It appears that the 15-plus years of stalled development at the former PS 64 and CHARAS/El Bohio community center might be nearing an end.
On Friday, the city (partially) approved developer Gregg Singer's controversial dorm-conversion plan for the landmarked building at 605 E. Ninth St. between Avenue B and Avenue C, per DOB records.
Per previous reports, both The Joffrey Ballet School and Cooper Union have signed on to house its students at what will be called University House.
Here's a breakdown on the leasing, according to the University House website:
Ground Floor — 50 Beds leased to Joffrey Ballet School
First Floor — 82 Beds leased to Joffrey Ballet School
Second Floor — 98 Beds leased to Cooper Union
Third Floor — 98 Beds leased to Cooper Union
Fourth Floor — 98 Beds available for lease
Fifth Floor with Mezzanine — 109 Beds available for lease
Here's more on the dorm from the website:
University House is an exciting new state of the art college living experience with a grand opening for the 2016/17 school year in the heart of the East Village. The redevelopment and historic restoration of this century old landmark, former New York City elementary school, will be transformed into a modern, amenity-rich home designed, built and managed for 535 students for New York's participating colleges and universities. Ideal for all students with safety and amenities as the top priorities.
According to DOB documents, the cost of the renovation/conversion of the landmarked building is $16 million.
The site has long been a community focal point, in which residents fought against Singer's various development plans, which included a megadorm that would have dwarfed its Christodora House neighbor.
And just last week this banner arrived on the East 10th Street side of the building…
Preservation groups and some local residents wanted to see the building returned for community use.
Singer bought the building from the city in 1998.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Rebranded P.S. 64 up for grabs: Please welcome University House at Tompkins Square Park to the neighborhood
Deed for 'community facility use only' at the former P.S. 64 now on the market
Efforts continue to fight the dorm planned for the former PS 64 on East 9th Street
Testimony Of Councilmember Rosie Mendez regarding the former PS 64
[Updated] At the 'Save Our Community Center MARCH AND RALLY'
Landmarks Preservation Commission asks to see modified plans for former PS 64
The Landmarks Preservation Commission approves application for modifications at PS 64
53 comments:
Just what the East Village needs I'd more students. Is this a neighborhood or a college campus? Enough is enough. And for what? Mounds of student loans that'll have these kids living with their parents for the next 20 years.
DeBlasio should step in and claim this building for part of his effort to build affordable housing, instead of building it on the community gardens. (Wait and see. There's no zoning category for "community garden" -- HPD lists them as "vacant lots".
After all this time perhaps restoring it to it's original purpose desires consideration.A middle school operated by a not for profit charter school?
I hope part of the agreement is to restore the fantastic details which were ripped from the dormers on the north side to remove any chance of landmarking this Beaux Arts building. Most of those schools are NOT NYU which apparently has the most entitled of this generations students. However 200 spots are up for grabs so here come the bros. I live a couple of blocks from this building and an not excited about the prospect of 500 more students roaming the streets at night drunk but the city see's the EV as a mini Boston or a depository of other people's children.
Mini fucking Boston, (I fucking hate Boston!) is exactly what's going on in the EV. Fucking bros with their hollister outfits and baseball caps, oxfords and douche-bad aviators. I fucking loathed these pricks in high school in the early 80's - which is why I moved to NYC - to be around interesting and fucked up people like me. Now these bro-holes are here?!?!? WTF? And before anyone accuse me of judging a book.....fuck you...these cretins and their fem equivalents have been an established phenomenon of affluent suburbia and it's homogenous suck, for decades. They are a known and fucking loathed quantity. Ruining a bastion of ideas, innovation, exploration, and freedom - fuck em.
oh my gos. amenity-rich home ... for 535 students for New York's participating colleges and universities. Ideal for all students with safety and amenities as the top priorities.
what about the safety of the residents that now live with inconsiderate, loud, drunk, etc. etc. students and bridge-and-tunnel visitors. does that take us to a ratio of 10 of them to one of us. we are doomed to bars, banks and expensive fast food.
isn't there something about preventing over saturation of negative facilities in a neighborhood?
wah wah wah...at least the building will no longer be an eye sore
better then sitting there empty and gross...this is a good thing that its finally going to get cleaned up
I live a block from this building, so tell me about it. Unfortunately, Landmarks doesn't care about the specific use for this building, as long as it won't be a brothel—and who's to say some of the students won't want to work part time?
Seriously, one of the main concerns of the Landmarks preservation commission is that it be used to prevent it from falling into disrepair, so I'm sure they're glad to have it become a dorm. Unfortunately, a dorm is home to transient students, and can never be a true community facility. Oh well.
