The disappearing storefronts of East 14th Street

Today, Ray's East Side 99-cent store on East 14th Street near Avenue B will close, as these photos by East Village Hawkeye show...





Ray has already moved around the corner, where he set up a 99-cent store in the base of the Copper Building last fall. The landlord here apparently wanted a big rent hike.

However, we do not know what will happen to Ba, who has a sliver of a shop next to East Side where he sells socks, gloves, phone chargers, etc. Ba told EV Hawkeye that he wants to stay in the neighborhood, but hasn't found a space yet. (Ray doesn't have enough space on B to accommodate Ba.)

Meanwhile, the storefront to the east, where La Isla was, remains for rent.



And there are several empty storefronts just to the west. ABC Animal Hospital moved last week to Avenue A ... Bargain Bazaar closed for good on Jan. 3 ... its neighbor to the east, Petland, closed and is supposedly relocating...

A still-unspecified new development will, some day, eat up much of the block. As we previously reported, eight parcels consisting of 222 Avenue A and 504 - 530 E. 14th St. (excluding No. 520) were leased for a 99-year period by the respective owner of East Village 14 LLC.

As we understand it, the remaining businesses will not have their leases renewed. What will be gone...

Another time, we'll discuss the next block up, past Avenue A, where all those single-level businesses are lined up next to the likely-closing Peter Stuyvesant Post Office. This is all drool-worthy space for some developer ...



Previously on EV Grieve:
East 14th Street exodus continues

Conspiracies: What next for 14th Street and Avenue A?

Those ongoing rumors about the future of East 14th Street between Avenue A and B

Petland is moving away from East 14th Street, fueling more new development rumors

[Updated with correction] 8-lot parcel of East 14th Street primed for new development

Bargain Express has closed on East 14th Street

Looking at the retail component of recent East Village developments

There are currently three major upscale housing developments in progress in the East Village ... each of which will have a retail component:

• 21 Jupiter

A 4,300-square-foot TB Bank branch has inked a deal here at Second Avenue and East First Street. And there are those Mars bar comeback rumors too.

• The Jefferson



There are two retail spaces available here on East 14th Street at the former Mystery Lot...

• 84 Third Ave.

As far as we know, there aren't any deals in place yet for 84 Third Ave., the 12 story retail-residential combo coming to the corner of East 12th Street.

There you have all that.

So let's take a look back at three recent developments to see how the retail component fared...

• 2 Cooper Square



The retail space remains empty... and on the market since the apartments hit the market in 2009...

• 52 E. 4th Street



The retail portion of the 15 stories of condo on the Bowery and East Fourth Street sat empty, save a few odd pop-up shops (remember Bowery Bazaar in 2009?)... until plans for a 7-Eleven were eventually unveiled ... the convenience store opened on Dec. 23, 2011.

• The Copper Building



The retail space here on Avenue B and East 13th Street remained vacant for several years until the East Side 99¢ shop moved in last October.

So, the three high-end developments have yielded a 7-Eleven and a 99-cent shop (which relocated from around the corner). Residents are willing to pay big money to live here, but retailers aren't as interested to follow suit... What's going on here?

Out and About in the East Village

In this weekly feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.

By James Maher

Name: Jesus Picayo (and daughter Alina)
Occupation: Landlord (Miami)
Location: 5th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues
Time: 1:30 pm on Saturday, Oct. 13

We moved here in 1996. I was born in Cuba, but we were living in St. Thomas and we got hit by two hurricanes, so in ‘95 I just left for good. My mother was here; my brothers were here. I moved to Second and B. The price brought me here and the neighborhood was starting to change already.

I own some property in Miami, some row houses that I rent out. But I don’t like Miami. I just came from there and they stole my tailgate off my truck. I’ve had people break in and cause $100,000 in damage to the building for $500 in copper wire and pipes.

This was an area where at one point you couldn’t live. On the corner of B and 2nd they would sell like a million dollars in drugs a day. You’d find bodies in bags in the gardens. It was rough. By the time I got here you could still see some drug addicts and there was a lot of window breaking in cars. Around, Avenues A, B, C and D, all the way up to Tompkins Square Park it was mainly Puerto Ricans who lived there. Unfortunately, people have been driven out now.

Yesterday I had to kick the local drunk out of my building because he peed all over the entrance. He won’t move unless you hose him with cold water. And he hates water; he won’t take a shower, so you gotta hose him. And he says ‘ah, I’m gonna kill you,’ and so I sprayed him and he got up, but he can’t even really walk. This guy’s been here for over 40 years, between C and D, on the street. He will go to the check cashing place on Houston and open the door for people and he’ll make $50 in a few hours. So I deal with him. He has some interesting stories when he’s not drunk.

