Looking at the Royal Building entrance

Just a little east of the Fultonhaus is the Royal Building on 95 Fulton St. I love the entrance, with the two barber poles and old-school IRT sign.




And yes -- this building once housed the Strand Annex. That space is still empty.

Things are falling at AIG HQ

Speaking of record stores...

The former Bondy's on Park Row still sits vacant...it closed in early 2007, as I recall. (Love that they had "Walkmans" on their sign...)

Why getting around the Financial District is so fun!

Need to get somewhere in a jiffy? You'll be better off, oh, crawling.

Pearl Street!



Liberty Street!



Maiden Lane!



Wall Street!



Fulton Street! (Still!)



Fulton Street is really ugly



Broad Street!



And last summer, Beekman was torn up...back to normal now...

Another restaurant falls?: Looking at 110 John St.

From the looks of it, One Ten Bar & Grill at 110 John Street in the Financial District has closed...their signage is gone from out front...



but their flag still flies.

Taking another look at Pearl Street (and did Madonna and Britney ever get that wood?)

We've been watching the drama unfold on Pearl Street in the Financial District for years now...back to the days in 2003 when preservationists worked to rescue 211 Pearl St. from demolition by Rockrose Development Corp. Well. You know how this story ends. At least they were able to save the façade...

In case you don't know all the back story, here's a quickie from Downtown Express in 2003:

One of only a handful of existing Greek revival buildings that survived the great fire of 1835, 211 Pearl St. was constructed in the early 1830s by William Colgate, the founder of Colgate-Palmolive. Colgate used the building as a warehouse at a time when Pearl St. bustled as a hub for trading in dry goods.

The building's current owner, Rockrose Development Corporation, received demolition permits for 211 Pearl from the city's Buildings Department on Dec. 13, 2002, a Buildings spokesperson said. Rockrose is considering plans to demolish the building to make way for a rear entrance for a new, 650-unit residential development the company is constructing west of Pearl St., near Maiden Lane, Platt and Gold Sts.

"It's kind of ironic that, after having endured the tragedy of 9/11, we're talking about destroying a building that symbolizes the strength and endurance of New York," said Councilmember Alan Gerson.

Curbed ran an update on 211 Pearl yesterday...I don't have much to add to their recap from what I had ready to go...except...the What's Going on Here? sign for the project gives a finish date of Dec. 31, 2008. Definitely by Dec. 31, 2009!



And it's probably a good thing the northern side of the building is windowless...Someday they'll likely be a hotel next door...



Meanwhile, there's just that empty lot...




Complete with a handy place to sneak in...looks like a nice spot for some tags.



By the way! Before 211 Pearl St. was demolished, M. Fine Lumber Co., Inc. in Greenpoint bought all of the building’s pine ceiling beams -- roughly 350 in total. According to an article from the Oct. 7, 2003, Downtown Express:

At 211 Pearl St., only a silver remains of the historic Greek revival building that had stood there since the early 1830s. But elsewhere in the city, parts of the demolished interior have found new life, in a restaurant on the Upper West Side, in a tree guard on E. Fourth St., and possibly even on a music video set for Madonna and Britney Spears.

See if you can spot any pine ceiling beams:



Here's a post I did on the space for Curbed:
Development Plans on Pearl Street Now Short Term

Someone in the Financial District is actually hiring

A new T-Mobile store is opening soon at 175 Water Street at Maiden Lane (the former site of the Gabes House of Flowers.)

The Blarney Stone is back in business

A lovely sight. No word yet on why they were closed on Fulton Street for seven-plus days...

(Jumping ahead to) Day 7: The Blarney Stone is still closed

The fellows at the shoe repair shop next door are equally mystified as to why the Blarney Stone isn't open...and they said it closed last Friday, not Monday as I previously thought. Commenter Stewie at Eater mentioned yesterday that several businesses along this stretch of Fulton Street have had problems with water pipes of late. True...a very likely cause for a closing. However, looking in the BS's back entrance on Ann Street, nothing looks out of place. No signs of construction...or work of any kind. One minor thing: The five pieces of tape on the front gate -- from which a sign had been telling us what was what? -- are now gone...

Day 4: The Blarney Stone is still closed

Day 3: The Blarney Stone is still closed

Closed, no cigars

Dunno if this is one for Jeremiah's Signs of the Yunnipocalypse...but Carolina's Cigars on Nassau Street in the Financial District has closed....



Wasn't exactly a hotspot for fat cats, though telling nonetheless...

Update on the Blarney Stone: Still closed

Following up on my earlier post on the Blarney Stone on Fulton Street. Uh-oh — it's still closed as of around noon today. Not a good sign. This is a good lunch space...and a better drinking spot. OK, and a good lunch spot to drink in. Anyway, it's one of the few bars remaining in the Financial District worth frequenting...