I guarantee at least one college student who lives in this dorm will leap or fall to his or her death from the roof or a window, and I'm not being sarcastic or hopeful about that.
As much as I loathe the behavior of college students in the EV (to loathe the actual college students is to let them get the best of me), I don't see this dorm being another Animal House because most of the students will be non-NYU, engineering, and ballet students.
As for the 207 beds available for lease,why not alert other colleges and universities besides NYU of this dorm so as little NYU students as possible take the beds? Contact the off-campus student housing offices of Pace, St.John's, Columbia, Fordham, Yeshiva, and Long Island University; City, Baruch, Hunter, Brooklyn, and York Colleges; School Of Visual Arts, The New School, Pratt Institute. That's fourteen colleges right there, sixteen if more Cooper Union and ballet students can get the available beds. If 13 students from each school leased beds, that's ZERO NYU students in this dorm, and remember: the religious school and the CUNYs don't take shit because notice how you never hear about bad behavior from those schools in the press.
'Just an idea, something to think about. Email all the off-campus housing offices this article and I'm sure they'll make a note of it.
Fashion By He is happy that he will have more co-eds to take photos of from behind for his website
That's just great, looks like SantaCon has found a new headquarters. Maybe we should just get it over with right now and rename TSP Tompkins Students Park.
They should probably just rent out the top 2 floors to StuyTown residents since they are already used to living in a beer-drenched college dorm.
I suggest they put in an indoor mall with a 7-11, Starbucks, IHOP, Walgreens (and of course a 13th Step) and save the remaining stores in the area for the people who actually live in the neighborhood.
per Anon @9:43 Cooper Union and Joffrey students are indeed a different kettle of fish than what the NYU student body has become. Not to throw aspersions on all NYU students but as the schools popularity has grown so has the entitled behavior of too many of its students. If SVA would be interested in some of those other beds, perhaps the best of a bad situation can be had.
We can only hope that if this dorm happens whatever students arrive will help interject some interesting cultural energy into the neighborhood. What they won't contribute is permanence or care about neighborhood institutions. That's the rub. Unavoidably, the neighborhood becomes the background for students transient experience. The mini Boston metaphor is distressingly apt. If this comes to pass we've just got to hope it's the best of that vibe, not the worst.
This sounds very much like an upscale homeless shelter with the large number of "beds" on each floor. Anyway get ready for changes to the whole area around it because this shelter will add a heck of a lot of new customers with money to spend to the block.
God so horrible.college kids-what the city needs beds for are homeleas folks - but I'm sure y'all wouldn't want that either-
Wow there are a lot of ways at looking at this depending if you are a glass half empty or full person. An architectural historical gem this building is gets a new lease on life. A lot of students (many of which are hopefully not complete idiots) will get a place to live. The building will not be a glass and steel tower for the super rich which would encourage only more super gentrification in the EV. Many people have stated the worst case scenario already for the glass half empty. This building was never going to be "returned to the community" unless the community could find grants and money to buy it and maintain it which was impossible. There are worst things happening in the EV than this building's conversion and I hope people put their energy into fighting for restricting corporate chain stores from taking over the neighborhood. We need to fight against bars and restaurants which have storefronts which are completely open to the street spilling loud music and louder clients out all day and into the evenings. We need to restrict roof top parties in rentals, and get rid of fucking santa-con.
9:04 AM -- I like your style. Great and accurate post.
I would think at least the ballet students would behave themselves but the rest who knows. I still fail to see how a dorm meets 'community use'. Sure some students may now afford to live here but the general community does not have access.
I'm sure the residents of the Christodora House are thrilled... Sell NOW as your property values plummet!
We need this as much as we need four more 13th Steps....
I hope they at least build in the kiddie pools so that the Hollister Bros and Selfie Sorostitutes don't have to buy their own:
Elite Dartmouth University fraternity pledges were ordered to swim through a kiddie pool filled with urine, feces and vomit in their boxer shorts, according to a new book that reveals the seamy side of Greek life.
In “Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy,” whistleblower Andrew Lohse reports that wallowing in the pool of human waste was only one of the disgusting or dangerous hazing rituals he and others were subjected to as Sigma Alpha Epsilon pledges in 2009.
Binge drinking was formalized in a game known as Doming. Described as “a Dartmouth tradition,” two students face off chugging beers at five- or 10-second intervals. The winner vomits on the loser’s head.
Lohse, who arrived at Dartmouth as an A student from Branchville, N.J., depicts a debauched life that makes “Animal House” seem decorous by comparison.
