Asbestos abatement for the long-abandoned 6 Avenue B

Photos yesterday by Stacie Joy 

The first steps in the gut renovation of 6 Avenue B are underway. Workers have started the asbestos abatement here on the NW corner of Avenue B and Houston ...

Contractors here confirmed they will renovate the building — not tearing it down, as a few readers suspected.

Last Friday, we had the scoop about the new owner of the long empty/abandoned building.

The owner is an LLC linked to Penn Capital South, whose portfolio includes multiple EV properties.

According to public records, the building changed hands for just $1.05 million. However, the new owners also had to pay $4.2 million in real property transfer and real estate transfer taxes.

As we've pointed out (here and here), the building is in dismal shape and will need significant work to bring it up to code. (The DOB has cited No. 6 for emergency repairs several times in recent years.)

This was one of the abandoned buildings owned by the estate of the mysterious team of Arthur and Abraham Blasof, both long deceased. However, No. 6 has been generating some income with the cell-phone towers on the roof.  

Stay tuned for more news about the building next week...

A for-rent sign arrives at the former Café Cortadito as the curbside dining structure exits

Photos by Stacie Joy 

Workers yesterday removed the remains of the curbside dining structure from the now-closed Café Cortadito at 210 E. Third St., just east of Avenue B. 

The Cuban restaurant closed at the end of January after 18 years in business following a rent increase from $8,000 to $15,000 per month. 

Ricardo Arias and Patricia Valencia, the husband-and-wife owners, said they would be dismantling the curbside dining structure. Before workers hauled off the remains of the structure, the owners had donated some salvageable parts to the nearby community garden and given away remnants to patrons who requested a souvenir from the restaurant.

Meanwhile, a for-rent banner arrived on the gate... (perhaps cooling the rumors that next-door neighbor Poco would take over the space)...

The broker is also repping the other available storefront in the building — the former Solo Pizza, which closed last fall on the Avenue B side for unspecified reasons. (Allegedly a rent hike, per sources.) 

As for Café Cortadito, Arias and Valencia hope to relocate nearby.

Thursday's parting shot

Photo by Steven 

Multiple readers have mentioned this barricaded chair on the NE corner of Fifth Street and Second Avenue... we are on it. #FreeTheChair

East River Greenway now closed along the Con Ed power plant

Multiple EVG readers shared the news that, as of Monday, the East River Greenway is closed for "construction activities" between 20th Street and 14th Street, including the narrow passage along the FDR and Con Edison power plant. (Thanks to Laurie Schulwolf for the photo!)

The notice states the work would begin starting the week of Feb. 6, though it turned out to be Feb. 13.

Per the notice:

Current access to the Ferry will not be impacted. All cyclists should follow the Greenway detour below and posted signage. The Greenway north of E 20th Street will remain open to the community. Access East River Park at the E 10th Street pedestrian bridge or the Houston Street overpass.

A worker at the scene said this passage would be closed for two months. 

This is part of the $1.45 billion East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) project in East River Park. Workers are burying the 57.5-acre park under fill, cutting down 1,000 trees and elevating the land by 8-to-10 feet above sea level to protect the area from future storm surges. The city has said they will maintain public access to a minimum of 42 percent of the park throughout construction, which is expected to be complete by the end of 2026. 

In June 2021, then-Mayor de Blasio announced new city funding to add more amenities to the ESCR project, including a $129 million flyover bridge to elevate the Greenway over this notorious pinch point along the East River.

Per the city's press release at the time:

 • $129 million, in a separate capital project, to the Department of Transportation to fully fund a future flyover bridge that will improve bike and pedestrian access through this critical part of the Greenway. The bridge will span the pinch point area of the Manhattan Greenway as it passes 14th Street along the East River, where the Greenway narrows to just a few feet wide to fit between the river, the FDR Drive and adjacent Con Edison facilities. The bridge construction will be coordinated with ESCR.

We have yet to see a timeline for this bridge work. 

A petition and more cinder blocks for the former P.S. 64/Charas/El Bohio Community Center

We thought the construction team sealing up the former P.S. 64/Charas/El Bohio Community Center had wrapped up their emergency work.

However, yesterday, a reader noted a worker putting cinder blocks over an entrance on the 10th Street side of the building... and over a mural of LES activist, actor, and playwright Bimbo Rivas. (Last month, workers told EVG contributor Stacie Joy that they've actually "preserved" the artwork here, claiming that there is an inch or two between the masonry and the painting.)

The workers, who arrived on Dec. 20, told Stacie that they were sealing up some remaining windows and putting down 2x4s to shore up the ground-floor banisters and flooring on the building's Ninth Street and 10th Street sides here between Avenue B and Avenue C. 

The former school and community center had been easy to access in recent years, attracting a variety of urban thrillseekers and partygoers. The broken windows and poorly secured doors also exposed the building to the elements — not to mention pigeons.

According to workers, they've actually "preserved" the artwork here (two murals were mostly covered), saying that there is an inch or two between the masonry and the painting, so it is not being disturbed and that no mortar abuts the work.

Meanwhile, as reported late last month, the landmarked building is headed to a foreclosure auction in March. 

