Monday, August 7, 2017

Amato to Nothing

Back in 2009, we said goodbye to the great Amato Opera House, on the Bowery for 60 years.


2009

The building was sold and sold again. Recently, the plywood was removed to reveal this--a stark white box awaiting a luxury chain store or an art gallery or a restaurant. Certainly not a rag-tag, affordable opera house.



As Bowery Boogie noted last year, infamous local landlord Steve Croman was "converting 319 Bowery into a mixed-use dwelling befitting Bowery 2.0. Three glitzy, full-floor apartments, including the aforementioned penthouse will sit atop the ground level store. The retail space was last on the market in 2014, asking a whopping $35,000 per month in rent."

2 comments:

Mitch said...

Actually, it's better to think of this as Bowery 3.0. The first was a high-rent district that declined over time, especially when the el went in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowery#Rise_of_the_area

Not that that makes the current transformation any better.

Anonymous said...

Is this the small opera house that was featured on 60 Minutes? I suspect the original owner may have passed. I don't know why but I just fell in love with the idea of having a small opera house for professional as well as amateur and student performers. Just like in Italy and Sicily, these small theaters are just wonderful to experience. If I ever hit the lottery I will definitely fund one in my home town! So sad to see that it appears to have taken a final bow.