The branding is up on the plywood, as Curbed noted, on East Houston between Orchard and Ludlow ... where Ben Shaoul is dropping in an 11-story condoplex with an Equinox Fitness in the retail space.
In total here at 196 Orchard St., there will be 94 units — studios to three-bedroomers ... with pricing starting at just under $1 million and measuring from 555 square feet.
And as BoweryBoogie pointed out yesterday, the sales messaging relies upon next-door neighbor (and air rights seller) Katz's...
Here's another marketing photo via the 196 Orchard teaser site...
[Hey yoo guys — this isn't the Surf Inn!]
And BoweryBoogie brought this up: "How long before these future tenants start bitching about the smells emanating from the kitchen of Katz’s?" The air was resplendent (or whatever) with the delicious smell of pastrami last evening while taking these photos on Orchard. (Note to self: Pastrami-Proof© Windows?) One former resident of The Ludlow wrote some years back how much she won't miss the "smell of pickles from Katz [sic] Deli that I am forced to inhale when walking home every day."
Previously on EV Grieve:
Making way for Ben Shaoul's new retail-residential complex on East Houston
Katz's is now the last business on East Houston between Ludlow and Orchard
How many of The Ludlows and 196 Orchards does it take to totally transform the character of a neighborhood? I say 3. It is kind of sad to see Katz's used so blatantly as a real estate hipster ad campaign icon to attract billionaire's hipster kids to invest in an expensive apartment. On the other hand, kudos for Katz's to survive and hopefully continue to thrive. Just would be nice if development catered to a more middle class client base but it seems like most 80/20 projects it is either super rich or ultra lower class that receive apts. Plus the character of neighborhood through 1st level retail is destroyed because these new projects do not have interesting street level commercial or retail to add to urban steet life, more often it looks like sterile corporate or suburban blank lifeless streetscape. The strip of commercial retail from Ludlow to Orchard may have been a messy hodgepodge but it lent some of character to the nabe and was lower end retail that was affordable. The LES will no longer be The Bargain District.
ReplyDeleteWhat's ironic is they're killing the neighborhood authenticity while using it as hipster yuppie bait.
ReplyDeleteUgh, I hate girls who look like that.
ReplyDelete@7:50am: Exactly!
ReplyDeleteFunny how "hipster" now means just anything we want it to mean. I say lets go back to calling them hippies.
ReplyDeleteONE MILLION DOLLAHS
ReplyDelete=
FIVE HUNDRED FIFTY-FIVE SQUARE FEET
=
(FUCKED IN THE HEAD) FAKE ORGASM
"I WILL NOT have what she is having!"
I have been mourning the death of the LES for year now and maybe when the gut job going on now is finished and nothing of interest (Katz's food never appealed to me) is remaining I will have absolutely no reason to cross Houston again and the torture will be done.
ReplyDeleteThe "hipster" term is long in the tooth and soon now young (rich) person will want to identify with that moniker. The model with her apparent trademarked glare and floppy fashion hat already looks spring 2014.
So those seeking cool or hip I hope you are satisfied with some greasy meat sandwiches from Katz and a $15 cocktail from Mr Purple because that's is what hip means today.
I respectfully disagree. It's not becoming sterile or suburban at all. Does the West Village look like a suburb? Because I'd say that if its turning into anything, it's turning into the West Village. I think the real answer is that its finding its own place, but the West Village would likely be the closest to where it is going.
ReplyDeleteHow is it not authentic? Why is one business authentic and the other not? What does that mean?? As far as whether it is interesting, I live down there (for the record, I am not the son of a billionaire) and find it all quite interesting. Based on the foot traffic, I'd say I'm not alone.
As for whether it is for the super rich or super poor only, well, you don't have to be super rich. The boogeymen trotted out are trust fund kids, but they're actually quite rare. There are 20 units in my condo and I know all of them. There are business owners, doctors, accountants, lawyers and people in IT. They're just regular, hard working people. It's expensive and a lot of people can't do it, but you don't need a Russian oligarch involved. As for the only other part being super poor, well, that's just the way the city and the government does things. I think it would be fairer if working or middle class people stood on equal footing for those units, but that's sadly not the way it works.
Give me a fucking break...
