Saturday's opening shots

There's activity inside the vacant storefront at 2 St. Mark's Mark Place... adjacent to the St. Marks Hotel and just off the corner from Third Avenue. 

Inside, someone is touching up the new St. Marks Hotel signage...

Meanwhile, we're curious if any new business is slated for this space.

It has been empty since Eliza's Local closed late in September 2020.

The bar opened in December 2018 and was named for Elizabeth Hamilton (aka "Eliza"), co-founder and deputy director of the first private orphanage in New York City. She was the wife of Alexander Hamilton. She lived next door at 4 St. Mark's Place in what was later known as the Hamilton-Holly House.

This space adjacent to the hotel entrance was previously Ayios Greek Rotisserie, which quietly closed at the end of 2017 after 16 months in business. St. Mark's Ale House had a 21-year run until July 2016. And once upon a time, it was the second location of the Five Spot Cafe.

H/T @Unitof!

6 more floors in store for the soon-to-be unrecognizable St. Marks Hotel

[Via Wikipedia Commons]

The Pappas family, owners of the St. Marks Hotel, have filed plans to build a 10-story mixed-use building on the hotel's lot at 2 St. Mark’s Place and Third Avenue.

As The Real Deal reported:

According to the building plans, the expanded building would also have retail on the ground floor, in addition to a medical office and other commercial space in the cellar. The hotel would occupy floors two through 10.

And New York Yimby got a look at a rendering.

Brace.



Hjhdjhsjhuu!!!! klsdfsJF;KLSFKJ;K!!!! KLKJASJJIQIOWUIQOWI!

Sorry.

Whoa.

Well, it looks appropriately garish Midtown Southish to blend in with the Death Star across the street and the Cooper Union Spacecraft down the block.

New York Yimby notes that John Pappas also owns the Park Savoy Hotel on West 58th Street... and that the new address will also be known as 71 Cooper Square, a long way from its hot-sheet hotel days of the 1970s and 1980s... and likely its current clientele of the hostel set and European tourists.

It was the Valencia until what, the early 1980s?


[From Blast of Silence, circa 1961]


[Photo by Michael Sean Edwards from 1980]

The house rules of a short-term rental on St. Mark's Place

We're hearing more about short-term rentals in the East Village following Friday's post about 528 E. 13th St. We heard from a former resident of 31 St. Mark's Place.

"I keep in touch with my old neighbors all the time and it sounds like the building has changed hands several times and most recently, we discovered that the owner is possibly illegally renting apartments like a hotel."

The resident points us to an Airbnb listing for a "DREAMY" apartment on St. Mark's Place...

The "approximate" address is 38 St. Mark's Place... which isn't an existing address on St. Mark's Place.

In any event, this particular listing is worth noting for the "house rules," which we reposted below... (The all caps are part of the rules; the bold is our doing)...

PLEASE BE COURTEOUS AND POLITE TO THE NEIGHBORS in the building. They do not want to live with crazy, loud people. Please: No crazy parties or loud drinking! TRY NOT TO TALK TO THEM. DO NOT TELL ANYBODY YOU ARE RENTING MY APARTMENT. DO NOT TELL ANYBODY WHICH APT YOU ARE STAYING IN. JUST TELL THEM YOU ARE A FRIEND VISITING. Please DO NOT TALK IN THE HALLWAYS. If anybody were to ask you something, you are a friend staying with me on holiday visiting New York and you did not pay me money to stay at the apartment BUT TRY TO AVOID CONVERSATION. Please try to be discreet going up the stairs and try not to linger in the hallways