He claims that cocaine use was widespread at the SAE house on the Hanover, N.H., campus, describing one night when there was a competition as to whose credit card would be used to chop the blow. The member with the highest maximum, high five figures, won.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/dartmouth-frat-pledges-swam-filth-book-article-1.1906125
"Fucking bros with their hollister outfits and baseball caps, oxfords and douche-bad aviators...and their fem equivalents"
Unfortunately the businesses, esp. the bars, boy especially the bars, the "eateries", "coffee shops" (in quotations because they're really bars) that open in the EV cater to these bro-hole and brohos.
Oh goodie, more fresh men.
Will there be a Costa or Starbucks on site that would be a quick coffee fix ....
I think all parties should begin taking more responsibility for students' behavior. A) the community can reach out more to get students involved in real local stuff, and inculcate them in local culture: SHOW THEM how to contribute and not be a liability. B)university administrations need to embrace this too. C) so do students. Let's stop complaining and start acting!
Remember, "town/gown" relationships in EVERY college town are difficult. Aren't there some best practices out there we can learn from?
(Don't worry, jaded EVG-ers...this is all IN ADDITION TO burning drunk bros at the stake.)
So just where is the COMMUNITY CENTER going to be located?
What is missing in the gripe--and I agree, we are dorm-ed out as a neighborhood! -- is what could be done to restore some community-based center to the EV...
East Village elected officials. #fail
I am hopeful that the students from the ballet school will not run wild with the partying. They have to take care of themselves if they dance. So that is a relief. I am also hopeful that the Cooper Union students will prove themselves to be a cut way above the NYU students. The Cooper Union kids I have met are pretty smart and together. Still, I wish this building wasn't being converted into a giant dorm. This would have been the perfect location for affordable housing for the people who are getting priced out of the East Village.
Young people are very susceptible to peer pressure, a lot of these kids think they are in a some extension of high school so they fit in by getting a stupid tattoo which they will regret in a couple of years, binge drink, etc... The weak always follow the pack, just look at them in the evenings herding from one bar to the next. You cannot tell them anything they are our problem and their parents just dumped them on us.
NYU dorm price http://www.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu/resLifeHousServ/documents/AY20132014_Rates.pdf.
With those prices, no wonder why they feel so entitled in throwing tantrums and being brats.
What a waste. Would have been perfect for Artists in Residence with gallery and performance space. The students have ruined this neighborhood. Although I would take the Cooper kids or NYU any day. The EV is now nothing more than half college town half Disney theme village for the tourists with some local color hold up in stabilized apts while they last. Hate to say it but I'm leaving. Hit the apt lotto an managed to get a huge 1 bdrm 2 bath stabilized unit in lenox hill. Not excited to be in Midtown/uptown but will be saving thousands a month in rent and unfortunately the EV is a mere shadow of it's former self with way to many posers who haven't realized that just moving to a (formerly) hip neighbor hood does not make you hip. With cheaper rents larger spaces and a lack of bro's as one person called them Uptown is the new Downtown. Hope to see you all up here. Time to stake out some new territory. Look out George and Weezie.
Let me try again- I was trying to say that when the mayor wants affordable housing its not for folks priced out of the east village. It for those staying in shelters who need permanent housing. I tried to point out how those who claim to be progressive would more than likely not be receptive to this type of housing and how hypocritical they are. If the racial subtext makes you uncomfortable I am sorry. is this phrased better? and anon at 3:29 you are a classic gentrifier. Im sure the locals will welcome you with open arms.
Fashion By Meh, the new SMDPSHT.
“both The Joffrey Ballet School and”
This will be some MAJOR smoking going down at the front of entrance to this dorm.
Don't they have enough dorms in Hoboken?
when I first arrived on East Ninth Street...this old school building - directly across the street from my pad - was a deserted shell in a rather edgy area...but I'm now able to sleep tight at night...the affluent kids of suburbia will now frolic to and fro...as they shield their gaze from my decaying carcass...while pursuing their future dreams in what is now being labelled a dorm space, but, of course, will surely become a multi-million dollar condo deal...for Wall Street investors...?
If they put in a roof deck this place will have the biggest roof rages in town!
I don't care if they are ballet dancers, I saw the movie Black Swan, and ballet dancers can party just as hard as an NYU freshman on extra-strength Molly.
Fran Lebowitz in an interview said that Manhattan was never supposed to be, and should not be, a college campus. And she's right. Cities are not college campuses. They have an entirely different dynamic, which is why, as Fran said, college campuses should be built on the outskirts or where there's lots of sprawl. College life is by no means reality. Real-life starts when you get a job and are able to support yourself. That's when you move to a city and assimilate with the locals. College students have no idea how to do that. And why should they or even care? They aren't paying for their residence. That's why the EV is nothing but obnoxious drunks now. All theses dorms have definitely ruined the area. As someone else mentioned here, The EV is now just a shell of it's former self, and saying it's still "cool" doesn't make it so. I got out and am so glad I did. It wasn't an easy decision either, as I formerly loved the neighborhood…… before it was ruined.
