We started following this corner in 2007, when rumors circulated about the demolition of the block's historic artist studio buildings and the coming of high-rise construction. St. Marx Music (formerly a branch of the Atlas Barber School) and the Green East grocer were booted out.
The site was covered in plywood and neglected. In 2008, we learned the corner would be demolished to make room for a boutique hotel. It looked like the low-rise buildings would be coming down, but they didn't.
Since then, the only activity on this building has come from the Scribbler, a strange graffitist who regularly covered the plywood with his angry messages. But some time in the past year, the Scribbler stopped scribbling.
With the Death Star risen and the Hyatt Union Square just opened nearby, we may soon see another dull glass box for the neighborhood--on a sleepy block that was once the home of celebrated galleries and artists like Willem DeKooning.
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Says the listing, "Plans exist for a nine story mixed-use building with 8 floor through apartments and a bi-level retail space with double height ceilings."
With all that glass, let's hope the Scribbler has his permanent-ink Magic Markers at the ready.
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today
Only 8 floors? Not 80?
ReplyDeleteHow will Fredrik Eklund, the Swedish ex-porn star and current leading light of Bravo's Million Dollar Listing New York be able to make millions if there are only 8 floor-through condos at this spot?
80 floors, 800 floors, 8000 floors, but please let them be LUXURY and please build a moat around the whole thing to keep the roteques and poors and the rest of the riffraff out. Some of us are top drawer and have grandmothers who were baronesses, you know.