall \u2014 a performance dedicated to the memory of George Sebald. My approach at the piano still traces back to my Juilliard teacher, Richard Fabre, who taught me that a small reper\u00adtoire played with real polish beats a large one played poorly \u2014 a lesson that\u2019s shaped how I practice to this day. Between architecture and music, I think of myself as someone who re\u00adstores things: buildings, neighborhoods, stan\u00addards.<\/p>\n

The Local-Express interview series was originated on July 3, 2013 by Nicollette Barsamian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 Bill Gati, AIA, RIBA, NCARB, is a licensed architect and the Principal of Architecture Studio, PLLC, based…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-290439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}