[Via Wikipedia Commons]
The Pappas family, owners of the St. Marks Hotel, have filed plans to build a 10-story mixed-use building on the hotel's lot at 2 St. Mark’s Place and Third Avenue.
As The Real Deal reported:
According to the building plans, the expanded building would also have retail on the ground floor, in addition to a medical office and other commercial space in the cellar. The hotel would occupy floors two through 10.
And New York Yimby got a look at a rendering.
Brace.
Hjhdjhsjhuu!!!! klsdfsJF;KLSFKJ;K!!!! KLKJASJJIQIOWUIQOWI!
Sorry.
Whoa.
Well, it looks appropriately
New York Yimby notes that John Pappas also owns the Park Savoy Hotel on West 58th Street... and that the new address will also be known as 71 Cooper Square, a long way from its hot-sheet hotel days of the 1970s and 1980s... and likely its current clientele of the hostel set and European tourists.
It was the Valencia until what, the early 1980s?
[From Blast of Silence, circa 1961]
[Photo by Michael Sean Edwards from 1980]
34 comments:
Not a lot makes you actively wish for a bad economic downturn so projects go on the shelf indefinitely...but this one...
I hope the new hotel has hourly rates. It's hard for me and Watson to get any alone time.
Oh. My. God. Seriously? Seriously?!?!?!?!?
6:44 me too! can't imagine daydreaming about going up the steps of the new version....
Blend isn't a word I would use here. Nothing blends. The Death Star, the Sculpture For Failure, Cooper Union, The Standard - they're the architectural equivalent of putting together an outfit with clothing found in a high-end dumpster. The aesthetic of this entire area looks schizophrenic at best. What a mess.
Seriously curious: Does the city have any mechanism for disapproving fugly building plans? Can DoB say "Nuh uh, you aren't putting that ugly thing here?"
After reading about this and then Punjabi Deli I made the mistake of checking out Vanishing New York and find out the Cafe Edison in the Edison Hotel is being evicted. Why dont we just tear down the Empire State Building and start all over again?
3rd and St Marks is going to be absolutely unusable. i didn't think it could get any worse over there. Its a fucking deadly obstacle course trying to get to the subway, even with the diligent man trying to direct traffic. Another value tax we have to pay to the wealthy so they can make more money.
Conspicuously missing from the rendering is the Bagel Cafe pizza place with the tables outside and the sunglass vendors. I'll bet that corner spot will be a giant bank branch when this is finished.
It's a nice rendering -- everything looks better in sepia -- but where are all the people, and traffic?
How can this possibly be legal? Is there no way to change the zoning laws on the Bowery which have unleashed this assault on us? This is a monstrosity in every way and it is the final straw. How can people with access to so much money be so ignorant? How can they not have acquired any sense of good taste or a sense of history, an eye for scale and proportion?
Not typically one to get all worked up about development, but this is horrible. Such an ugly and aggressive building in a prominent location. I've always thought of St Marks @ Astor as the gateway to the East Village. This completely changes the tenor of the neighborhood (not favorably).
Aw Crap!
More rooms for them #%*& white people.
What fresh fuckin' hell is that?
Moving back to NYC in a month or so. Was looking forward to being home. I've been having questions about all the changes (yes - the only constant is change but this shit is SO far off any chart) I've seen and witnessed in this neighborhood during my travels. This disaster (I cannot think of another word more fitting) pretty much tops all others. The Deathstar is just shit, The Bowery is a catastrophe of iDiots, the choice of Taylor Swift caused my head to shake til it almost fell off, Cabrini and I'll stop there for the list just doesn't end.
What the fuck happened? Does anyone have a well thought out explanation? The E.Vil was THE most interesting neighborhood to me for decades. It's why I was drawn here and learned the city from here. I started my careeer in the restaurant business at McSorley's and LOVED the streets around it. Now? I wander them and feel both familiar with them and like I landed on another planet. Where in time did people just say "We're gonna ruin everything and we're gonna do it at breakneck speed!"?
I think it's the greed that has laid plague to everything that is behind all this. It is, without question, the single thing that is destroying the planet and we here see it in our face on a smaller scale. It ain't gonna change. And THAT is the problem. Where do people of the character that made up this unique place and came here to be with others of the same cloth go? Lydia Lunch says Spain is great for artists (that's where she lives now), I've heard Berlin (but it is suffering the same cycle of artists move in, clean up a neighborhood and then all the money prices them out), Portugal is supposedly very welcoming for the likes of what made up the E.Vil years ago. Richard Hell still lives here, David Peel and others but to see this proposed "addition" (destruction) to St. Mark's & Third is almost ALMOST unbelievable. As one said previously - this is also MY gateway to the East Village that I have known for decades. Destroyed because of greed - the greed of someone who already owns another hotel. His right to make money - no doubt - but really - THIS? HERE? C'mon, man - gimme a fuckin' break... Give US a fuckin' break!
Be seein' ya soon - but I truly wonder for how long...
Well, I don't have anything against building up -- we have to. It's the only solution to our housing crisis. But I do have a problem with building butt-ugly shit and anything without at least a 40/60 affordable/market split. And it's tragic and stupid that there's so much unaffordable fugly going up right now.
To all:
Sorry about the long winded post. They are questions and things that have been sitting inside for a long time and I guess this post by Grieve released it. I am truly curious if anyone has answers/thoughts.
Thanks.