According to The Real Deal, a court-appointed referee set an auction for the property at the Hilton New York Midtown Fifth Avenue on March 22. (As previously noted, the 135,000-square-foot building is zoned for "community facility use." Any conversion to a condoplex or residential housing would require a zoning variance.)

There's now a petition in circulation titled, "Save Charas Community Center! Stop the Private Auction!"

Per the petition, which states, "Demand Mayor Adams use eminent domain to return the center to the people!"

For 22 years, from 1979 to 2001, 605 E. Ninth St. served as the home to the Charas/El Bohio Community & Cultural Center. Each year, thousands of people attended programs there. Charas hosted community meetings, children’s programming, art exhibits, music concerts, film screenings, plays, dance recitals, bicycle recycling, construction and youth jobs training, substance abuse treatment, and political organizing. 

In 1998, Rudy Giuliani sold Charas to a campaign contributor [Gregg Singer] for a paltry $3.15 million, and in December of 2001, Charas was evicted from the space, and the center was shuttered.

You can find the petition here.

And our previous post has more background. 

Report: A roadblock for the relocation of New York Eye and Ear Infirmary and sale of its land

Mount Sinai Beth Israel's plan to merge New York Eye and Ear Infirmary (NYEEI) within its system and then sell the prime real-estate facilities in the East Village has hit a "snag," the Post reports. 

A New York State Department of Health committee declined the hospital system's merger proposal.

The DOH panel, known as the New York Public Health and Health Planning Council, voted 11-6 to approve the merger, but it was three votes short of the number needed under the panel's rules. Those who voted no said that, among other issues, Mount Sinai had kept the community in the dark about its plans and dodged questions from the DOH itself. 

The committee's vote is not the final word, as it must be affirmed by DOH Acting Commissioner James V. McDonald, who was named to the post on Jan. 1. A source said it was "rare" for a commissioner to overrule the planning council. 

The Infirmary owns two buildings here — 14th Street and Second Avenue and 13th Street and Second Avenue — and the vacant lot on 13th Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue. 

Sources told the Post that the parcel "could fetch up to $70 million if sold for apartment-building construction."

Dr. Howard Berliner, a DOH panel member who voted against the merger ... alluded at the hearing to concerns that Mount Sinai aimed to dismantle NYEEI so that it could cash in on a property sale. 

"If I was a real estate developer, I would be drooling at the prospect of getting the [NYEEI] site in the East Village, probably one of the hottest markets in New York City," Berliner said.

Earlier this month, local elected officials wrote to Mount Sinai CEO Kenneth Davis and urged him to pause its proposal.

Last spring, Village Preservation made an appeal to have 218 Second Ave. at 13th Street landmarked.

Previously

The renovations happening inside the all-new Bleecker Street Bar on Broadway

It doesn't appear that much is happening behind the blank storefront at 648 Broadway between Bleecker and Bond. 

However, behind the closed doors and papered windows... the new home of the Bleecker Street Bar is coming together. 

Management has been sharing updates on the bar's Instagram account... recent additions include a pool table... high-top tables ... and dart boards ... all elements of the previous incarnation... 

The bar's Instagram account lists an early 2023 opening date.

As previously reported, the neighborhood bar's 30-year tenure on the corner of Bleecker and Crosby ended in August 2020. Per the owners at the time: "All of our efforts to negotiate a reasonable lease extension with our landlord have failed." (The storefront is now home to the New York flagship store for Sabah, which offers high-end leather Turkish slippers and other accessories.) 

BSB fans were pleased that management could line up this new space just around the corner on Broadway. 

Wednesday's parting shot

Photo by Daniel Efram 

The late Tom Verlaine's solo debut album from 1979 as seen in the window of Academy Records on 12th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue...

Tompkins Square Post Office leaving us hanging!

Photo by Stacie Joy 

As seen on the door at the Tompkins Square Post Office on Third Street between Avenue B and Avenue C.

Sorry we do not supply tape at the.

Building out O'Flaherty's

Photos by Stacie Joy 

As we've been reporting (here and here), O'Flaherty's is opening its new art gallery here on 44 Avenue A at Third Street. 

The space debuts tomorrow evening (Feb. 16) with a performance series titled "O’Flaherty's gelitin O'Flattering," which will also include the U.S. premiere of "Stinking Dawn," a full-length feature film by Liam Gillick and gelitin. (Find more details and the schedule here.)

EVG contributor Stacie Joy was with artist-curator Jamian Juliano-Villani when she first received the keys to the space on Jan. 2... and began renovations.

This space has been empty since Upright Citizens Brigade Theater closed UCBeast amid financial challenges in February 2019. The comedy venue opened in September 2011, and UCB took over part of the expanded Two Boots empire — the video store on Avenue A and the Pioneer Theater around the corner on Third Street.

O'Flaherty's did keep the small theater for screenings...

Stacie stopped by again on Jan. 18 for a progress check ...

Juliano-Villani's friend and business associate Ruby Zarsky (one-half of Sateen) was also on hand... 

The awning arrived on Jan. 27...

Juliano-Villani moved her gallery into this space after a year at 55 Avenue C at Fourth Street (we covered the opening here, culminating with a barn burner of a show late this past summer).

You can read more about the gallery here. And follow them on Instagram for updates and creative uses of EVG comments.