@9:43 AM Sadly you are correct, and the first NYU student suicide has just happened,a med student jumped to his death yesterday from Vilcek Hall, an NYU dorm in Kips Bay.
http://nypost.com/2014/08/18/nyu-medical-grad-jumps-to-his-death-from-dorm-roof/
I've lived in sight of the building for 38 years. For a short time it was a community center (Charas) that served the needs of a constituency that can no longer afford the neighborhood and has been forced out. For the past ten years it has been a hostel for pigeons who shelter in the building through its broken windows. I've been waiting in dread for an arson fire to light up the night sky. Preserving the landmark building for students is certainly better than building a tower at the site as developer Singer once proposed.
I agree with kopp above. we should try to think long term, this building will be around hopefully many years to come and nothing new at this spot would be an aesthetic improvement. If we can't preserve our way of like at least we can leave our historical buildings to future generations.
In the past few years the area around Tompkins square is awash with beautiful, mostly white middle-class infants born to the new residents in the formerly depressed housing. Would it be too rational to use the building for a public school? Just a thought.
As StuyTown has learned it's not just the 535 students, its all the extra traffic they bring with them from their busy social lives. Each student will bring in an additional o 3-4 friends who come to visit regularly, plus family members, for a total of 2000+ additional people on this formerly nice quiet block. Eventually these dorms are converted to condos which at least are quiet since so few people live in them.
Ugh, that sucks.
Then again, at least it's not an NYU dorm or another residential place for yuppies and frat types. Cooper Union students are much more tolerable.
The real problem is that there is nothing preventing this from being a "dorm" for a few years and then, after the leases are up with the colleges, it being converted to high price condos or some such.
God I wish I could move
Wow - what a sea of cynical condescending comments on college age citizens. No pleasing the whiners. I'm glad the building will be restored and used.
Some of you keep referring to people being forced out. The reality is a lot of whiners here are only aggrieved because they thought they got over by scoring a lifetime of stabilized rent and now they can't move. Call whine one one then. You come across as entitled and pathetic. Who cares about Fran Lebowitz and her opinion? You can't afford to move so the neighborhood has to cater to you? Sorry. You don't own the ev or NYC. Some could argue a city is a great campus .
EV really has disproportionate # of dorms. Note: dorms, not students.
It was a bit different when students moved into buildings -- more of a "fabric of the neighborhood" feeling, meeting neighbors of different ages and backgrounds, creating a community.
Maybe times are changing, and maybe many existing residents will move away.
But telling people to just be quiet really isn't helping things.
Some of the behavior that impacts all residents is born of a mentality where anything goes.
Moreover, with so many new bars, the Thurs-Sun. influx of people to the neighborhood is at an all time high, creating another set of issues.
There is an attitude on the streets that was never a part of this neighborhood.
@6:32, There's no arguing w/someone like you. Do you work on Wall St. or belong to a fraternity? Your comment suggests that type of mentality. Also who's whining? These are facts about what is really happening to the area. Did you save up to pay your own way here or did mommy and daddy help you?
As someone who works in the area of theis building, I am glad it will be cleaned up and be put to use. the incoming college kids are just that, kids. The hate many express is sickening and unconstructive. Let's work together to help others and make the EV a better place to live for everyone. NYU, kids, having a glass of wine or a cocktail with dinner is not going away and never will. Let's focus our energy on helping others and the community we all want to live in will appear.
Too bad the previous "community center" ran an enormous former public school building as a clubhouse for their friends and a huge pigeon coop. A "community center" shouldn't stand mostly vacant for a decade plus. The 23 story skyscraper plan was stopped and now the scaffold areas will stop being a drunken junkie theme park and no-scoop dog poop zone. Honestly what did people expect? DiBlasio to wave his hand and make it 1989 without the crackheads? The East Village has been over since at least the late 90s. It's 2014. Students? Why not? Or are millionaire condo buyers "edgier".
Joffrey students are mostly high school age and must have adults living on the floor. Ballet students are the quietest students out there. They are too busy and too tired to get into trouble.
There is almost no housing except for the School of American Ballet dorm for the many dance students who study in NYC. This is affordable housing for the people in the arts who make NYC a cultural magnet for the world.
Joaquin at 11:55 AM said:
"Cooper Union students are much more tolerable."
Ha, ha, ha—I guess you've never been to a Cooper Union frat party?
—Cooper grad here
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