Almost everything is gone. The old Sidewalk used to be really good. It’s still there but it’s changed. There was a record store where Dunkin' Donuts is on Delancey, by the bridge, and it was really good because all they sold was Puerto Rican music, salsa. There was a lady that worked there and I used to go a lot and talk to her and she knew every song I was looking for. She was great; that was a good place. I also remember all of the little places that sold fried food on Clinton Street; they’re all gone. There were a lot of bakeries there. I mean, a lot of them were drug fronts, but they’re all gone now.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.

Dollar Plus store opens below million-dollar condos

As we've noted (here and here), the East Side 99¢ shop was moving from East 14th Street to become the first retail tenant in the Copper Building.

And on Saturday, the Dollar Plus store opened here on Avenue B at East 13th Street ... where a handful of the 17 residences top the $1 million mark, according to Streeteasy.

... and last night, with the new sign above the front door...

Early renderings of the building do not show any discount stores in the retail space...

Finding the right retail tenant in upscale housing must be difficult. For instance, a 7-Eleven opened in the ground floor at 52E4 — the 15 stories of condo on the Bowery and East Fourth Street.

Regardless, the Dollar Plus store is a good one.

2 small shops out on East 14th Street, though 1 is moving into the Copper Building

EVG reader John passes along information about the friendly fellow named Ba, a Senegal native, who has a sliver of a shop next to East Side 99¢ on East 14th Street near Avenue B.

"He works very long hours selling socks, gloves, phone chargers, etc. — all kinds of stuff," John wrote. Unfortunately, the landlord is looking for a big rent hike, and both shops will be out.

John said that Ba is looking for a new space in the neighborhood, or perhaps elsewhere. "If anyone hears of anything, it would be nice to let him know."

As for the East Side 99¢ shop, it's our understanding that they are moving into the retail space in the Copper Building around the corner on Avenue B at East 13th Street. (Several readers noted this after our post on it here.)

The stock is piling up at the store (unless a Copper Building resident is hoarding personal toaster ovens and blenders) ...

We like this addition to this corner...

[October 2010]

7-Eleven alert: Are 2 chain stores replacing Bar on A and Angels & Kings?

[From August]

In recent years, when a business closes around here, it's inevitable that the Starbucks-7-Eleven-Subway rumor makes the rounds as a replacement.

We heard this after Graceland closed ... when 34 Avenue A was looking for a new tenant ... when Kate's Joint closed on Avenue B ... when 219 First Avenue had retail space available; ditto for the Copper Building retail ground floor — and so on. Sometimes it turns out to be true, and other times, it's just a rumor. Or something people use merely as a threat.

So we heard the Starbucks-7-Eleven-Subway whispers about the recently shuttered Bar on A at East 11th Street. In part, these rumors surfaced because Ben Shaoul of Magnum Real Estate owns the building ... and two of his East Village properties are now home to a Starbucks (First Avenue at East Third Street) and a 7-Eleven (Broadway and East 12th Street). On Monday, one of the construction workers gutting 170 Avenue A told told a reporter from The Local that a 7-Eleven was taking over the former Bar on A space.

[Photos by Shawn Chittle]

However, in addition, workers have cleared out Angels & Kings, Pete Wentz's onetime emo hangout behind Bar on A at 500 E. 11th St. (aka 170 Avenue A). According to the work permits for No. 500: "REMODEL EXISTING STAIR CONNECTING CELLAR AND FIRST FLOOR. REMOVE INTERIOR NON-LOAD BEARING PARTITIONS AT FIRST FLOOR."

[Last evening via EVG reader Cheryl Pyle on Facebook]

An EVG regular who has been watching all this unfold thinks that the two spaces together are too big for just a 7-Eleven, and believes that the two spaces would yield both a 7-Eleven and a Subway. Or a Starbucks. This is only a theory. But plausible.

In January, the CB3/SLA gave the OK for the people behind Keybar on East 13th Street to take over the Angels & Kings space and open a bar-restaurant serving Hungarian food. No word on whatever happened to those plans.

However, there's nothing just yet on the DOB permits pointing specifically yet to a 7-Eleven, Starbucks or Subway. One connection: The applicant of record for both 500 E. 11th St. and 170 Avenue A is Bentonville, Ark.-based Harrison French & Associates, an architecture and engineering firm whose clients include 7-Eleven, Starbucks and Subway. (Harris French did the 7-Eleven on Broadway at East 12th Street and East 14th Street.)

In any event, nothing official has been released about the corner's future. But given NYC's current retail environment, you may want to get ready for the first national, non-bank chain/franchise on Avenue A. And probably not the last.

Is a 99-cent store going into the Copper Building retail space on Avenue B?

