Renovations at long last for the haunted beauty at 104 E. 10th St.

Nearly three years have passed since we heard about the plans to add a roof-top extension and gut renovate the long-empty townhouse at 104 E. 10th St. between Third Avenue and Second Avenue.

As you can see, plywood now surrounds the structure and renovations are underway...



According to the architect of record:

MKCA is orchestrating the reinvention and gut renovation of a historic townhouse in the storied St Mark's Historic District for a young family. Abandoned for a generation, the 2,400 brick rowhouse has been rescued from a state of near-structural collapse. The project includes a new sculptural stair, penthouse addition, and interiors that celebrate the historic building while updating it for contemporary family life.

As previously reported, the townhouse, built in 1879, was once the property of reclusive real-estate baron William Gottleib. It sold in 2013 for $3.5 million to an entity going by North Sydney LLC.

No. 104 is within the St. Mark's Historic District and needed the proper approvals before moving forward. (As I recall, there was some debate about the setback and other details. There are approved permits, as of July 15, on file now with the DOB.)

The building has been vacant for years. The last (and lone) tenant was playwright, poet and performance artist Edgar Oliver.

This article from 1998 in The New York Times suggests that the place could possibly be haunted. But as Oliver said at the time, "The house I do believe is haunted. Alas, it is only with memories."

Previously on EV Grieve:
• Plans to convert the haunted beauty 104 E. 10th St. into a single-family home with 2 extra floors

• The charmingly shabby interiors of 104 E. 10th St


[An interior photo from 2012]

"A Personality in the East Village"

I'm interested in seeing Edgar Oliver's one-man show, “East 10th Street: Self Portrait With Empty House.” It's playing at the Axis Theater, 1 Sheridan Square, in the West Village. Here are some passages from Ben Brantley's review in the Times today:

Mr. Oliver is a poet, playwright, performance artist and actor. But above all, he is a Personality, with a capital P, a type celebrated in England as an Eccentric and in middle America as a Character. It’s not easy being a Personality in the East Village, where the willfully weird abound (or did once, anyway) and where Mr. Oliver has lived since the late 1970s. It requires an exaggerated consistency of character and style, which should seep from every pore.

In “East 10th Street,” which runs through Feb. 28 in a judiciously austere production directed by Randy Sharp, Mr. Oliver uses this sensibility to evoke his years as a tenant in an S.R.O. boarding house on Tompkins Square Park, into which he moved, fresh from Paris, in 1977, when he was 21, paying $16 a week for rent.

“East 10th Street,” which was staged in November, has developed a cult following. It’s easy to see why. Mr. Oliver depicts and embodies a bohemian, low-rent New York that scarcely exists anymore. It’s hard to imagine anyone like him, with a similar set of stories, coming out of the gentrified East Village of the early 21st century.

Let mw know if you've seen it...