The all-new Essex Market debuts in its new Essex Crossing home

[Photo yesterday via EVG reader Ann Marie Duross]

The all-new Essex Market officially opened yesterday (after a weekend sneak preview) in its new state-of-the-art home at Essex Crossing ... across the street from its location of nearly 80 years.

There was a ribbon cutting and all that...

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✂️🎀 Official Grand Opening ribbon cutting complete (with giant scissors, of course). Now...let’s eat!😎 #essexmarketnyc #wecrosseddelancey #marketsmattermost #openforyourbusiness Monday - Saturday, 8am to 8pm with select vendors serving at 10am and open as late as 10pm; Sunday, 10am - 6pm.

A post shared by Essex Market (@essexmarket) on May 13, 2019 at 2:24pm PDT

In total, the new Essex Market features 37 vendors, including the 21 from the previous space.

There are previews galore around the webs ... you can find coverage at Curbed ... Untapped Cities ... Eater ... Time Out ... the Lo-Down ... amNY ... and Bowery Boogie.

And here are the list of vendors (via H/T Eater!):

Prepared Foods
Peasant Stock
Davidovich Bakery
Cafe d’Avignon
Ni Japanese Deli
Nordic Preserves, Fish & Wildlife Co.
Arancini Bros.
Puebla Mexican Food
Dominican Cravings
Shopsin’s
Samesa
Don Ceviche
Eat Gai
Mille Nonne
Heros & Villains
Zerza

Grocery
Essex Farm Fruits & Vegetables
Luna Brothers Fruit Plaza
Viva Fruits & Vegetables
Luis Meat Market
New Star Fish Market
Essex Shambles

Specialty
Porto Rico Importing Co.
Formaggio Essex
Essex Olive & Spice
Top Hops Beer Shop
Valley Shepherd Creamery
Riverdel
Josephine’s Feast
Sugar Sweet Sunshine
Flower Power
L.E.S. Ice Cream Factory
Roni Sue’s Chocolates

The new Essex Market will also include two full-service restaurants. Later this year, Roni Mazumdar, whose résumé includes the Indian restaurants Rahi and Adda, will bring Dhamaka to the space.

The new Essex market is at the southeast corner of Essex and Delancey.

The market is open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday.

The old Essex Crossing shut its door on May 5 — that structure will eventually be razed for a high-rise residential building.

New Lower East Side Target grandly opens today

EVG regulars Vinny & O shared these photos from the new Target store, which is holding its grand opening celebration today at Grand and Clinton on the Lower East Side. (This outpost officially debuted back on Wednesday.)



Targeters are handing out a variety of freebies ... and there are photo opps with a giant pair of red Target sunglasses.

Not to be found: An homage to the Lower East Side with a CBGB-themed TRGT storefront, which was the widely panned centerpiece of the grand opening on 14th Street and Avenue A last month.

As the Lo-Down reported on Wednesday:

Jacqueline DeBuse, a Target PR rep, indicated that no similar publicity stunts are planned on Grand Street. “We know with the East Village grand opening,” said DeBuse, “some guests loved it, and others felt we missed the mark. So we really listened to that feedback as we were preparing the opening for this store.”

The Target is one of the retail tenants in the 15-story development at Essex Crossing Site 5 — aka The Rollins. A Trader Joe's is set to open in this complex later in the fall.

Veselka among the first food vendors to anchor the Market Line at Essex Crossing

[Rendering by SHoP Architects]

The developers of Essex Crossing yesterday announced some of the food vendors that will help anchor the Market Line, a 150,000-square-foot retail destination. Several familiar names will be part of the first phase of the market, including outposts of Ippudo and Veselka.

Here's Eater with more:

Anchored among three buildings underground near Essex and Delancey streets, with window access that looks up to the sidewalk level, the Market Line at development Essex Crossing will unfurl with a three-phase rollout.

By fall, it will house more than 40 food vendors picked to complement the city landmark, the 70-plus year old Essex Street Market — with Shopsins, Saxelby Cheesemongers, and Luis Meat Kitchen among vendors making the trek to the new complex, slated to open in conjunction with the phase-one Market Line purveyors.

And you can head to The Lo-Down for more on the other vendors.

As previously reported, the Market Line will stretch over three city blocks. An estimated two-thirds of the retail spaces will be devoted to food. Per The New York Times: "The market’s developers are already comparing it to world-class establishments like the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul; Boqueria in Barcelona, Spain; and Borough Market in London."


[Click for the big view]

This will be Veselka's second attempt at opening an outpost away from the mothership on Second Avenue and Ninth Street. Velselka Bowery closed in 2013 after a 17-month at Avalon Bowery Place.

Lines ahoy!: Trader Joe's coming to Essex Crossing on the Lower East Side

ICYMI: The announcement came this morning that Trader Joe's is coming to site 5 of the sprawling Essex Crossing complex on the Lower East Side. The TJ's is slated for a large retail space at 145 Clinton St. at Grand.

The 15-story building will include a 22,000-square-foot Planet Fitness on the second floor when construction wraps in 2018. You can head to The Lo-Down for more details on this development.

A TJ's recently opened in Kip's Bay. And maybe one will still open at 500 E. 14th St. That incoming CityTarget is only expected to take half of the retail space at 14th Street and Avenue A.

Planet Fitness muscling in on Essex Crossing

Gyms are always a popular topic around here (for instance), so...

Planet Fitness has signed a deal to open a 22,000-square-foot complex on the second floor at 145 Clinton St., on Essex Crossing site 5, according to The Lo-Down.