Agree with nygrump (10:48 AM) about safety issues... That area gets really busy and congested and the intersection is very unsafe. Every day I see drivers running the light and not yielding. I'm excited about changes to Astor Pl, because they will take out one of the streets I have to cross twice every day, but the intersection of St Marks & 3rd is the main hazard in the area... I'm very concerned about safety once sidewalk sheds go up and pedestrians are redirected into a traffic lane. It will be even more crowded: less space and more stress for all road users. All because someone needs to deface an existing building and make themselves filthy rich on it.
I am one of the EV gentrifiers that people on EVGrieve love to hate sooo much, and this building plan literally almost brought me to tears.
To "seriously curious" at 10:34 - here is the answer to your question: http://bit.ly/1zfbe7Q . (In short, No.)
East Village becoming West Village unfortunately. Just sad.
Quite a bit of squawking for the loss of a stone-cold-ugly building whose ground floor shops are, I believe without exception perhaps I am missing one, the lowest form of garbage for tourists imaginable, along with a pizzeria of the same ilk. On a corner that has been unloveable for at least 15 years, I mean even before the rest of the EV went over the bridge, 3rd and St. Marks was a shithole.
PS on a more personal note, my ex used to live a few doors down, several times when it got unpleasant either with her or her roommates I appreciated the availability of the St Marks as a place to crash for the night till things calmed down in the morning, my own place being in flux at that point. This must have been about 1994, I think the cheapest room was about $35 at the time, bathroom down the hall, and usually dozens of empty crack vials left on the outside window ledge, not sure why they didn't flush them or something.
Anonymous 3:39 - I'm gonna do what I always do in life - say what other people think but don't say... "You're an ass"
Anonymous 3:39 - ...unless you meant it was that terrible. In which case "Never mind"... :)
Video: Architect Robert A.M. Stern: "Buildings should not look like Lady Gaga" http://channel.louisiana.dk/video/robert-am-stern-limestone-jesus
Hey one more PS just occurred to me, I did my part keeping the StMarksHotel in business in more ways then one, back about 1995 or so I did some work as a doorman and bouncer at a club that had different parties / different nights, we had a couple of nights/week that had a "tranny" theme and quite a few of the "girls" were "working", and when they left with their generally VERY "straight" (yeah tell me) and NewJerseyish clients, they were often bringing them to the StMarksHotel to party, though it was not all that close. But the clients were often kind of nervous about the whole deal, and they would ask me since i seemed to be a figure of authority as the doorman/bouncer i guess, on the way out, "is this StMarks safe??" and I would tell them, well I've slept there myself!
Buyer beware, my friend!
Gotta be honest, I'm amazed the Pappas' didn't go for a Standard size monstrosity, something in the 15-20 stories high.
Living on St Marks is like living on an open air strip mall; glad I live in the back of my building.
According to moe:
Quite a bit of squawking for the loss of a stone-cold-ugly building whose ground floor shops are, I believe without exception perhaps I am missing one, the lowest form of garbage for tourists imaginable, along with a pizzeria of the same ilk. On a corner that has been unloveable for at least 15 years, I mean even before the rest of the EV went over the bridge, 3rd and St. Marks was a shithole.
The storefront facing 3rd avenue was called the Mother East Deli, and was the go-to deli for Cooper students when I was first there. Ray's Pizza came in around 1985, maybe.
I was seeing a guy who came up from Virginia, and he stayed briefly in the Valencia [it had already become the St. Mark's Hotel] and at least they had the original woodwork and [blocked-up] fireplaces in the rooms. (For some reason, he distrusted my recommendation that he stay in the Hotel 17—which was also a former flophouse.)
That building is probably circa the early 19th century, and based on the architect's rendering, I'm guessing they're going to tear the whole thing down anyway.
PS on a more personal note, my ex used to live a few doors down, several times when it got unpleasant either with her or her roommates I appreciated the availability of the St Marks as a place to crash for the night till things calmed down in the morning, my own place being in flux at that point. This must have been about 1994, I think the cheapest room was about $35 at the time, bathroom down the hall, and usually dozens of empty crack vials left on the outside window ledge, not sure why they didn't flush them or something.
Good thing they didn't flush them; the plumbing was bad enough as it was. I remember reading about the Valencia in the VOICE in the 80s, and in a quote from someone in the article: "They was throwin' shit out the windows…" because the plumbing was so fucked up.
Bring back the St. Marks Baths. That's all.
Used to be "The Piedmont." Change happens. The neighborhood is dead anyway. There is no East Village, there never has been. Grow up, people. Yes, I'd love it to be NYC 1959, (I was 5) but none of you would fit in there either.
Anon 3:39 what are you talking about? We are all gentrifiers. It's been a topic of conversation forever. My husband got his apartment for himself and others for friends when the landlord told him, in 1983 "find me more white people to move in." I remember debates in the late 80s about the demise of Avenue A due to the arrival of sushi. The question isn't hating gentrifiers, it's what has become if the neighborhood as the result of it has run amuck, and how quickly the change has happened. Landlords have been greedy assholes since the beginning of time, this isn't new either.
And while I'm on the topic, I just watched a video of a man who is shocked that his apartment was robbed via the fire escape. He had no bars! How is anybody surprised by being robbed when you leave the window open in front of a staircase right inside.
Bring back The Five Spot.
- East Villager
Actually, although it's hard to tell from that sketchy rendering, the design looks OK. At least it makes some attempt to fit with the neighboring buildings on Cooper.
- East Villager.
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