Continuing to speculate about what 10-room, $15-million home is for sale on East Third Street

Yesterday, we started speculating about what 10-bedroom house on East Third Street might be for sale for nearly $16 million. Mostly because we're curious about what nearly $16 million gets you these days in the neighborhood. Plus, well, there's more to it than that. According to the frustratingly detail-free listing, the deal includes the adjoining building.



Many of us immediately thought of the Economakis dream mansion at 47 E. Third St. The square footage is nearly identical, for one thing. And there has long been speculation that, after successfully evicting the building's tenants, the owners would flip the property immediately to make big money. The Economakis family, for their part, have insisted they'll live there — maybe forever, as they told Scoopy.

Anyway, EV Grieve reader Marjorie pointed out that "the Trulia listing says it's in zip code 10009. That means this mystery place is east of first avenue; the Economakis place is between 1st and 2nd aves — zip code 10003."

However, Chris Flash at The Shadow has been closely following the story. He wrote, "We've been keeping tabs on the real estate marketeers on the LES for decades now (they still send us their 'set-up sheets') and know from experience that they often get little details like zip codes and other info wrong." He states, "We're pretty sure that the Ardor listing is for the Economakis mansion at 47 East Third that they successfully vacated as of August 31."

Meanwhile, EV Grieve reader WB figured these fine homes just east of Third Street were likely candidates...



Good guess, but the listing is with Ardor, and the apartments here are exclusively with CitiHabitats.

Which reminds me I had these photos from the summer...



I liked the sign: "Too many upgrades to mention."



In an e-mail, an EV Grieve reader said that he/she took another look at the Ardor listing, and noticed that you could "map" the address. So they did.



As the readers says, if the map is to be believed, the property lies between Avenue C and Avenue D on the north side of the street...which led them to this possibility...



And the building on the left only has one buzzer, according to the reader, who knows this for some reason...

[Ominously] To be continued....

What you need to know about attending an open house at the Copper Building

In case you were going to check out an open house at the Copper Building on Avenue B at 13th Street...see if that $3.8 million penthouse is suitable... Here's the deal...



You go inside the plywood door and wait by the table. As the sign says, someone will then be down in approximately 15 minutes for the tour. You may want to push back your brunch reservations.

Previously.

"These transparent living spaces, once the quintessence of twenty first century Modernism, have become eyesores"

Steven Hellera, co-founder of the MFA in design criticism program at the School of Visual Arts, wrote an essay for The New Design Observer on the city's floor-to-ceiling window fad.

People in glass apartments shouldn’t throw stones or other projectiles. Nor should they engage in private acts directly in front of their floor to ceiling windows. Yet lately there has been a rash of exhibitionism throughout New York City owing to an increase in floor to ceiling windowed buildings. Influenced in part by Richard Meier’s glass box towers in lower Manhattan (and his newest one at One Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn), these transparent living spaces, once the quintessence of twenty first century Modernism, have become eyesores, particularly at night when they take on the appearance of showrooms in Amsterdam’s red light district.

And!

Why would anyone want their intimate life exposed to any peeping Tom, Dick or Harry? In other words, what were the architects thinking? And why are so many developers buying into this aesthetic?

For further reading:
Naked City (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Bottom photo (so to speak!) via the New York Post

Taking another look at the "East Village is dead" mural

A few additions...




Previously.

Noted

From the AntiKris:

Reasons why the once cool east village now sucks: stupid out of town whores who can’t handle their booze now puke all over the streets.

What will it be next time?

Just pointing out that the catchphrase to Yahoo!'s annoying new $100 million marketing campaign...



is the same as the tagline for the classic "Jaws: the Revenge."

Films to return to Theatre 80

Excellent news from Lorcan Otway about the Theatre 80 on St. Mark's Place:

Here is a quick update, with the big news, film is once again going to be seen at Theatre 80...

