Greenwich Village

From Curbed: "In a 6-4 vote, the Landmarks Preservation Commission has approved the hardship application put forth by St. Vincent's Hospital to demolish the O'Toole Building in Greenwich Village. The razing of the loved/hated 'Overbite Building' is part of the St. Vincent's/Rudin Management extremely controversial redevelopment proposal for the hospital, which sits in the protected Greenwich Village Historic District. St. Vincent's had argued that the O'Toole spot is the only one that makes sense for its new 30ish story medical tower."

More on the Rudin plans and the whole controversy here.

On first glance, all of the five-story townhouses lining West 11th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues blend together, lending the block the same charming and unaffordable air of any other in Greenwich Village.

The sharp, three-story bay windows at No. 18 quickly pierce the illusion, jutting four feet past the facades of the neighboring buildings. A Paddington bear doll in an orange cloak and black witch’s hat stands next to a ceramic jack o’ lantern in the first-floor window. The starkly modern building begs to be recognized, for its incongruity and its history.

On March 6, 1970, five members of the radical Weather Underground accidentally detonated dynamite at a makeshift bomb factory in the basement of 18 West 11th Street.  read more »

Neighbors protesting the trendy Beatrice Inn's effort to renew its liquor license were outraged last week to find out that they were effectively wasting their breath.

By the time the issue had come to local Community Board 2 for a vote on Sept. 18, the hip celebrity hangout's renewal had already been approved by the State Liquor Authority .

"Advise us on how to get rid of this place," pleaded one aghast neighbor.

Raymond Lee, chairman of the board's SLA committee, explained that there was really little that the panel could do because -- despite allegations of the popular hot spot's "coke den" reputation -- the Beatrice on 285 West 12th Street had no record of violations with the SLA (an apparent prerequisite for nixing a renewal).  read more »

A little over a year ago, celebrity chef Rachael Ray was busy denying rumors that she and her husband of two years, lawyer-cum-rocker John Cusimano, were getting a divorce after the blogosphere began buzzing about his alleged penchant for bondage and prostitutes.

Things sure have changed since then. In June, the couple closed on a $2.9 million beach house in the Hamptons, the New York Post reported. And now they have bought a second co-op in their building at 49 East 12th Street, city records show.

Mr. and Mrs. Ray--eh, Cusimano--live in apartment 6G, and have paid $1.25 million for neighboring unit 6H, according to the deed that appeared today.  read more »

New York University announced today that it would not demolish the Provincetown Playhouse, but build above it, preserving the theater’s original structural walls, footprint and volume, following a mini-public backlash.

University spokeswoman Alicia Hurley said “demolishing the theater was never a proposal,” just “bad information in the atmosphere.  read more »

"This is an awesome space, an awesome location," chef Scott Conant said, during a packed-house grand opening party at his new digs in the meatpacking district--er, at least, sort of in the meatpacking district.

"It's not really in the meatpacking, it's on, you know what I'm saying?"

The former L'Impero and Alto cook's latest restaurant Scarpetta opened Monday evening in the former Gin Lane and old Village Idiot space at 355 West 14th Street, just east of Ninth Avenue.

"A lot of the core clientele, a lot of Upper East Siders and a lot of people from Uptown, they're not going to be kind of spooked by going too much into the meatpacking. Too far inside of it, it might scare 'em off. But because it's on it, they feel comfortable coming down.

"I looked everywhere," Mr. Conant said. "But I really wanted it to be a West Village restaurant. It's probably one of the last neighborhoods that is pure New York."  read more »

“I personally think this will destroy N.Y.U. and the Greenwich Village community—and I’m being nice,” said Ruth Rennert.

A handful of seniors clustered around her shook their heads in agreement.

Ms. Rennert, a resident of Greenwich Village for the past four decades, was speaking to a conservatively dressed young woman wearing an N.Y.U. name tag during the university's fifth Expansion Open House on Wednesday evening.  read more »

Boozehounds are often warned about potential liver problems.

But recent patrons of Armin Amiri's trendy Socialista club may be at risk of something beyond cirrhosis: Hepatitis A.

The Health Department is advising as many as 800 Socialista patrons to get vaccinated, after a bartender at the Greenwich Village hotspot was diagnosed with the contagious liver disease, according to the Wall Street Journal health blog. (Free shots are available at P.S. 41 this weekend.)  read more »

The first public hearing on the Rudin Management Company's plans for the site of St. Vincent Hospital in Greenwich Village will be this evening at 6:30 at P.S. 41 at 116 West 11th Street. Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, emailed us the announcement on Monday night.

He called Rudin's plan "almost unprecedented in its scope, especially in the Greenwich Village Historic District."

