Plans are in the works to redevelop the three-building assemblage on the northeast corner of Third Avenue and St. Mark's Place.
According to The Real Deal:
[Real Estate Equities Corporation REEC], led by Brandon Miller and Mark Siegel, is planning to demolish the existing low-rise buildings at 3 St. Mark’s Place, 23 and 25-27 Third Avenue to make way for one new property. Plans call for a seven-story, 66,000-square-foot office building, including 6,000 square feet of corner retail.
That will mean the end of the businesses along here, including the Continental, Korilla BBQ, E Smoke Shop and Papaya King. (The former McDonald's structure is also part of the new development.)
REEC picked up the 99-year leasehold for the properties for a little more than $150 million, per The Real Deal.
In June 2015, The Real Deal reported that real-estate investor Arthur Shapolsky was in contract to buy the corner buildings for roughly $50 million.
However, Joseph Gabay, whose family owns the properties, told me this past June that they had not been sold despite the continued rumors.
That situation has apparently changed. Gabay did not respond to an email to confirm this deal.
As of last evening, there weren't any new permits on file with the Department of Buildings indicating any new work on the properties. There isn't any word just yet on a timeline for the businesses to close.
The development will likely fuel more talk of the Midtown Southification of this part of the neighborhood with 51 Astor Place/IBM Watson Building/Death Star right across the Avenue.
Previously on EV Grieve:
The Shake Shack effect? McDonald's on 3rd Avenue at St. Mark's Place has closed after 20 years
Report: Northeast corner of St. Mark's Place and 3rd Ave. fetching $50 million for development site
This just shows how bad it's gotten, when the thought of a 7-story office building makes me think, "Well, that's not so bad, it could have been a lot worse". Small comfort.
ReplyDeleteAt least a seven story building is in context with the zoning. The tower just north of the site is woeful. The other upside is jobs. With all of the radical upzoning for housing with a smattering of middle class affordable units attached I have wondered why office/commercial has not come into play in areas outside of midtown.
ReplyDeleteIt's so depressing.
ReplyDeleteI miss the parking lot on Astor Place, where the guys used to sell old magazines and stolen clock radios. And St. Marks pizza.
I guess St. Marks is done. Some would say it already is. Not long before it becomes of street of chain stores.
Which building was Coney Island High???
ReplyDeletemiddle of st. mark's, not part of this. the continental holds some good memories for me, though, including the last time i saw johnny thunders play.
Deleteconey was down the street across from st.marks sounds which was 20 saint marks.
DeleteTerrible. All the character being bulldozed for generic buildings and corporate businesses that drive wages to the bottom.
ReplyDeleteI know the devotion to Korilla, but they will find another location (I found a falling off in the quality several months ago). Good riddance to Continental and to that corner smoke shop that barely carries newspapers. I await the posters here who will lament these business. Good luck trying.
ReplyDeleteI've wondered how Papaya King stays in business. I am on St Marks Place a couple of times a week late afternoon or about 9 PM and I never see anyone in there. Well, there'll none of them be missed.
ReplyDeletesquaresville
ReplyDeleteI'm not in love with those places on that corner, but, who is going to occupy these offices? The Death Star isn't full. There's space in the Wannamaker's Building (Kmart). For example.
ReplyDeleteDo we really need more 3D savings bonds that are going to sit mostly empty?
this is obv because korilla cheated on the great food truck race
ReplyDeleteWow! end of an Era for the Continental.
ReplyDeleteThis corner has died a thousand deaths. It started when St Marks Pizza closed, the DJ who sold mix tapes and blasted music was pushed out, the old newsstand turned into a smoke shop, and it ended when St Marks Books finally closed. Between those four spots you could get all your party music, browse the latest magazines, pick up the newspaper and a lotto ticket and some candy or gum, find a few great books and have a decent meal. St Marks Pizza had the best brocolli slice in town, it was slightly charred to bring out the flavor. All their toppings were either grilled or sautéed, as opposed to other pizzerias that thow the toppings on raw. And Papaya King is a NY institution, so of course it has to go too. Hot dogs have never really worked on St Marks Place, not even Japadog with their gigantic dogs and zesty asia toppings could survive. At least we have Mamoun’s.
ReplyDeleteI still consider this corner part of the entrance to the East VIllage, and having an office building with some big chain store just isn't the same as all the quirky vendors and local shops that will be put out of business. Do we really need another Duane Reade or Danny Meyer chain on that corner? Now we will have more places here like Martina, with the cardboard thin crust, barely any flavor and pizzas that get ice cold while you eat them. You can pair your $9 pizza with a $49 dollar bottle of champagne. What a bargain. And they don’t take cash. Or Shake Shack, which also doesn't accept cash becase Danny Meyer doesn't care about cash anymore, just stock prices. I looked in at the crowd in the new Death Star Shake Shack and they all looked like tourists, or NYU grad students. All intently photographing and then consuming their precious little burgers. Bor-ring.