He also notes:

We have a Web site, now being built — Theatre80stmarks.com. The schedule will be posted to the site as deposit checks are in hand. At present we are in final negotiations to present several operas, ballet, a musical, and the big announcement, we are installing high def. digital projections, so that we can, on occasion present film again at Theatre 80, though our focus will remain live theater. “The Pied Pipers of the Lower East Side played to appreciative audiences here last month, and it was a pleasure to have the company in our theater, and we look forward to their possible return soon with a new play. To enquire as to availability of Theatre 80 for performances, screenings, private parties or rehearsal space, e-mail Lori Singleton at Lori.theatre80.gmail.com.

As always, the Otway family wishes to extend our thanks to the patrons of Theatre 80 for their support and expressed good wishes.

A double dose of good news, with the recent report that the former Charles on Avenue B will show films again one day...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Theatre 80 to remain a community theater; new cafe to open in memory of William Barnacle Scott

What 10-bedroom house is for sale on East Third Street for $15 milllion?

Well, this just popped up in the real-estate listings...



Not much information at the moment...



I can only think if one 11,000-square foot mansion on East Third Street...but, nah... plus, it's not even a mansion yet...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Inside the Economakis dream mansion on East Third Street

Revival planned for church and theater on Avenue B

As you may recall in July we did two reports on the former evangelical church/historical theater on Avenue B between 11th Street and 12th Street...A fire nearly destroyed the building in October 2006.



It was a movie theater for many years, first the Bijou, then the Charles. (The theater closed in 1975.)



There's good news on the space in this week's issue of The Villager. Not only is the Elim Pentecostal Church renovating the space for a house of worship, there are plans to revive the movie theater as well. (Check out the photos an EV Grieve reader got from inside the building.)

In addition, the church is fixing up two storefronts along Avenue B. The owner of Continuum Cycles up the street plans to lease the larger space.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Inside the Charles
Former landmark countercultural theater now for rent on Avenue B

Looking at the "Mayne Death Star"

Alexandra Lange discusses Cooper Union's new academic building in The New Design Observer.

I never thought I would say this about a work by Thom Mayne of Morphosis, but I think 41 Cooper Square is too small. Cooper Union’s new, sustainable academic building on Third Avenue is nine stories, 175,000 square feet, takes up an entire city block, and yet, with all the other wonderful and terrible architecture happening on the Bowery and its side streets (the Cooper Square Hotel’s tower version of Frank Gehry’s IAC Building, Herzog and de Meuron’s disco-visionary 40 Bond, Foster + Partners’ Sperone Westwater Gallery) it blends right in. All the photographs I had seen, most taken from the air, made it look like another Mayne Death Star, a chunk of some intergalactic space ship deposited here for repairs (there is that nasty cut across the front).

Another observation: "At the sidewalk 41 Cooper Square might as well be set in the middle of a parking lot in Mayne’s native L.A."

And in the end...she said the building leaves her "just curiously bored."

Burritos coming for West Coast snobs (and others!) who say East Coast Mexican food really sucks compared to the West Coast

Back in May, we mentioned something about a coming-soon Mexican joint on Fourth Avenue near 13th Street....at this spot of a former Tasti D-Lite.




Anyway, we completely forgot about it. Until now.

Thrillist NY had a writeup on the place, called Dos Toros. It opens Friday. Here's what they say about it:

From two Bay Area brothers who trekked to NYC only to find a complete lack of true West Coast food missiles, DT's serving just that from behind a takeaway counter in a reclaimed wood and exposed brick sleeve, flush with black steel cladding and rustic woven leather stools; the casual vibe's augmented by an instrumental funk playlist hand picked by the brothers, one of whom toured as a bassist for Third Eye Blind, but apparently hasn't considered how it's gonna be when you don't love beans anymore. Believing the superiority of WC burritos owes to the attention given each component, everything but the cheese, crema, and tortillas are made in-house, having undergone hundreds of batch testings to ensure quality; rice, pinto/black beans, cheese, salsa, and sour cream are carefully layered for structural integrity, and wrapped in their favorite hand-stretched, super-thin-yet-resilient flour tortilla...