Rudin last year bought eight buildings at 12th Street and Seventh Avenue that St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers is vacating as part of a consolidation. Bill Rudin, president of Rudin Management, talked to The Observer's John Koblin in June about the plans, which would include an apartment complex on the east side of Seventh:  read more »

In the current issue of New York, art critic Jerry Saltz reviews the new Urs Fischer exhibit at Gavin Brown's gallery in Greenwich Village.

The installation is described as "[a] 38-foot-by-30-foot crater, eight feet deep," which "extends almost to the walls of the gallery, surrounded by a fourteen-inch ledge of concrete floor."

It took 10 days to "build," as Mr. Saltz reported, costing the gallerist Mr. Brown roughly $250,000.

Wow!

"Heaven only knows what his landlord thought of it," quipped Mr. Saltz.

According to PropertyShark.com, the gallery building at 620 Greenwich Street is owned by Patrick La Frieda.

 

 

"CAN AH GETTA SHAIKH-ALLUJAH?!?!"

No, Astor Place isn't getting another Starbucks. Yet.

Actually, the Reverend Billy and his "Church of Stop Shopping" choir were rallying yesterday in support of a retailer: the longstanding Thompson Newsstand near the corner of Thompson and West 3rd streets.  read more »

New York University announced on Thursday the team that it will be using to draw up a master plan for the university’s use of space over the next 25 years, which will, it sounds like, entail some expansion.  read more »

After racking up one of the city's worst health-inspection scores so far this rat-crazed year, the original Papaya King outpost at the corner of Third Avenue and 86th Street is once again grilling its trademarked "Tastier Than Filet Mignon" franks.

Waiting in line to order at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, this reporter passed the time by reading juice joint C.E.O. Dan Horan's letter posted at the register, which described the eatery's efforts to rebound from a "tough couple of days."

The Health Department shuttered "New York's First Juice Bar" two weeks ago, after the TV program Inside Edition aired footage of rodents at the Upper East Side sausage factory--a situation Mr. Horan downplayed as "an isolated incident."

Citing the 75-year-old venue for "conditions conducive to vermin," among a host of other health-code violations, inspectors on March 20 slapped management with a horrendously high score of 111--just 84 points shy of the passing mark.

That's 19 points worse than the infamously rat-infested KFC-Taco Bell in Greenwich Village, which remains shuttered, but still 49 points behind Manhattan's most recent high scorer, Cafe Fonduta, which, like Papaya King, has since reopened.

According to Mr. Horan, it took "five days of scrubbing, cleaning and polishing this notably old, but historically significant space," in order to pass re-inspection.

- Chris Shott

A mustachioed man in a tan trench coat milled anxiously outside the newly reopened Cafe Fonduta at 1  read more »

At noon on Friday, a towncar driver in a black suit stood beside his parked Lincoln, staring at the shuttered storefront at 331 Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village.

"This is the place from the TV, right?" he asked.

This is, indeed, the place---one month to the day, in fact, after the infamous video of rats running amok inside the two-pronged fast-food joint triggered a Health Department crackdown on restaurants citywide.

"It was a rat party," the parked driver said, laughing. "The rats were having a party."

More than 200 restaurants have failed inspections since the infamous video aired. At one point, inspectors were shuttering an average of nine eateries a day--triple the usual number.

Just this week, inspectors slammed the door on Papaya Dog on the Upper East Side after news crews filmed rats at that location, too.

Some eateries that inspectors initially shut down have since reopened. But not the place that started it all, which remains a quiet monument to the original scampering spectacle.

Two bright yellow signs, reading "CLOSED BY ORDER OF THE COMMISSIONER OF HEALTH AND MENTAL HYGIENE," remain affixed to the papered windows. Passers-by have added plenty of their own comments to the garish placards, ranging from "TRY OUR NEW BURRATO!" to "THE REAL RATS OWN THIS PLACE!" One amateur cartoonist drew a rat head sticking out of an "X-TRA CRISPIE" bucket.

"They should sell it," suggested the spectating driver, as he returned to his car and then drove off.

Operator ADF Companies, which closed a number of its KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut franchises in the city after the debacle, announced in a March 1 statement that the venues will all reopen once "they are fully inspected and given a clean bill of health."

A company spokesperson has yet to return phone calls seeking an update.

- Chris Shott

Some guys just really like their Brooklyn Smoked Dunkel.

A line of roughly 15 men had gathered outside the Blind Tiger in Greenwich Village at 4:01 p.m. on Thursday, when the renowned beer-lover's mecca finally reopened its doors--this time, with actual beer.

"People have been waiting for, like, a year for this," noted the last guy in line, who added that he'd taken the day off from work.

After 10 years at Hudson and 10th streets, the much beloved Tiger was forced to move in late 2005 in order to make way for a new Starbucks.