Looks as if a sign was taped up on the gate....But five measly pieces of tape in this wind? The sign is likely in Brooklyn Heights by now. I walked around to the back entrance on Ann Street and looked inside. Nothing amiss. Everything seems to be where it usually is. The phone just rings...no outgoing message.



So I'm sure this is just a temporary thing...Right?

Still, given the changes sweeping down Fulton Street, nothing would surprise me...

Wishful thinking

On Water Street in the Financial District this morning. Only off by four hours and, maybe, 50 degrees.

Bulls? Really? Maybe tough bears

At the NYSE yesterday.

Glad Ford is sponsoring this! They have the money to spend! The Professional Bull Riders 2009 Invitational is this weekend at Madison Square Garden. (I'm surprising Mrs. Grieve and taking her for an early Valentine's Day gift! Oh, man. That would be classic.)

That joke isn't funny anymore: Duane Reade opens at location of former OTB parlor on John Street

Last May, I wrote about my favorite OTB parlor at 17 John St. in the Financial District getting closed by the state...



... THE NIGHT BEFORE THE KENTUCKY DERBY, only the biggest racing day of the year.



Shall I even bother mentioning what just opened in that old OTB spot?



Seriously! There are now SIX Duane Reade stores within a three-or-so-block radius. (Not to mention a CVS.) And how about that new Duane Reade logo?

Hotel Reserve now ready for your, uh, reservation

The Hotel Reserve opened earlier this month on Nassau Street at Maiden Lane in the Financial District. It was originally reported that this would be a Wyndham Garden Hotel. But Hotel Reserve has such a more local flavor given that the Federal Reserve is directly across the street.





Pretty spiffy design...The hotel is L-shaped and wraps around three low-rise buildings that sit on the corner of Maiden and Nassau.



So why did they do something seemingly so complicated? According to an article from October 2007 in the Times titled New buildings that embrace the old:

These challenges pale in comparison with the difficulties faced by Gene Kaufman, an architect who designed a 113-room hotel that is being built just a few blocks from Wall Street.

This L-shaped hotel, which will be a Wyndham, will have entrances at 51 Nassau Street — opposite the New York Federal Reserve Building — and 20 Maiden Lane. But its longest street frontage will actually be in a dark, narrow one-block alley called Liberty Place.

The hotel is being built on this odd-shaped lot because it has to encompass three low-rise buildings on the corner of Nassau Street and Maiden Lane that the developer, the McSam Hotel Group, was unable to acquire. These buildings all had commercial tenants with long leases who could not be enticed to leave, Mr. Kaufman said.

“These old buildings were in very bad condition, so we had to be careful not to create any vibrations that could damage them,” Mr. Kaufman said. But, he said, that was just the beginning of his headaches.

For one thing, the New York City subway system passes directly beneath this site, and it has ventilation shafts on all three sides of the building. This meant the developer had to dig deeper for the foundation. But as the excavation began, he discovered that the three older buildings had foundations extending into the property lines for the hotel.

“We’ve wrapped around little buildings before; we’ve built against the subway before; we’ve built on narrow sites before,” Mr. Kaufman said. But never all at once. “It was like fitting a diamond into a setting,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Win Won on Liberty Place survived all the construction.



Here's what it looked like in late spring.

Casually destroyed; hotel to rise here?

The Casual Grill on John Street between Nassau and Broadway in the Financial District is gone. It happened quickly. I swear I just ate there the other day. (Updated: OK, I was reminded that it was three weeks ago...which seems like the other day.) On Monday, I noticed that it was closed. Tuesday, it was gutted. The Casual Grill opened in 2004, and served an array of healthy-enough choices, from salads to smoothies.





And Seh Ja Meh, the Korean place next door, closed in September. (Seemed to have a problem with the health department.) Their interior is also getting gutted. Seh Ja Meh reopened on Greenwich Street.



Updated: One source who lives on the block told me a hotel was going into these two buildings. Hmmm.....

Staples pulls out of the South Street Seaport gateway: That was easy

The big Staples store (they're actually all big, huh?) that anchored the corner of Water Street and Fulton Street at the gateway to the South Street Seaport rather quietly packed up its ink and toner, binders and desk organizers, and closed up shop last month. Maybe the Staples brass figured business would fall because NYU's lease on the Rockrose-owned Water Street dorm adjacent to the store will not be renewed after this academic year.



There has been activity here of late, though it mostly seems to be workers clearing out the remaining Staples stuff.



Apparently they don't want you to know a Staples was here.



With the departure of the Strand Annex at 95 Fulton in September, there is some nice, fat storefrontage available on the east-end of the street. Maybe that construction will be completed in the next 10 years or so.

A quick check on Nassau Street

Back in June, I did a post about walking around Nassau Street in the Financial District. At the time, I wondered how many of the mom-and-pop businesses could stay open with the condofication of the area under way. So far, just on the stretch of Nassau between John Street and Ann Street, four businesses are either closing (like the one above) or have already shuttered. (And then there's Burritoville, which had a location here.) Sure, one thing may not have anything to do with the other, but...