And via Crain's:

"Planet Fitness [offers] a $10 monthly membership fee that makes it accessible to everyone, which was very important to us." said S. Andrew Katz, a principal at the Prusik Group, which is a minority partner in the $1 billion-plus development and oversees the leasing of retail space. "There are gyms that charge $250 a month for membership, but those don't fit the community's needs.”

The 145 Clinton St. building is expected to be completed in 2017.

Shakespeare in the Parking Lot returns tonight in a new LES parking lot

[Macbeth photo by Jonathan Slaff]

After nearly 20 years of free performances in the municipal lot on Ludlow and Broome, the folks behind Shakespeare in the Parking Lot were left at the end of last summer without a home thanks to the incoming Essex Crossing mega-project.

Tonight, the Drilling Company begins anew behind The Clemente at 114 Norfolk St. between Rivington and Delancey. The season kicks off with a rendition of "As You Like It" and running through July 26. A production of "Macbeth" begins on July 30, presented through Aug. 15.

Find all the details here. The performances are Thursday-Saturday starting at 8 p.m.

Shakespeare in the Parking Lot has a new parking lot on the Lower East Side

[Photo from 2012 by Lee Wexler/Images for Innovation]

Via the EVG inbox this morning...

The Drilling Company's Shakespeare in the Parking Lot has found a new home in the Parking Lot behind The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, 114 Norfolk St. located between Delancey and Rivington Streets, just three blocks from the parking lot where the cultural attraction started in 1995.

In 2014, after losing its space in the Municipal Parking lot at Ludlow and Broome Streets, the company engaged in a nine-month search for a new location to continue the 20-year tradition, presenting free Shakespeare for a generation on the Lower East Side. The annual two-play festival will now have a new home for its 21st season and into the future.

This year's productions will be "As You Like It," directed by Hamilton Clancy, July 9 to 26 and "Macbeth," director TBA, July 30 to August 15.

Shakespeare in the Parking Lot became a treasured urban tradition in two decades of productions in the neighborhood known as the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area, which is now giving way to Essex Crossing, a giant mixed-used development.

Essex Crossing's 15 minutes of Andy Warhol fame are up

Executives of the Pittsburgh-based Andy Warhol Museum announced last night that they will no longer be moving forward with their plans to build a 10,000-square-foot annex to anchor the new Essex Crossing development.

In a statement to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Eric Shiner, director of The Warhol Museum, said:

"The Andy Warhol Museum, which had been exploring its participation in the Essex Crossing development in lower Manhattan, has determined that it will not proceed with the project. Despite the efforts of both the museum and the developers, an internal study of business and other operational considerations led the museum to this decision.

"The Warhol will continue to participate in programs, exhibitions, and special projects in New York City through its longstanding collaborations with a variety of New York-based arts organizations.”

The museum was to be in Site 1 of the former Seward Park urban renewal site … in the Broome Street municipal parking lot, a complex that will include condos and a bowling alley.

As the Post-Gazette reported last May:

Delancey Street Associates will pay for the cost of building the museum branch, which has a target opening date of 2017. For the first five years of the museum's existence, the developers will pay for any operating deficits.

For their part, a spokesperson for Delancey Street Associates, told the paper:

"For the past two years we have worked closely with The Andy Warhol Museum to find a way to bring Andy home to New York's Lower East Side. We have dedicated tremendous time and resources and offered them a very generous multimillion dollar package to make this work. We found out today and are surprised and disappointed that they are unable to see this through. We are hard at work looking for another exciting use for this great space."

And why did Museum leaders consider Essex Crossing a good spot for the annex? Per the Post-Gazette:

The location appears apt. When Andy Warhola moved to New York in 1949, his first apartment was in Lower Manhattan on St. Mark's Place. The Lower East Side, where the branch housing his art will be built, teemed in the 1900s with immigrants whose lives of assimilation and struggle paralleled the experience of Warhol's parents, Andrej and Julia Warhola.

Meanwhile, you still have the 14-screen Regal Cinemas theater with electronic reclining seats to look forward to at Essex Crossing.

Getting to know — Essex Crossing

[Flyer spotted on 6th and B]

There's a community presentation tonight at 6 for anyone interested in learning more about Essex Crossing, the 1.9 million square feet of residential, commercial and community space coming to the Lower East Side once of these days.

The meeting is at the Grand Street Settlement, 80 Pitt St. between Rivington and Stanton.

You can read more about the mega-peject at The Lo-Down … BoweryBoogie … and Curbed.

Previously on EV Grieve:
A 14-screen Regal Cinemas theater with electronic reclining seats coming to the LES (30 comments)

A 14-screen Regal Cinemas theater with electronic reclining seats coming to the LES

Crain's has the story on the first tenant for Essex Crossing:

The theater chain, owned by Regal Entertainment Group, will take 65,000 square feet in the base of a 315-foot-tall rental apartment building to be built at 115 Delancey St., on the southeast corner of Essex Street. Construction is expected to begin in the spring and be completed by late 2017 or 2018.

The lease, which stretches for 15 years, is the first signed for the 1.9 million-square-foot development known as the Seward Park mixed-use development project.

The multiplex will stand at the corner that long housed the Olympic Restaurant and Jade Fountain liquor store.

[EVG file photo]

The Lo-Down got a copy of the official Regal news release. Among the theater amenities:

• Recliners for every guest to provide more room, comfort and true luxury.
• Each recliner has an electric control for multiple positions and features padded footrests.
• Digital projection in every auditorium to provide a crystal-clear picture.
• Real D 3D projection systems available for 3D enhanced presentations.
• Stadium seating provides each moviegoer a clear view of the screen.