Boardwalk empire on 14th Street

We don't have any new news about 14th Street and Avenue A, where a fire destroyed the stores on the southeast corner in May 2010...

However, EV Grieve reader Tom has been keeping tabs on the space, and he got an aerial view of the sidewalk shed... that looks pretty hardcore...

Only new DOB permits point to an installation of a sidewalk shed...

What is going on with the corner of 14th Street and Avenue A?

EV Grieve reader Tom passed this along yesterday... we'll let him report the story...

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As you know, ever since May 12, 2010 when the fire destroyed the stores on the southeast corner of 14th Street and Avenue A, there has been no reconstruction whatsoever at the site. The only thing open at that corner has been the Middle Eastern food cart that appeared there a few months ago:

Then in late May, I noticed that some workers removed one plywood sheet, entered the site and did a little work. Here's a pic of a worker taking measurements; and given the length of the tape measure, he clearly wasn't measuring for drapes:

Then yesterday, they started building a sidewalk construction shed around the site:

I checked the land records online, and there's no new deed on record yet. But something's up. Whatever it is, I just hope that Stuyvesant Grocery and Pete's-A-Place will be able to return.

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We walked by the site ourselves last evening. The posted permits expired on April 1. According to the DOB, there aren't any other permits on file or pending.

So that means — shocker! — the work yesterday was done illegally... Meanwhile, we await the fate of this corner.

And a photo from DJ Xerox...