Workers yesterday removed the plywood from the ground-floor space at 154 Second Ave. … now finally providing a full view of the former Sigmund Schwartz Gramercy Park Chapel.
Icon Realty and architect Ramy Isaac added three extra floors here for luxury rentals… with ground-floor retail that's still on the market (the rate is negotiable, according to the Icon website)…
The demolition work here started back in April 2012.
As we've posted before, here's how the building looked in the summer of 2011…
Here's what the address looked like in the 1940s, via Vanishing New York...
And here is the rendering …
Sill no word yet on pricing for the units.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Former funeral home looks to double in size with help from 'the controversial penthouse king of the East Village'
Redeveloped funeral home looking for a few live retail tenants
The walls come tumbling down at 154 Second Avenue
10 comments:
The new building is nice. It conforms to the neighboring buildings but nothing can have the charm of the original building that stood there.
That photo from the 40s, wow! What a beut.
Agree, this could have been another glass and steel number or one of those ugly purple brick clad things with glass Juliette balconies. Icon is a nightmare but at least there is some respect to the look of the neighborhood in building like this one.
The old design was good itself, but this new structure is beautiful. A fine addition to the street.
- East Villager
I'm starting to see what it is. It's not the glass/brick/color/etc. -- it's the absence of fire escapes that cause people's veins to pop out!
If the devil himself were the developer would you say "oh it looks nice" - c'mon people who cares what it looks like - this is Icon - one of the developers destroying our community and making the lives of our neighbors miserable. Looks like sh**t to me.
Ditto @Anonymous 2:01
Looking at the B&W foto, I wonder how much of NYC was cobblestones even up to the 40's... and was 2nd Avenue both ways or was it northbound then... or maybe parking was more laxed back then [park any direction you want]
I hope the developer saved those 150/154 signs, a slight better touch of class to a decent looking building.
Yeah - the "developers" are scumbags but AT LEAST they put up a building that blends in, gives a nod to the neighborhood and doesn't look like a giant aquarium like most new buildings. I say - good one but stop screwing people over in rents, kicking people out and being a blight.
Nice on the outside, rotten on the inside. Same landlord housing the 4 bedroom frat house with dj roof parties.
@4:39 PM: I don't know about NYC as a whole (and I wasn't around in the 40's), but I know that Second Avenue was still cobblestone below 14th Street through the 1970's. I don't remember what year they finally paved over the cobblestones on 2nd Ave. in this area, but I bet other commenters here will know!
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