I want John Spacely back
ReplyDeleteYes
DeleteSaying "good riddance" to the continental is perfectly understandable if you're talking about the awful 10 shots for $2 place, but I spent my teenage years seeing awesome shows there when they still had music. Devil Dogs on New Years Eve. DGeneration and the LES Stitches. Avail. The Waldos playing LAMF all the way through. I'll always miss that place.
ReplyDeleteAlso Coney was on St Marks, where the Jebon Noodles place is now, whoever asked.
Once Mickey Ds closed I knew that the end was nigh. The SE corner will be the next to go. All of 3rd/Bowery is changing right before our eyes. It will be a corporate/chain mecca for the EV. And you can throw in hotels too.
ReplyDeleteEver since Trigger installed plasma TVs and stopped showing live bands, and especially when DJ Lenny M left, that corner, block, and its surroundings have gone to shite, so do St. Mark's, EV, and NYC. Do not underestimate the power of the dark real estate and gentrification force. Progress! Change! Embrace the change!
ReplyDeleteThe current St Marks Market is the former site of Coney Island High, and before that Pozo Lounge, The World, The Electric Circus. 19-25 St. Marks PLace.
ReplyDelete10:22 the guys who work in the smoke shop are very nice. I feel bad for them because I’ve known many of them for close to ten years and now they have to uproot.
ReplyDeleteConey Island High was 15 St Marks Place, pretty sure that building was town down??
ReplyDelete12:37 here. Mea culpa. The earlier poster was correct. Coney Island High, formerly Pozo Lounge was at 15 St Marks. The World, The Electric Circus, the Dom, were at 19-25 St Marks.
ReplyDeleteCooper Union college broke the height barrier with that ugly-as-fuck dorm building a few doors away from that corner. The city is only TOO happy to provide ZERO zoning restrictions, letting developers go as HIGH as the sky.
ReplyDeleteWHERE is the Landmarks and Preservation Commission on this? WHERE are your "representatives" on this (when they're not out spinning the Astor Place cube for photo ops)??
Not a bad deal for the Gabay family and their decedents. 1.5 mil a year is a lot of ripped pocketbooks.
ReplyDeleteWhy must there be high rises everywhere. The Village once had a ban on high rises. What happened? High rises destroy the feel of a neighborhood. Landmark the existing buildings and preserve them.
ReplyDeleteEducate. Even if it's not your job. Educate these NYU Students about the importance of community and history and make them realize that going to Duane Reed and Starbucks is L-A-M-E. These gentrified businesses cannot sustain themselves if NO ONE GOES TO THEM.
ReplyDeleteOkay Roxanne @7:06, make a case why these buildings should be land marked? I find no value in them architecturally or historically. Of course I could say, build affordable housing; but we all know that is not on anyone's agenda and no matter how people on EVGrieve rant, that will never happen. Yes, Third Avenue and St Marks Place used to be the "gateway" to the East Village--twenty or more years ago, but now?
ReplyDeleteTo me, this is a great example of evgrieve. This corner represents EV grunge, buildings with local character representing decades past. And you could experience it vicerally with all your senses. That corner, with all its tiny buildings with many facets, is going to become a sterile block of "nothing here for you, keep walking."
ReplyDeleteWhat this comes down to is that the family who has owned the properties for many years sees a chance to cash out. No one can blame them, they are thinking about their future and the future of their children. The sentimental claptrap about what these buildings mean to posters on EVG, and their supposed historical value to an East Village that is long gone and will never return, means absolutely nothing. This is what Manhattan (and now sadly Brooklyn), is about--real estate value.
ReplyDeleteWell, what can I say?
ReplyDeleteSt Marks and 3rd is no longer a gateway to much of anything of sentimental or other value. It has been that way for a while.
I lived at 36 Cooper Square for 41 years, since I graduated from The Cooper Union. I remember the $2 movie house that used to be on the NW corner of 2nd and St Marks. I knew the owner: I would help him change reels in the projection room when the projectionist didn't show because he was too high on whatever and couldn't find his way to work. I remember The Fillmore East, then the Village East, then The Saint. The Kiev. Round-the Clock Cafe. Kamenstein's hardware: where would all the do-it-yourself commercial-to-residential loft converters such as myself have been without Kamenstein's?
B & H and Veselka's is still there, thank God.
