Friday, May 7, 2010

"Crazy Landlord" cleans up his corner: Here comes a "sexier Balthazar"

On March 20, 2009, we first noted the "crazy landlord" sign on the long-dormant corner of Second Avenue and Third Street... Since then, the corner has attracted plenty of street art...




...even with the rumored Belgian Ale House coming in here...

After a back-and-forth between painters and taggers, the street art team seemed to have won, as the corner full of wheat paste and spray paint and stickers remained for months... Yesterday, though, workers came and painted the whole thing...



...even the "crazy landlord" sign came done...



This is serious!

Last week, Eater had more gory details on the new Belgian joint coming to this location... it will be called the Belgian. Here are the owner's words to Eater:

It is a beautiful high ceiling space with a very Gothic basement with a sidewalk vault all around, similar to Bacaro. The basement will have a separate bar and dining as well as beer and wine cask rooms and an area for brewing.
The main floor will have a large canopied bar, large tables beer hall style with old oak and mahogany church pews. The large french doors will open to a wraparound sidewalk cafe sitting 40 or so under large colorful awnings. It will be romantic yet appropriate. Think a sexier Balthazar marries a corpulent Fette Sau and the offspring is The Belgian.


[Sigh]

Thanks for the memories, Crazy Landlord corner...

9 comments:

Jeremiah Moss said...

think a louder, more crowded, and obnoxious whatever.

WB said...

This is definitely going to get CB approval. They're always saying how 2nd Avenue needs more bars, right? I wonder who the owners are. If you're looking to out-whatever Fette Sau and Balthazar, you have a lot of work to do.

EV Grieve said...

@ Jeremiah. Yes.

@ WB. This will certainly be greenlighted by CB3. But I'm wondering if they say no to the sidewalk portion until they prove to be good neighbors? Many Second Ave. residents have turned out for the last two CB3/SLA meetings — and none are pleased with the sidewalk cafe nightlight along here.... how many cafes are there from, say, Sixth Street to here?

marjorie said...

oh goody, more frattie-foodie drunks. gag me with a mussel.

Laura Goggin Photography said...

I love beer and beer halls and all things Belgian - and this place sounds rather spectacular - but not here, in this location, smack in the middle of an already-overburdened neighborhood. If it were on Governor's Island, wouldn't that give people inspiration to travel out there for a good time? This is just going to spark another EV battle that will end badly for both business and residents.

EV Grieve said...

Well said, Goggla. I agree. This does sound nice.... but not here.

Anonymous said...

Couple of things :

1. The place will be more restaurant than bar. It will not be a loud, noisy, frat boy zoo. I have a personal interest that the place will not be very noisy neighbor.

2. Before having a knee jerk reaction of not another sidewalk cafe, analyze the situation. I believe this will be the southernmost outdoor cafe on all of 2nd Avenue. It will be a nice bookend on this side of 2 Ave. between 3 & 4 streets. There is nothing on the east side of the street from here to Houston Street. I can't fully do the western side of 2 Ave. from memory, but I don't believe there are any outdoor tables there.

3. The city painted the place under their graffiti removal program. Your tax dollars at work. It had to be done.

prodigal son said...

Mars Bar is on 2nd and 1st Street. How long can they hang on with everything around them getting vonglerified?

Editor said...

the shadow of the light post would be a sick tag.