Perhaps taking a hint from the Seattle caffeine giant, the venue reopened last fall at the corner of Bleecker and Jones--primarily as a coffee bar, however, on account of a little liquor-license brouhaha with neighborhood politico Deb Glick.

As boozehounds waited patiently for the true Tiger's second-coming on Thursday, Eater provided constant updates.

Earlier this month, the bar finally got its license to swill. Ale aficionados turned out pronto.

By 4:15 p.m. on Thursday, the crowd inside easily exceeded 50--predominantly made up of burly-looking dudes, but at least three females were present.

- Chris Shott

The poster for Reds, Warren Beatty’s 1981 epic about American radicals in the early 20th centu  read more »

Artsy entreprenurial couple Vahap Avsar and Lexy Funk celebrated the opening of their newest Brooklyn Industries (BKI) store last night in Greenwich Village.

The founders of the burgeoning Williamsburg-based apparel and assessories line took pride in besting Starbucks in an apparent tenant-application competition to lease the 1,300-square-foot space, located at the corner of Hudson and Christopher Streets.

The site was formerly home to Christopher Street Books--a store of "dubious reputation," according to the company's press release--which closed in 2005.

Upon scouting the location, the new tenants took note of what they called "cubicles," located in the back, among other clutter. "You couldn't even see the space with all the piles of rubble," said Ms. Funk. "It was a complete mess."

Significant renovations were required of the century-old brick building, which suffered a structural "bulge" last year, prior to its orderly stocking of shelves with the company's signature graphic tees and hoodies.

Company store designer William Harvey has since decorated the space in what BKI is calling "a late 1970s Fire Island vibe," featuring many mirrors.

With its recent addition of a Chelsea store, the local answer to Diesel now boasts eight locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn but has no immediate plans for further expansion. "We're built out for now," said Mr. Avsar.  read more »

Yet the couple also spoke of future aspirations of opening locations near Union Square and the Upper West Side--and even expanding outside New York. "San Francisco would be perfect for us," said Ms. Funk, adding, however, that closer markets Boston and Philadelphia were probably more feasible.

- Chris Shott

Assemblywoman Deborah Glick spoke to Community Board 2 last night, and offered some advice on variances that might be coming down the pike in the future: "We have to draw the line .... Why does the city want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg," referring to onslaught of variances recently going before the Board of Standards and Appeals that result in larger high-rises, which in turn damage the historic and aesthetic character of the neighborhood--especially Greenwich Village. "We have to draw the line .... We have to protect [the neighborhood] from getting chipped and chipped away," Ms. Glick said, urging the board to start turning down variance requests.

Ms. Glick also spoke about changing the 421A developer tax-abatement scheme so that instead of the current 20% affordable housing requirement, it'll require 30% affordable housing on site.
And she had words for Mayor Bloomberg's disinterest in the sale of Stuy Town: "It's not in my opinion that Stuy Town was a private matter--it's public policy," adding that the Mayor's hands-off approach to the sale of the famous working-class enclave was disappointing.

-Matthew Grace

For several days now, a conspicuous “For Rent” sign has hung over the door of a gay bar on Chris  read more »

For several days now, a conspicuous “For Rent” sign has hung over the door of a gay bar  read more »

Greenwich Village residents protest the construction on a New York University dorm between Third and Fourth Avenues.

A meeting of the directors of the New York State Urban Development Corporation will be held.

Jonathan Tasini denounces media outlets who refuse to include him in Senate candidates debate at Exhale Restaurant.

Wesley Clark campaigns with Eric Massa in Rochester.

—Nicole Brydson

“More feminine than masculine” is how the famous chef-proprietor Mario Batali describes his Gree  read more »

Lisa de Kooning, daughter of Abstract Expressionist painter Willem de Kooning, has just sold her Upper East Side condo for $1.45 million, according to deed transfer records.

Back in November, Ms. de Kooning dropped close to $3 million on a Jane Street condo, nearby the old AbEx stomping grounds, as reported in The Observer.

Also, Sopranos star James Gandolfini once lived in the Greenwich Village building; that is, before he got divorced and sold the multi-unit pad to his ex-wife.

Certainly the de Kooning estate is doing alright these days, with sales of the master's works thriving. Last night, Christie's postwar and contemporary sale brought in over $143 million--with several de Kooning works in the mix. An untitled painting (1961) sold for $10 million, and Two Women (Study for Clamdigger) fetched $5.7 million.  read more »

- Michael Calderone

The Landmarks Preservation Commission yesterday designated two additional historic districts in Greenwich Village yesterday: an extension of the Greenwich Village Historic District, nearly three blocks between Greenwich and Washington streets from Christopher to Perry streets; and the Weehawken Street Historic District, between Christopher and along Weehawken Street.

The Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation has been lobbying the city since 2004 to have these two swaths of land landmarked, along with the recent down-zoning of the far West Village, and now that hard work has paid off. Said Andrew Berman (through a press release), executive director of the GVSHP: "We fought so long and hard for this, it's almost hard to believe this day has finally come.  read more »

After 40 years, the City has finally seen the wisdom in stopping the destruction of one of the New York's great historic neighborhoods, which will now be preserved. Between today's landmark designation and the downzoning of the area we fought for last year, the City has taken some very meaningful steps to save this endangered neighborhood." For a map of the historic district, click here. -Matthew Grace

Community Board 2 district manager Arthur Strickler died at his home in Greenwich Village last Saturday. The cause, reported by Gay City News, was a heart attack. Strickler was the energetic and sometimes gruff glue of C.B.2, holding chaotic discussions together in the regular monthly mêlées that came to characterize his board's meetings. Even more, he was a knowledgable font of bureaucratic wisdom that aided his board immensely. He'll be missed. -Matthew Grace  read more »

NPR and Bloomberg News are reporting that a man who works with animal skins has contracted anthrax. No terrorism, apparently, but cops have quarantined his workspace in Dumbo and his residence in Greenwich Village.

No telling how this affects Dumbo's property values--but we're thinking not much.

-Matthew Grace

The Board of Standards and Appeals approved Related Companies' plan to build a 190-foot, 160,000-square-foot residential tower at the site of the Superior Ink factory at Bethune and West streets in Greenwich Village earlier today.

This is a partial victory for the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, which has been lobbying the B.S.A. to quash, or at least scale down, Related's project. It was originally designed to be 270 feet tall.

This should be one of the last new towers to go up in the neighborhood; last year the Department of City Planning down-zoned the whole area after a push by preservation activists and locals who were concerned about all the new, large-scale developments, such as the Meier towers on Perry and Charles streets, going up.

In a press release, GVSHP executive director Andrew Berman vowed to keep pressuring the Landmarks Preservation Commission to landmark the Superior Ink factory: "This historic neighborhood deserves nothing less."  read more »

-Matthew Grace

Julian Schnabel, Diane von Furstenberg, and downtown developers Ira Druker and Richard Born are crossing swords with Greenwich Village preservationists (and possibly the city) over plans to build tall, luxurious condo buildings. What if the MTA's bid to float bonds to cover new projects like the Second Avenue Subway fails again? Experts think 30 percent of the vote on Election Day, statewide, will have to come from New York City for the act to pass, since everyone upstate will vote against it. “We’re concerned about the fact that if the Mayor is so far ahead, maybe people won’t come out to vote, period,” A.J. Castelbuono, who spent $3 million on the last failed bond-act measure, told Matthew Schuerman.  read more »

The New York Times reports that a judge failed to block the sale of 2 Columbus Circle yesterday to the Museum of Arts and Design. Preservation group Landmark West has been fighting the sale and trying to get landmark status for the Edward Durell Stone-designed building for some time now. We've got a feeling that this won't be the end of it. The Sun reports that the new owners of Diane von Furstenburg's two Greenwich Village buildings will meet next week with neighborhood groups to try to get their support for a variance to new zoning laws. Russian heiress and former model Anna Anisimova purchased the buildings on West 12th Street last year on behalf of Coalco International, a company owned by Vasily Anismov, her millionaire father. Reps are set to meet with Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, and members of Community Board 2 to discuss the possibility of support for an upzoning to the property. Under the new zoning, which is due to go into effect later this year, a building can't be over 80 feet; currently, a building can be up to 15 stories tall. The GVSHP has been fighting for this rezoning tooth and nail, so Ms. Anisimova's reps better have silver tongues. Newsday picks up an AP wire story that belies the real-estate-bubble-burst talk we've been hearing so much of lately. Toll Brothers Inc., a national luxury-home builder, had earnings double in the third quarter of 2005. - Matthew Grace  read more »

We've got mail!

In our earlier item on rezoning in far west Greenwich Village, we apparently overestimated the zeal of the Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate specific buildings in the district:

In "Wild, Wild West" you wrote "the rezoning also sets the stage for landmarking the entire district, something the Landmarks Preservation Commission is slated to calendar later this year."

However, the "entire district" is not scheduled to be landmarked. Of the more than 100 buildings proposed by the community for a true Greenwich Village Waterfront Historic District, only 12 buildings have been deemed suitable for landmarking by the LPC. But we, the Federation to Preserve the Greenwich Village Waterfront & Great Port will continue to fight for a true historic district, as we believe that zoning alone does not preserve the character of a neighborhood.  read more »

Thank you,

Emily Farris Executive Director/Editor Federation to Preserve the Greenwich Village Waterfront & Great Port/ Our River, Our Streets

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