But most of The East Village that I knew and loved was a mindset that lived within a community of people that were a culturally and politically diverse, economically modest lot of varying ages and generations: students, Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, Italians, West Africans, Muslims, red diaper babies and other radicals, Chinese, Koreans and others, whose diversity - and the institutions and storefronts that catered to them - were a significant part of the character of the neighborhood. That diversity started to disappear during the 90s, and has since vanished. What's left of it survives on St Marks as a Little Asia, given all the Korean-Chinese-Japanese-Thai-etc fast food storefronts. The East European residents have mostly moved out to NJ (think of the owner of the corner that blew up). Kims video, St Mark's Bookstore (although they didn't help themselves with the demands that they were trying to place on an institution that itself was under stress), all gone.
Ever notice lately how that part of the village is crammed with so many 20-something white women that it seems there are 10 of them for every 1 guy no matter what his age or race? Well, it seems that many of the landlords in that hood are carving up apartments meant for 1 person and shoving 3 to 5 into them. Illegal you say? DeBlasio and the city don't seem to care. I was told by the supermarket owner in the area that guys tell them that they won't live that way, but that the women say they don't mind because it's cool to live in the East Village. I got news for them: it was cool 25 years ago, their very presence under such conditions makes it decidedly uncool.
I myself moved to the Hudson Valley 5 weeks ago, where I have found a small city that still has some of the kind of magic that the East Village had in the 70s/80s.
Where are you at? I’m in Put Val and I cringe when I go through the EV everyday... Back in the day you couldn’t keep me OUT of that part of town.
DeleteResident in the neighborhood for 25 years and never stepped into the McDonalds. Was a regular at the pizza place but never stepped into any of its replacements or for that matter Papaya Dog, likewise regular at Round the Clock but not a single meal at its replacement (s), twice-weekly at least customer of the news shop but never again after its remodel as head shop, Gem Spa fills that void. Must have been in St Marks Books multiple times a week every week but don't anticipate ever patronizing The Bean (it fills no void in my life as I have long since moved on from the Starbucks with the lovely makeshift garden the Death Star replaced). Then and now enthusiastic regular at B&H and Veselka and Hasaki and mean to try several of the new Asian spots recently opened on the north side of the block. All that said, corner in question read seedy and structurally neglected rather than atmospheric and family has every right to cash out--It is hardly the same as demolishing individual ancient brownstones projecting character and history in the middle of this or any other street of same and Cooper Union has already graced the block with what must be the most god-awful ugly high rise/dorm in all downtown. Hope we won't end up with a decade of blight here the way we did at Fourth Ave and 10th Street or the ugliness of a spreading Duane Reade as has overtaken Third Avenue and 10th Street.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Donnie on this one.
ReplyDeleteKnowing the Continental still was there in spite of being an alcoholic oscar winner version of its former self was comforting.. this corner was the gateway to safety for so many trying to escape all that has become wrong with the east village now.
Its true change - not just slumming anymore - someone has put there $ into that property.
Lucky to have experienced so many of the wonders of Saint Mark's.. a couple of faves - the Holiday when it was the Holiday.
Theater 80 when it was double bills every night.
The East Village had and maybe still has a certain magic that can not be articulated...
Like the moment seeing Iggy eating at Habib's Falafel on 9th street - you can't bottle it.
Knowing there was a surprise, an inspiration, or an adventure just outside the door was such a great feeling.
Fuck the corporatocracy
ReplyDeleteI remember getting into a fight with my mom and leaving the apartment and going down to Continental to see the False Prophets play, must have been 1990, and then crashing at C-Squat afterwards. The ghost of 15 year old punk rock me is still wandering around that street.
ReplyDeleteThe current Continental is a very very pale shade of the Alan Roy's former Continental Divide. If you can't recall Roy's joint, or, who performed there, read there, sang there or drank there, then you missed the placed that represented the transition from post-punk East Village to the mix-up Bohemian Ancients, Expat Japanese and Pre-Brooklyn "Hipsters."
ReplyDeleteThere's no loss here and hasn't been since Peter Stuyvesant put his peg leg down, and a century later Alexander Hamilton's son built a house for his mother and his family at what's now 4 St. Marks Place.
The East Village is a ghost town, or rather 300+ years of ghost towns, whose ghosts still haunt its streets. Perhaps that's why Limbo, the most influential clothing store of the 60s, laid down its roots there.
See: https://books.google.com/books?id=kjQtw7f_7TIC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=Alan+Roy+Continental+Divide&source=bl&ots=PM-A1hWXfe&sig=TzWmso9o7DOWaH7NlSAJsud0wZU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjj5vmu0K3XAhWGSSYKHSDiAG8Q6AEIRzAJ#v=onepage&q=Alan%20Roy%20Continental%20Divide&f=false