[Photo by Edward Arrocha]
The Living Room is on tonight's CB3/SLA committee docket. The Ludlow Street venue — dubbed "NYC's Best Acoustic Listening Room" on their Facebook page — is looking to take over the space on East Second Street that currently houses Klean & Kleaner, the laundromat that has lost its lease and is expected to close very soon.
We've covered all this before. A quick recap:
This potential Living Room move was a topic of conversation during a community meeting back in March. Co-owner Jennifer Gilson attended that meeting, and made her case on why the Living Room would be a good neighbor, such as shows for kids, use of the space for neighborhood fund-raisers and no pub crawls.
However, from the meeting, East Second Street residents said that they are "vehemently opposed to the possibility of The Living Room" in that space for a variety of reasons, including:
• East 2nd Street is a residential side street whose residents include a large number of seniors and families with young children.
• As a residential street, we already endure excessive noise due to late night crowds from the many bars and restaurants already on our block and nearby.
• While we believe The Living Room is a wonderful part of the cultural fabric of New York City, its presence at 173 East 2nd Street will severely and negatively impact our quality of life.
Ahead of tonight's meeting, someone placed these flyers along East Second Street between Avenue A and Avenue B encouraging people to come out against the Living Room's plans tonight ... a reader sent this one from inside his building on that block...
We've also heard from people who very much want to see The Living Room stay in these parts ... instead of being pushed to Brooklyn. The Living Room currently has a lease on Ludlow Street through August, as BoweryBoogie has noted.
Previously.
5 comments:
I love the Living Room, but I'm sick of bars, etc. on these small residential streets. It's just too much.
Weekends are hell.
Why not fight against one of the many new generic bars or restaurants flooding our neighborhood instead? I'd love to have a venue like the Living Room in my backyard. It's houses some great artists and is a respectable establishment. If we keep complaining they'll probably just move to Brooklyn and some other tenant that no one wants will move in anyway. Come on East Village, where's your artistic spirit?
The living room should take over a space that has an existing license. Not sell their liquor license for pfofit and then get a free license at a space that is currently unlicensed. Also, would not like fundraisers for organizations in the area that are actually dead set on gentrifying and upscaling us.
I like the Living Room, but this is just the wrong location. What were they thinking?
173 East 2nd Street is in the middle of a quiet (by East Village standards) residential block which already has retail/restaurants near the corners. Live music venues do not belong mid-block and the space is not zoned for it. We all think the Living Room is great and we want to keep it in our community, we just want to also preserve the quality of life for the residents who live adjacent and across from the space whose lives would become hell if the Living Room moves in. We will happily support them in an appropriate location, just not on a residential block.
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