![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB_78PG1Ip-uAWW0SsOXwM0wZIMoIkI-1S6qykSsX3aTKBxAGcXUQqqdHAuyv5SiohXlcT_uBbUmgUhs0yFozbs2oW5l8P-jTXo7egWB12nsG0rqZJySYtNZok8p3AbSNruOr8wv9I-Dk/s400/unnamed.jpg)
The Bean is opening a new location at 31 Third Ave. at Stuyvesant Street ... an EVG tipster sent along these photos from yesterday... the signage shows The Bean @Cooper Union...
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio7VHnDU0IfaMJRhip762Y54gb7-X1_9HvCc-xexGdIN8ejIEA73vWKNhWJbwFQqmJv0jlyI8cUIYVn3q6b1InGgnWSXE4pDfx3yDWyqzXXmi8nW1NXeFM1_VlaL07BB9nkQSntb0kcDk/s400/unnamed-1.jpg)
The storefront has been empty ever since St. Mark's Bookshop moved out in June 2014. There have been a few art shows here, which makes sense given that Cooper Union owns the building.
"We've always liked the old St. Mark's Bookstore spot and it's been empty for years, so when the opportunity presented itself for us to obtain it we were excited to make it happen," Ike Escava, owner of the Bean, told me via email.
This will make the coffee shop/cafe's fifth location, joining the other East Village locations at Second Avenue and Third Street and Ninth Street at First Avenue. The other locations are at Broadway and 12th Street and Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg.
If all goes well, then Escava said that he'd like to be open around Labor Day.
St. Mark's Bookshop had been struggling to stay in business here. In November 2011, then-Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer helped broker a deal between the Bookshop owners and Cooper Union in which the school agreed to lower the rent by $3,000 to $17,000 and forgive $7,000 in debt. The shop moved to a much smaller space on Third Street with four years remaining on the least at 31 Third Ave.