Two East 2nd St. buildings sell for $17.5 million; will new owner still honor Allen Ginsburg?

[Via Massey-Knakal]

Two buildings on East Second Street between Avenue A and Avenue B — No. 170-172 and 174 — have been sold for $17.5 million. (The buildings hit the market in July 2012 for $16.5 million.)

There's no word on the new owners, per BuzzBuzzHome, who reported on the deal yesterday.

Combined, the buildings contain a total of four ground-floor retail spaces and 43 apartments. The original listing noted that No. 174 has nearly 3,600 square feet of air rights available.

As you may know, Allen Ginsberg lived in apartment 16 at No. 170 from August 1958-March 1961 ... one of the many places he lived in the East Village until his death in 1997

In a Habitats feature from August 2000, The New York Times ran a feature on the apartment where Ginsberg wrote "Kaddish" — "a mournful elegy for his mother, Naomi, that is considered one of his best works."

(New York Songlines also noted that Ginsberg edited "Naked Lunch" while living here... as well as "where Ginsberg and Timothy Leary began planning the psychedelic revolution.")

As the Times said of this block, "Not long ago, this was major drug territory, and landlords had to defend their turf assiduously; now it is being infiltrated by students from New York University."

The Times reported that two NYU students were living in the two-bedroom apartment, paying $2,000 a month in rent.

To the article:

When the plaque went up on the East Village building saying that it was where Allen Ginsberg once lived, the two young men who now occupy the poet's old apartment had only this to say:

Who was he?

Perhaps the new owners will see fit to leave this up outside No. 170...