Monday, March 12, 2012

Former burial society home rises from the dead on East Fourth Street

Nearly two years ago, we wrote about a new listing that appeared for two townhouses at 326-328 E. Fourth St. between Avenue C and Avenue D... 12 bedrooms in the two homes... and both buildings were going for $4.6 million.


As the Times reported in September 2010, this is was home to "an artists’ collective and burial society called the Uranian Phalanstery and First New York Gnostic Lyceum Temple, was started in the East Village in the late 1950s by the artists Richard Oviet Tyler and Dorothea Tyler."

Later, preservation groups fought a losing battle to landmark the 170-year-old buildings. The Landmarks Preservation Commission said the buildings didn’t merit landmarking status, giving developer Terrence Lowenberg and penthouse-making architect Ramy Issac the green light to add two stories to the top.

Anyway! Thanks to Dave on 7th for pointing out that workers have removed the construction netting on the new buildings...




...and a view from the rear...


...and a now-and-then of sorts...


The new 326-328 looks similar to Lowenberg's other East Village rehab — 147 First Avenue...


Previously on EV Grieve:
Historic East Fourth Street artists' collective soon to be condos

Two side-by-side townhouses on East Fourth Street await your renovation

City doesn't give a shit about these historic East Village townhouses

Almost working around the clock on developing 326-328 E. Fourth St.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

All in all it could have been a lot worse. At least it's in proportion to the building to its left.

glamma said...

could be worse

nygrump said...

He must have gotten a deal on a big lot of ugly grey paint.

Anonymous said...

Have to agree,I have seen much worse

Anonymous said...

As neighbors two doors down, we're pretty relieved at the restraint of the renovation, although it still sticks out compared to the other buildings on the block. Really curious though as to the clientele it will bring. Can't imagine our block is exactly hipster heaven...

Anonymous said...

I said the same thing- it's not that bad.
I mean, it's not the glass house monstrosities you usually see.
Just goes to show, people aren't uncompromising and opposed to ALL change, as long as it matches its surrounding buildings.
It shouldn't ruin the aesthetic of the neighborhood.

I'd be a lot more open to developers renewing the East Village if they stopped making the glass apartment clones and started thinking about the neighborhood as a whole, and making more new buildings like this one.

Anonymous said...

Ha! I clicked on the comments here specifically so I could post that "It could be a lot worse".
Boy! what our standards have become in this day and age. We just drop to our knees; grateful that somebody didn't build some pink mirrored glass 13 story shit hole. Laughing as I cry.

Anonymous said...

very well respected kind of guys

http://therealdeal.com/blog/2009/04/29/robert-a-m-stern-sues-developer-icon-realty/

OWR said...

Considering the street was shit, dirty and dangerous when I grew up there (Yes, I saw people get killed there) anything these two bring to that street is heaven-sent.

Cookiepuss said...

Your an idiot.

Terrence Lowenberg and Todd Cohen of Icon Realty are running an illegal hotel at E. 10th Street called the Hotel Toshi. So far Rosie Mendez hasn't been able to do much about it. I think it's going on 2 years now. I thought it was illegal? I heard that the city is taking its sweet ass time because they are making a load off of fines.

Also, their other rehab at 325 147 First Avenue was part of the HOWL Festival this past summer. It served as a backdrop for a site specific advertisement for the festival. Organizers of the HOWL Festival gallingly hung a portrait of Allen Ginsberg off the side of the building. That's like hanging a portrait of Dr. King off the side of a building that minorities were expulsed from.

The theme of this past years festival read as such:
Real Estate developers first, after all we do owe everything to them for cleansing the neighborhood, and for their morally admirable ability to make money, so that perhaps some poor slob might have a chance at moving forward in a society and maybe even follow in their footsteps some day. Allen Ginsberg's image and legacy second, as he sides with us, I mean the HOWL Festival, real estate developers, gentrification, and is also for art, poetry and what not. And lastly, that The People Don't Have The Power And Never Will!

"In the 1950s, amid prosperity and a booming economy, Allen Ginsberg defied conventions and the mainstream by openly standing forward as a homosexual, a socialist and a sharp critic of the capitalist American society he lived in."


Bunch of idiots.

Anonymous said...

Who are you calling an idiot? I just can't tell(?)
Also, you left NAMBLA member off of your Ginsberg resumé.