This past week, someone affixed a 30-day Notice of Termination to the front door (thanks to Lola Sáenz for the photos below).
According to the documents, the new landlord (West Lake 135-139 Avenue A LLC) is terminating the bar's lease effective Feb. 29...
As we previously reported, owner Ludwika "Lucy" Mickevicius' lease expired in May 2015, and she was on a month-to-month arrangement with the previous landlord. (The buildings were recently sold for $19.1 million.)
Lucy must "quit, vacate and surrender" the space between St. Mark's Place and Ninth Street or face court action by the end of the month.
The bar (aka Blanche's Lucy's Tavern) has not been open since November when some paperwork issues forced what was to be a temporary closure.
It's still possible Lucy could decide to find a new location for the bar. Plenty of people would support and applaud that.
And for those who've asked, the legal document states the lease started at the address in December 1987.
when does the grievolution start?
ReplyDeleteEnd of an era.
ReplyDeleteAnyone remember Ron the chess player who would sometimes bring musicians in to play at the front and spent a few drunken evenings lobbying for the name change from Blanche's to Lucy's? That was three or four neighborhoods ago.
I actually saw her coming out of the hardware store on 7th and 1st last week and asked her for an update. She said she was trying to negotiate a new contract, but it didn't look good. Guess this confirms that outlook. Really sad to see.
ReplyDeleteThere is a special place in Hell awaiting the people at West Lake 135-139 Avenue A LLC.
ReplyDeleteAnother nail in the East Village coffin. Very sad news.
ReplyDeleteEvery change that has occurred in the
ReplyDeleteEast Village over the last couple of
decades has been for the worse. And
the one common denominator is greed.
This is a perfunctory legal move to ensure she vacates if they do not come to an agreement, and does not necessarily signal anything about the negotiations to stay. Probably the worst signal that they intend to push her out is that we're seeing any of this in public at all.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to assume that her status as a month-to-month tenant meant that she wasn't immediately ready to retire but preferred flexibility to do so on her own terms, with the risk of the landlord getting antsy and cutting her off. And now the new landlord is doing exactly that, for unknown reasons. Maybe the new landlord can be swayed by a generous contract offer, but I wouldn't want Lucy to lose money just to keep the doors open at this spot.
I know there's a lot of charm in long-time operators but isn't anyone a little bit sad that our favorite proprietors break their backs over this stuff well past retirement age? I know the customers have a good time but running a bar like this is not fun. So I'm thinking considerately of Lucy before bellowing that we need the bar back in a different storefront. (although nobody's making any more bars like this lately)
I bumped into Lucy♥️
ReplyDeleteIn key food the other day.
She is ready to retire☕️🥮🥢
Gave us many good years🥊
She looked good!
I gave her a Big hug an thanked her for all👑♥️👍🍷🥂
Good points Brian!
ReplyDelete"There is a special place in Hell awaiting the people at West Lake 135-139 Avenue A LLC."
ReplyDeleteNot to mention Rosenberg & Estis LLP, which has represented such outstanding neighborhood citizens as Samy Mahfar.
Thank you Kim for that report!
ReplyDelete