Back in August, the Post reported that Red Square, the 13-floor building, was in contract to be sold to Dermot Co. for roughly $100 million.
There's nothing yet in public records to reflect the sale of the building on East Houston Street between Avenue A and Avenue B.
Meanwhile, a tipster told us that the 18-foot statue of Vladimir Lenin, which has stood atop the building since 1994 (Red Square was built five years earlier), was coming down last night... EVG contributor Stacie Joy stopped by for the Lenin removal, which took more then two-plus hours...
And a view from the roof ...
[Photo via @ElizabethQBrown]
One now-former Red Square resident said that the building's management isn't renewing leases past April. Another tipster claimed that Michael Rosen, the building's original developer, had purchased the statue, which was being transported to Queens.
The building was completed in 1989. And the statue?
Per Ephemeral New York:
“The 18-foot Lenin statue was originally a state-commissioned work by Yuri Gerasimov, but the Soviet Union’s implosion prevented the statue from going on public display. It was found by an associate of [a building co-owner] in the backyard of a dacha outside Moscow.”
[Photo by Lower East Side Lenin Fan]
[Photo by Lower East Side Lenin Fan]
In 1997, Michael Shaoul, a co-owner of the building, told the Times that the statue of Lenin, with his right arm raised victoriously, "faces Wall Street, capitalism's emblem, and the Lower East Side, 'the home of the socialist movement.'"
Updated 9/21
Looks as if Lenin will live on nearby ... on Norfolk Street, per BoweryBoogie.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Rumors: Red Square has been sold
Report: Red Square has been sold for $100 million