ReplyDeleteOh lordy, I hope the EV/LES does *not* turn into the West Village, which may look pretty on the surface but is actually a soulless desert. I used to love wandering the West Village, turning down small streets and finding bookstores, cafes, and other surprises (such as Chumley's!). There used to even be poetry readings, music, art openings. Now it's just facade with chain restaurants like Au Bon Pain and strings of Marc Jacob stores masquerading as character--hardly any reason to go there at all, unless to just take a walk in the spring and remember how it used to be….
ReplyDeleteI mean Pain Quotidian, not Au Bon Pain. Sorry--hard to tell the difference sometimes!
ReplyDeleteI watched The French Connection the other night. I'm waiting for a copy of Naked City - both from the library. What a treat to see NYC in the 50s, the 70s. Pimps. Prostitutes. Parking lots. Crime. Drugs. Murder. Filth. All of it. God what an honest city. Unabashedly unashamed. Bratton could claim that the city is safer. But the real crime today in committed by business and real estate industries. And they rarely get charged or go to jail.
ReplyDeleteThe the person that thinks Greenwich Village is not completely the suburbs then let me explain what a real (home grown) neighborhood is. It does not lose mom and pop shops to stores found in shopping malls and Madison Avenue. Just because the buildings for the most part have survived they did so because of grass roots preservationist and landmark guardians all of which were non professionals or elected officials. Nothing new will ever come from GV ever again. No poetry, no music, no art but lots of tourists and the very wealthy will live in those townhouses until at least they become unfashionable. I have nothing against rich people, but the patrons of the arts now live in the very buildings where the artist once lived. Do you see the irony?
ReplyDeleteI was in the West Village last night. If the West Village was like a suburb that might be an improvement. West 8th St. is absolutely dead. That corner on 6th Avenue is sad. The stretch between 8th Street and 14th St. is like a dead zone. Most of the old shops are closed . They don't even have a real grocery store anymore, the old one is now being converted to a bank. All they have is a Citarella and another small grocery. Rays pizza is gone. Barnes & Noble is gone. All the local coffee shops are gone. Whole blocks that used to be alive at night are dark. There's really nothing left. As someone else said, it's a soulless desert. If that's what they have in store for the Lower East Side, then maybe it's time to move to the suburbs.
ReplyDeleteKat'z is not blameless here. Remember that they enabled this development by selling air rights to Ben Shaoul. I find it difficult to believe that they couldn't have found a less sleazy developer to sell to.
ReplyDeleteJean Shrimpton, is that you, sweetheart? Wow, you're a long way from Carnaby Street!
ReplyDeleteA desert? Really? Yes, NYC isn't what it was. Yet, nothing is. 8th street has never been a sought out destination. Everyone knows that. People tend to forget cities change and transform all the time. Either learn to embrace the change or leave the city behind you. Adapt or die.
ReplyDeleteA desert is a place which appears to be empty of life, a street in Manhattan which has 50% empty storefronts is pretty much an urban desert. It is now up to the landlords of these buildings to adapt or die.
ReplyDelete"8th street has never been a sought out destination" - wrong. 35 years ago West 8th Street from Broadway-6th Avenue had bookstores, a movie theater, little boutiques like Capezio in the Village (which both David Byrne and Paul Newman used to frequent), sushi and macrobiotic restaurants, Greek diners, ice cream shops, Grey's Papaya, many wonderful shoe emporiums, and oh yeah, Electric Lady Studios (about the only thing still there). It was a vibrant, interesting mix of places to go, an area which over the years has been systematically stripped of everything interesting. Who could have guessed it would be the canary in the coal mine for NYC as a whole?
ReplyDeleteAs long as places like Katz's sell their air rights to the likes of Shaoul we will continue to be overrun. Just for the record Shaoul got the rights for his monstrosity on Avenue A from a local not-for-profit. Shaoul is evil don't get me wrong, but there are people all over this neighborhood doing business with him regardless.
ReplyDelete"8th street has never been a sought out destination."
ReplyDeleteAre you kidding? 8th Street is where I (and everyone I know) went for shoes. I don't know if there's even a single shoe store left now. The street is so dark and boring, I avoid it.
