East Village stories to watch in 2013, (Part 2)

• New housing at the former Cabrini Center

[Dave on 7th]

Work continues at the former Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation on Avenue B and East Fifth Street. We've already seen the listings for the two retail spaces available here.

Some time this year we'll certainly see listings for the residential portion too, which might make for a rather delicate sell. After all, Cabrini was a nonprofit, 240-bed nursing home that provided health care for low-income elderly residents in the East Village. How do you spin the broker babble to make buying into a place where people were spending the last days of their lives desirable? Well, we'll find out soon enough...

• David Schwimmer moves to East Sixth Street

Plenty of celebrity types move in and out around here and no one really cares. Daniel Craig, for instance. And then there is David Schwimmer, who is reportedly moving to the former site of a circa-1852 townhouse demolished prior to the area's landmarking.

Per the Post on Feb. 6, 2012:

Schwimmer, 45, snapped up the property for $4.1 million in 2010 — and the city Landmarks Preservation Commission send him notices on March 31 and May 27 of last year that it could get landmark status by the end of 2012, said commission spokeswoman Elisabeth de Bourbon.

But by September 2011, the building was gone, just four months after the city’s latest letter was sent to Schwimmer’s representatives.

So, just to spell this out, Schwimmer and/or his people knew that the building was under landmark consideration, yet they hurried and destroyed it anyway. (All perfectly legal though. So lay off!)

Then there has been the matter of some 18 month's worth of construction noise to understandably annoy the neighbors.

Which may have inspired people to write messages such as this on the plywood on the under-construction 6-floor mansion:

[I forget now who sent me this]

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• Welcoming a 7-Eleven to Avenue A

In recent weeks, we've seen signs of opposition against the incoming 7-Eleven on Avenue A and East 11th Street. First, someone carved "Fuck 7-11" into the sidewalk (twice) ... then we saw the anti-7-Eleven stickers ... and now... chalk signage on the sidewalk and crosswalks near the under-construction shop.

Meanwhile, workers are apparently getting testy, yelling at passersby who are taking photos from the very public street...

Construction worker gave me hard time for taking picture of the future 7-11... cc @evgrieve twitter.com/longom/status/…
— matt longobardi (@longom) December 31, 2012

Residents will be meeting again soon to discuss the incoming 7-Eleven. We'll post those details later.

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• New development for East 14th Street

[Click image to enlarge]

As we reported in late November, eight parcels consisting of 222 Avenue A and 504 - 530 E. 14th St. (exclusing No. 520) were leased for a 99-year period by the respective owner to East Village 14 LLC.

As some point this year, we expect to see a few more stores shutter along here (not to mention the Blarney Cove) ... as well as learn just what the new landlord has in store for these eight parcels of land.

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• A new bar-restaurant at the former Holiday Cocktail Lounge

The post-Stefan version of the Holiday Cocktail Lounge closed last Jan. 28. Barbara Sibley, the owner and chef of La Palapa next door, will eventually open a tavern-restaurant that serves staples such as fish-n-chips in the former Holiday space. She has said that she and her team will try to preserve as much of the history as possible.

Several longtime East Village residents have said that they are very optimistic about the new venture; that this will be good for the neighborhood. We're looking forward to seeing what transpires here.

We exchanged Facebook messages with Sibley back in November... she said work has been going slowly. Crews have been renovating the entire building, which Robert Ehrlich, the founder of Pirate Brands, purchased.

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This isn't meant to be any kind of exhaustive list of stories to watch... What are you keeping your eye on here in 2013? Let us know in the comments...

Previously on EV Grieve:
East Village stories to watch in 2013 (Part 1)