[October 2010]

We've been curious about what would take the corner retail space here at the Copper Building on Avenue B and East 13th Street ... home of million-dollar penthouses.

There was an a rumor about a 7-Eleven opening here... But that is simply not true — the retail-space-for-lease ad specified no delis or laundromats.

In recent weeks, workers have put up brown paper on the windows... and we finally got a look inside.... Let's see, packages of undershirts...

... and plastic toys for kids...

Looks like a 99-cent type of store ... like the ones remaining around the corner on East 14th Street. We asked a broker here last week for information on the new tenant, but never heard back.

Previously.

Avenue B is for Change

Let's put together all the recent changes on Avenue B that we've covered in recent months... We'll start on East Houston and head north ...

... where the liquor store remains closed after several years...

... and the hardware store next door is still on the market after closing last fall ...

At 14 Avenue B, another applicant is going before the CB3/SLA committee this month in hopes of opening some kind of bar-cafe-restaurant...

Across the street, The New World Order, a vintage boutique, closed in May... and the empty storefront offered up a photogenic night-time shot...

However, there is already paper over the windows... another business on the way in...?

On the corner, a well-placed tipster told us in April that Thomas DeGeest, founder of Wafels & Dinges, will open his first café based on the same concept as his popular food trucks in circulation around the city.

In late May, Zaitzeff abruptly closed... this space and the basement location next door of the former Dolphin Gym sit empty...

Next door, the former Croxley Ales Beer Garden is full of weeds ... while Croxley Ales plans to expand to the storefront to the north. (Not pictured)

Up on the southwest corner, a chunk of the ivy-covered building is empty after Mama's sudden departure...

On the east side of the street between Third Street and Fourth Street, the stretch of storefronts that included the LeSouk empire are empty... Neighbors have been buzzing about that rumor that the building will receive a few extra floors during an upcoming renovation (only rumor for now) ...

Max, the 12-year-old Italian place near Fourth Street, will have a new location in Williamsburg ... when that opens, according to The Wall Street Journal, the Avenue B location will close...

On the northwest corner of Avenue B and East Fourth Street ... Kate's Joint closed in April ... word is an organic market will be opening here...

And at Fifth and B, the former Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation will become upscale housing...

Meanwhile, expect some dumpsters here in the coming weeks and months...

The Hare Krishnas moved out of their home at 96 Avenue B last summer, as BoweryBoogie first reported.

[BoweryBoogie]

At 98 Avenue B, Pizza Grupo will be moving into Layalay, the former B&T hookah hotspot, from its current home at 186 Avenue B...

[Ah the memories! 98 Avenue B a few years ago...]

And, of course, at Eight Street... St. Brigid's continues its restoration...

[Monday... by Bobby Williams]

Between East Ninth and East 10th ... the former pet shop is still for rent... it closed in May...

On the corner of East 10th Street, the sidewalk shed finally came down outside the former Life Cafe space after too long ... the 30-year-old Life closed last Sept. 11, as we first reported... (And Ninth Street Espresso will expand into part of the space...)

Next door, Lakeside Lounge closed on April 30. Workers have gutted the exterior in preparation for a new bar from some folks involved with Niagara...

An applicant is on the August CB3/SLA docket for the former Mercadito Cantina space that we hear will be a BBQ joint ...

On the east side of the Avenue, No. 165 was on the market... with promises of retail and two-more floors. The building is now in contract, per Streeteasy.



Up on the next block, we've been writing about 185-193 Avenue B, a former theater and, later, church... workers just started demolishing the place to make way for a 12-story apartment building that will include community space and the new home for the Elim Pentecostal Church...

What else... a space for rent near East 13th Street...

... and the Copper Building retail space has yet another broker...

And as we reported last November, an "artisanal cocktail bar" is opening upstairs from Bee Liquors (in the space that has been home to White Noise and Uncle Ming's). Yesterday, Paper noted that the space will be called Pouring Ribbons, and run by American Bartender of the Year Joaquín Simó, who worked the last five-plus years at Death & Co.

Lastly, maybe, you can rent the former Luca Lounge space for the low price of $19,995 per month.

If you made it this far without bursting into tears or something... I've counted 22 empty storefronts. (I didn't mention a few that have been closed for some time.) Still, for all these sweeping changes... there are some really good places on Avenue B, from bars (Mona's, Manitoba's, Vazac's, B-Side) to stores (Bee Liquors, Sunny & Annie's, Amor Bakery, Wendigo) to institutions (GOLES, Lower East Side People's Federal Credit Union) to restaurants (Cafe Rakka, Y Cafe — you have your favorites ...) ... and just two franchises: one national (Subway); and one local (Duane Reade). Wonder how long that chain-free feeling will last...

Previously on EV Grieve:
There are more than 20 empty storefronts along Avenue B