Saying that 8th street was never a sought out destination could only come out of the mouth of someone who got out off the bus from Ohio yesterday.
ReplyDelete8th street is the one street that has always connected the East and West Village. It used to be where you went shopping on Saturday mornings, grabbed a Gray's Papaya, a book at Barnes & Noble, or went to a movie at the 8th St Playhouse on Saturday night.
Crazy Eddie's used to be at the end of it across Sixth Avenue, and then in later years The Wiz. It's where you went to buy a stereo, speakers, or a new TV. Even that corny chain burger joint Johnny Rockets was a big improvement over what came afterwards.
There was the Electric Lady Studios, built by Jimi Hendrix (who lived across the street), used by Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, the Clash.
Then there's the Marlton Hotel at 5 West 8th St. Via NY Songlines:
Jack Kerouac wrote Tristessa here; Lenny Bruce stayed here during his obscenity trial (1964). Ecuadoran President Galo Plaza was born here in 1906 (his father was a diplomat). Valerie Solanas was living here when she shot Andy Warhol. Actors from Lillian Gish and John Barrymore to Julie Andrews and Mickey Rourke have called it home. Buddy Holly lived across the street, as did Robert Mapplethorpe.
Those days when 8th Street was a destination may be gone, but they are not forgotten
Ok. 35 years ago 8th street was hot shit. You got us. After that searing correction about Presidente Plaza's birth 115 years ago, I think we have no choice to concede defeat.
ReplyDeleteBut riddle me this, stores are dark at night in Greenwich village and that's soulless. Stores (mostly non-chain boutiques) open up in the Lower East Side and it's soulless. Bars and street food places are up all night in the East Village, and that's soulless. Suburbs (where you actually are most likely to find mom and pop businesses) are soulless. Chain stores are soulless--unless they were 80s chains like the Wiz or Crazy Eddie's.
Is it just that everything is soulless because it's not your day in the sun anymore? I understand Axl and Slash finally patched things up recently, but absent a Mr T vs Gorbachev boxing match with a really good training montage promo to a new Billy Idol song, the 80s aren't actually coming back. If you are able to arrange that, I will arrange to get myself appointed ambassador of the younger than 45 population and will present you with a certificate that yes indeed soul was born in the 70s but died when the 80s ended provided that you get Hulk Hogan to work security for the ceremony.
@6:04 A little history lesson was an order because when people pull ridiculous crap out of their favorite orifice it's time to set the record straight. And intentionally or not you're completely missing the point: 8th street was for decades a center of downtown Manhattan. It's only in recent years that it' has become a dead zone. For all of it's faults, the East Village is so much more alive now than most of the West Village. Just go over there and count the number of empty storefronts, and places that are closed that night, and tell me that isn't dead.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Nevada for twenty years. That my friend is the desert. Barren. Ugly. Brown. Empty. Lonely. Absolutely no one around. Just cars passing by with sagebrush blowing in fields with no water in sight. Casinos, buffets, and brothels are their rendition of culture. NYC isn't the desert that some on this platform claim. I've been in Manhattan for fifteen years. Yes, NYC isn't what it is, but then again what is? I am tired of others lamenting their anguish and sadness when good things are happening. There are buildings, people, cars, restaurants, bars, and stores everywhere in NYC, which is why I love it here. The diversity. The openness. Culture. Choices. Acceptance of different lifestyles. Opportunity. The village in NYC isn't a desert. This is life. And it is inspiring and ever changing.
ReplyDeleteThe comedian at 6:04 is on a site named EV Grieve complaining about people who are grieving about the disappearance of another yet beloved part of the Village. Now that is pure comedy gold.
ReplyDeleteORANGE JULIUS !!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI totally concur with what Giovanni said on January 7, 2016 at 7:20 PM That used to be a very vibrant place.
ReplyDeleteThis will not harm the LES as much as the SPURA project which will see multiple 20+ story, sterile structures that include a whole plethora of chain stores. These classic government designed facilities include the outdated, cookie cutter movie cinema / bowling lane concepts and are going to cause way more harm to the "mom and pop" low-rise neighborhood. "Contextual design" was supposed to apply to the entire neighborhood, not just the private buildings. The hypocritical local government officials should be ashamed of their two faced policy.
ReplyDelete