For years now there has been talk of doing something with the derelict community space in the Christodora House on Avenue B.
There were plans 10 years ago to turn the space into residential units, but the Christodora House board reportedly eventually withdrew the application to receive a zoning variance. (The pool, gym and other adjacent rooms are zoned for community use.)
In any event, the gym and pool area arrived for sale yesterday at Massey Knakal. Here is the listing:
Located on the northeast corner of Avenue B and East 9th Street, the subject property consists of 2 community facility condominium units located on the ground floor and lower level of 143 Avenue B a/k/a the Christodora House. The ground floor unit was a former gymnasium with ceiling heights of approximately 22'. There is a small outdoor terrace to the north and two doors on East 9th Street that have been boarded up. Both doors could be reopened and collectively serve as an exclusive entrance for the two units. The lower level is a former pool and could either be put to use or filled in for an alternative use. The two units have a 501C filing status (Not-for-profit) and are therefore restricted to community facility use only. The building sits directly across from Tompkins Square Park and adjacent to the former Public School 64 which closed a number of years ago and is currently being converted into a mixed-purpose building including dormitories for the Joffrey Ballet School and Cooper Union.
Price: $2.5 million.
For starters, the former PS 64 and CHARAS/El Bohio community center is NOT "currently being converted into a mixed-purpose building." That is developer Gregg Singer's wish. The city has yet to approve any of those plans.
As for the gym and pool…
Here is the pool as it looked in 1928 … via the Collections of the Museum of the City of New York.
… and here are photos that we happened to have of the pool and gym taken much more recently…
Scoopy at The Villager got a look at pool back in 2008. Here's part of his description: "It was 8 feet deep at one end and sloped up from the center to a shallow depth at the other end. From the looks of it, it hadn’t been used for 50 years."
13 comments:
how are they going to get $2.5 million from somebody - to use it for "community use"...whoever buys it would have to charge the members of the surrounding "community" a steep fee to use it...yes...?...I mean - the pool, etc. would never be offered as free access to the neighborhood...unless, of course, the community that they have in mind is from far beyond the local area...(I live just down the street at 614 E 9...)
if I were rich I'd buy that thing today and we'd all be swimming in it tomorrow
Christodora was one of the first gentrifiers, and the deal was back then that this would be donated to the community. Someone should look into that to see if there was a rider put into the sale by the community board. #2.5 mil, indeed.
I'm too much of a cynic to believe that anyone who buys this will do so with benefiting the public in mind.
I'm also a cynic (when it comes to gentrifiers' real estate scams, anyway)
I am 90% sure this is a ploy to say "see we offered it to community groups and nobody wanted it" "Now we need a zoning variance so we can sell it for retail / condo use"
What kind of neighborhood Org has $2.5M to buy, plus another $1M to refurb that space? None.
Perhaps there is a restrictive covenant in the deed that not only provides for community use only but also disallows the sale of the gym and pool for a profit. This SHOULD be looked into.
As the gym and pool areas cost the current owners of the Christodora NOTHING, having come with the building, it seems obscene for its board members to seek a $2.5 million windfall, esp. since they've allowed the gym and pool to disintegrate since they acquired the building in the late 1980s....
Hmm. Looked at that space 2 years ago. It was 1 million then. Haha!
Anonymous 11:49 said...
Christodora was one of the first gentrifiers, and the deal was back then that this would be donated to the community. Someone should look into that to see if there was a rider put into the sale by the community board. #2.5 mil, indeed.
The Christodora House was originally a settlement house; it's rumored that George Gershwin gave his first public recital there. By "back then" do you mean back in 1930, or a later date?
Maybe Michael Rosen or one of the community-minded residents there will buy it to give back to the community…we can dream.
That pool looks haunted as hell! No way would I ever swim in that.
@Scuba Dive, Anon. 11:49 was referring to the first time the Christadora was sold by the city (in 1975, for the whopping sum of $62,500.00 for the entire building, by the way); it was dormant for a while but starting in the mid-80s started a flipping process that was so rapid and so often it made anyone trying to keep up dizzy. Here is an article from a 2005 Village Voice on just this issue:
http://thevillager.com/villager_119/onavebtryingto.html
Remember during the Tompkins Square Park riots in 88 the self-styled anarchists gathered outside the Christadora chanting "Die Yuppie Scum" and smashed in the front doors with a saw horse and invaded the lobby. The Black Panthers were there for a short spell in the 60s. A lot of history to that building.
Maybe the Y or Henry St. Settlement or Boys Club or 10th St. could take over those community spaces. Need to get the CB and local pols involved to make sure it isn't privatized, and that it serves the community.
It is unlikely that the pool will ever be put to use because (1) it no longer meets NYC DOB regs, (2) the off-gassing and humidity caused by an underground pool would substantially damage the units above, and (3) it would cost millions. Literally...the condo looked into it years ago.
"...the deal was back then that this would be donated to the community." There was never any such deal. Jeez, get over it.
"...we offered it to community groups...now we need a zoning variance." No, that's not how the process works. The DOB requires 5 criteria for a variance. It's a pretty difficult process.
"...make sure it isn't privatized, and that it serves the community." See the above. It will serve the community as defined in the zoning regs, which are pretty broad.
PS:
"the gym and pool areas cost the current owners of the Christodora NOTHING."
Except real estate taxes. You can look it up on ACRIS. I believe it's about $30k a year. Not exactly peanuts.
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