Fork in the Road notes that the Dos Toros space was designed by the same people who did Spitzer's Corner, the Box, Boqueria and Hill Country.

New mural for Whole Earth Bakery and Kitchen

Uh, after I got home, I realized that you really can't make out the mural all that well...




The artist was taking a break when I happened by... In any event, a good sign... perhaps the store will open soon...

Previously.

A missing son

Given the number of lame viral marketing attempts involving missing people, we can't help but be cynical about fliers we see in the neighborhood...these fliers went up this weekend... (A friend told me he says these in several other parts of the city....)



After doing a little research, this seems to be a genuine missing person. Here's an article on the man from the Pocono Record.

Gleaming the Coop

Curbed has noted some of the shenanigans occurring on the ramp outside Cooper Union's new academic building... got a chance to see some tomfoolery myself Friday night... About five or six teen skateboarders were enjoying the new makeshift park...






This went on for a good five minutes. Right when someone watching remarked, "I can't believe security hasn't said anything," a lone security guard brandishing a walkie talkie appeared... one of the skateboarders yelled "go, go, go" to his friends, who took off and hung a left on Sixth Street.

Welcome to the neighborhood!: First tag spotted on the new Cooper Union Building

Also, noticed that some folks are finding shelter alongside the building.



I also noticed that someone threw up alongside the building. I took a photo. But I decided to spare you.

Xoom coming soon

The new canopy is up at Zoom on Seventh Street between Avenue A and First Avenue. We noted back in August that Xoom, a healthy smoothie shop, would be opening soon.

The owner left a comment on that post explaining a little more about Xoom:

Hello everybody. I would like to introduce myself. My name is Jennifer London and I am the owner of Xoom. I live in the Lower East Side and am very fond of the East Village, which is why I chose to open there. I wanted to assure you that although there are three other Xooms (all owned and operated by the founder in Tucson), Xoom is far from a chain. I was a regular at Xoom when I lived in Tucson and became friends with the owner. This spring, I asked him if I could open a Xoom in New York and he agreed. For all intents and purposes, this is a locally owned business with its own personality that I assure you will make a good neighbor in the East Village. If you have any questions feel free to go to our website, click on the New York side of the site and you can find my contact info there.

(And for the record, in that post, we also misspelled Tucson about 50 times.)

Showy is missing -- marshal's office to blame?

On Seventh Street and First Avenue.

Joe's has reopened

A very good sign...Joe's was closed due to what one commenter described as an "insurance snafu." It was shuttered for at least one week...the above photo was taken Saturday...Anyone know when it reopened? I didn't go by Thursday or Friday nights.

Previously on EV Grieve:
"Joe's is only closed temporarily"

"Something Sweet is back"

Good news. Per EV Grieve reader rmom Friday evening: "Something Sweet is back. I walked by today, Cathy wasn't there but the son was."

Previously on EV Grieve:
Not so Sweet: Old school bakery temporarily closed

Ad takeovers

As the Times reports, there was "a bizarre cat-and-mouse game" on billboards across the city yesterday.

One group of artists and activists spread across Lower Manhattan, transforming innumerous wheat-pasted posters — the ones that readily sprout over scaffolding — into their own canvas.

They would whitewash the posters and then create their own work, or allow anti-advertising advocates to spread their own messages.

But just as quickly as they whitewashed and put up art, workers arrived to put up new posters where the artists had obscured the old ones.

And so it went, back and forth, with drama, confrontation and even a few arrests by day's end.

The takeover efforts were organized by an artist, Jordan Seiler, who founded a group called the Public Ad Campaign to question and challenge the use of outdoor ads in public areas.

I took the photo here on Seventh Street and First Avenue.