A tipster tells us the following:
Red Square has been sold! From what I hear, the ink isn't quite dry. But I think the price was $135 million. The more frightening part of this rumor is that the storefronts may not be long for the world — the new owner will be seeking to build higher on that site.
This is the second time in recent weeks that we heard that the residential complex at 250 E. Houston St. between Avenue A and Avenue B has been sold. (Our other tipster's source was a Red Square employee.)
To date, there's nothing in public records documenting a sale of the 12-floor building that includes 130 rental units and 23,000 square feet of retail space.
Adding to the speculation: None of the empty storefronts along the Shoppes at Red Square are listed for rent. Amona Deli & Grocery closed back in February. The space has sat empty since then. Last week, its next-door neighbor moved away...
One of the other long-empty retail spaces has served as a Halloween pop-up shop in recent years.
The building, the creation of Michael Rosen, opened in June 1989. Here's more from a Daily News article from September 2008:
Red Square occupies land that served as an automobile service station for more than 25 years. Rosen's wife's family bought the property in the 1960s, and, he points out, no homes were destroyed and no businesses were displaced.
Red Square was designed by graphic artist legend Tibor Kalman, a Hungarian immigrant. Its quirky feel has come to symbolize the avant-garde, rebellious East Village spirit.
Rosen has actually apologized for Red Square. (We heard him do so at a Community Board 3 meeting several years ago.) Last we read, he was a nonvoting shareholder in the building and without any involvement in the day-to-day operations.
And it should be noted that there was speculation of an addition atop the existing stores as for back as the summer of 2008, according to this article in the Voice.
In announcing the opening of Red Square in the spring of 1989, the Times reported that the building "includes studios that will rent for $975 a month, one-bedroom apartments for $1,350 and two-bedroom units at $1,900. Mr. Rosen shrugged off the possibility that the rents might be a bit steep for the proletariat, forecasting that interest will stem from young professionals and college students who will share apartments."
19 comments:
So he's the commie.
All hail Comrade Lenin!
Bill, opponent of Lenin, bama and other commies
I recall when this place was built, I was working in a gallery in Soho and someone came with tear sheets about this building and tried to convince me (since I was an artsy type) that I would perfect for the Red Square. I though the rents were way to high, and I could never see myself living in a such a bourgeois building. Even then the Lenin sculpture was a pathetic attempt to by controversial especially with the fall of the Berlin wall that year.
Red Square? More like Square Peg in a Round Hole Square. Like the Christadora House this was an early attempt at jumpstarting gentrification, but it ended up looking like a cheap strip mall in a boring looking building with a "cool" name. This was all marketing hype with a big clock on top, all designed tohasten the influx of Mr Wallstreet types and their arm candy girlfriends. It was funny that the only retail that worked here was the Chinese takeout place and a pizza shop, and a parade of chains sotres like Kinkos, Western Union, Dunkin Donuts, and Blockbuster. They tried to sell people on living in the EV by giving it an edgy name, but they were never really edgy at all. In the end it was just a placeholder waiting for something bigger to happen. Now the wrecking ball will come and show us all what real gentrifiction looks like, as if we don't already know.
FYI, Christodora House was built in 1928 as a settlement house.
The Christadora House reference was about it being an early symbol of gentrification, and it was a target of the 1988 TSP riot. Via Wikipedia:
By 1986 the building had been sold numerous times, and finally the building began being converted into condominiums. For many area residents, this was the first sign of gentrification.
The August 7, 1988 Tompkins Square Park Riot, provoked partially by the area's gentrification, spilled over into Christodora House. Rioters chanted "Die Yuppie Scum" in reference to the supposed "yuppie scum" residents of the building. The front doors were smashed and rioters ransacked the lobby of the building.
I believe G means the renovated Christodora -- the disconnect, of course, is that it was originally a settlement house.
Thanks, A. For many years the Christodora was also an abandoned infestation of hookers and junkies until it was converted to a condo. But that doesn't always fit in with the grossly romanticized history of the neighborhood some newcomers have.
BTW, outside of Red Square, how is "retail" working out in the rest of the EV? From what I can see, not so well.
That said, Red Square is a pretty boring building, but the string of single-level retail spaces was mandated to allow a bigger residential area. The developer will have to get around some pretty specific zoning.
Perhaps Michael Rosen should donate his share of the massive profits from this sale to those who lost their homes in the explosion or donate and apologize to Jerry The Peddler for going over to C Squat at 5am a few years back to yell " I am not Yuppie Scum". On the gossip scoop side.. Richard Johnson once told me, when he was doing something on Economakis and his eviction of all tenants, that when he lived across the street from Red Square he had some Russian workers in his apartment and they told him they wished they has a rocket launcher so they could take the statue of Lenin off the top of the building. This building was one of the first that kicked the gentrification of the hood into high gear and Rosen is now part of the one percent because of it.He did throw good parties in his penthouse at Christadora House I have been told for some reason I never got invited to them.
Anonymous clearly is an expert on LES hookers and junkies and that makes me wonder how this person got to know so much about them ? Shut Up Hooker too ? Actually the Christadora was once home to the Young Lords and the Black Panther Party and I suspect Anonymous worked out of that building too.
Quoth Giovanni:
Like the Christadora [sic] House this was an early attempt at jumpstarting gentrification…
The Christodora House [circa 1927] was also supposedly the site of George Gershwin's first piano recital.
It's solidly and forever a condominium, but unlike Red Square, it has its roots in the past.
I don't recall Christodora House home to hookers, etc. It was always solidly sealed up. I don't recall hookers even down these parts, east of A.
I know that Iggy Pop lived in Christodora. Anyone know when Cher lived there?
Look inside the windows of the row of single level store fronts at the Red Square yuppie ghetto complex and see the HUGE posts inside. These were installed when the complex was built in order to support the construction of additional floors above the stores in the future. The sellers are using this as a major selling point for buyers. This project was designed for expansion once the city would allow zoning variances, as it has since the era of Giuliani in order to facilitate the hyper-gentrification we've been experiencing since the early 1990s.
yah, the hookers were all in easier to access areas like my ol' hood Park Ave South.
Does anyone have any idea of how we can fight the building expanding upward? How we might check zoning laws?
Thanks.
Anonymous 11:58 — there's most likely a free Met Council on Housing clinic open to the public this evening at Cooper Square Committee, 61 East 4th Street — stop in at that event there tonight, or just walk in during their regular business hours, or phone to make an appointment some time, to speak with helpfully knowledgable people, about your interests and those of your neighbors and the neighborhood —
Personally, I preferred the Merit gas station before it became Red Square.
"Mr. Rosen shrugged off the possibility that the rents might be a bit steep for the proletariat, forecasting that interest will stem from young professionals and college students who will share apartments."
This is the current RE industry BM for the EV, the LES, Stuy Town, Peter Cooper, Gramercy, etc. Every new so called luxury development is for this demo. God help us all.
You know things are too far gone when you see gentrification being gentrified.
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