Waste

This article in the Guardian begins, "On a damp and humid Thursday afternoon Manhattan’s Union Square is looking sorry for itself. There’s 73,000 sq ft of empty retail space up for grabs at 44 Union Square in the now boarded up neo-Georgian landmark that was once Tammany Hall." 

What it doesn't mention is the fact that several small mom-and-pop businesses were pushed out of the building in 2016 to make room for, undoubtedly, more chain and luxury businesses that would fit the class of workers intended for the building's high-tech makeover. 

 

 

Frank's Wines & Liquors had been there for over 40 years. A deli went, along with a smoke shop and magazine shop. Also pushed out were the New York Film Academy and the Union Square Theater.

It's unlikely that those high-tech workers are coming. And the chain stores probably aren't either, since they've now "abandoned" Manhattan after helping to destroy it. 

It is deeply regrettable that the leaders of this city didn't pass the Small Business Jobs Survival Act or reinstate commercial rent regulation when it would have made a difference. How many small businesses will we lose to the pandemic after they survived the Great Depression, the major fiscal crisis and high crime of the 1970s, September 11, the financial crisis of 2008? Some even survived the pandemic of 1918. Because when the rent is reasonable, businesses can survive even the worst catastrophes.

 

 

Chase Sign

Back when Union Square's Coffee Shop shuttered for Chase Bank, thanks to a massive rent hike, we heard that the bank might be keeping the antique neon sign and re-doing the letters so it spelled out CHASE instead of COFFEE SHOP.

Last month, the antique sign was removed. We wondered if it would come back--refurbished or repurposed. It has not.

Yesterday, New York filmmaker Amy Nicholson tweeted a photo of the replacement:



Thankfully, it's not a Frankensteined mashup of COFFEE SHOP and CHASE. That would be unbearable. It's also not neon and it's not faux antique.

It is instead a sanitized, zombified, half-hearted riff on the old Coffee Shop sign.



It's vertical and two-sided, like the old sign, and the word JOE (the name of the coffee chain inside the bank) is at the bottom, enclosed in a rectangular ring of yellow lights, also (sort of) like the old sign.

I'm sure the PR people at Chase will call this an "homage." They might even call it a "loving homage," as if banks are capable of such emotions. But we know better, don't we?





And what is the fate of the original sign? It went back a long way -- and it should have been left right where it was, untouched and intact.


detail of photo by Karen Gehres, via Flaming Pablum

New Chase

When Coffee Shop on Union Square closed in 2018, we heard it would be turned into yet another Chase Bank branch.

That signage is now up:





We also heard the rumor that Chase might be keeping the antique neon sign and re-doing the letters so it spells out CHASE instead of COFFEE SHOP.

That signage is now gone. Whether or not it returns is anyone's guess.

Chase Takes Coffee Shop

Remember when a tipster told us that Chase Bank would be taking the space of Coffee Shop on Union Square? Now it is confirmed.

Earlier this month, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency approved Chase Bank's application to establish a branch on the southwest corner 16th Street and Union Square West. (There was apparently a public comment period, but we didn't get the invitation.)



The bank is rumored to take over part of what was Coffee Shop, while the rest will go to restaurants and potentially other retail geared to attract the sort of people depicted in the rendering below.



Coffee Shop opened in 1990 and closed in 2018 when the rent went up. According to my tipster, the rent was hiked to $3 million annually. Today, the businesses on Union Square are nothing but chain stores and banks.

A Plea to Protect the Strand

The Strand Bookstore has just issued a plea against the landmarking of its building. I spoke to Leigh Altshuler, Communications Director for the Strand, who explained the unusual situation.



"They're building these big, new tech hubs," she said, describing the tech building boom south of Union Square that is threatening the historic neighborhood, driving up speculation and demolition. "And in a trade-off, the Strand and a few other buildings along Broadway are now being calendared for landmarking." But the bookstore and building owner Nancy Bass has not been part of that decision. She didn't receive the LPC's draft designation report until after Thanksgiving, giving the Strand little time to prepare for the public hearing on December 4.

Leigh explains that the building is already protected--by the Bass family. "The building is already overbuilt," she says, meaning it has no air rights to sell and it cannot be expanded upon. "There is no danger of it being torn down. Nancy has no intent to sell the building. She just wants to keep running the store without added cost or pressure."

Below is the full text of the Strand's press release, with information about the public hearing and a request for help.



Friends of the Strand,

I'm writing today to ask for your support.

The Strand's building is currently calendared for landmarking by the city. The Strand currently runs on thin margins as a bookseller and retailer in New York City, fighting to survive in the era of Amazon. We have over 230 employees -- most whom are unionized -- and unlike large online retailers (like Amazon), have never asked or received tax breaks or other economic assistance to insure business profitability.

All this designation will do is cost us with bureaucracy in time, frustration, money and uncertainty. We will be forced to wait for approvals and debate what is the right thing to do-- both inside and outside of the store for changes like putting in a coffee shop, repairs from a flood or fire, etc. We need to have the flexibility to change with the needs of our customers and community.

Nancy's family worked for six decades to be able to buy this building and is dedicated to continuing the Bass's 91 year legacy forward. The building is already overbuilt -- with no air rights -- and at no risk for becoming a high rise, glass office building, hotel or luxury apartment. Nancy just wants to insure the security of the Strand, giving her children the opportunity to become 4th generation owners.

There is a public hearing on:

Tuesday, December 4th at 9:30am

at LPC's office in the Municipal Building

located at 1 Centre Street, 9th Floor

This gives the Strand the opportunity to make a case against the landmark status. Nancy will be speaking, joined by authors Gary Shteyngart and Hank O’Neal, and long time Strand employees. Will you please join us on December 4th to show your support? Strand tote in hand, your attendance is what will make this a success. To share this information with your friends, please use this link: https://www.strandbooks.com/protect-strand.

While well-intended, landmarking the building will undermine the Strand, a place that is already considered a landmark by the community, and ultimately put in peril.

Thank you for your support and we look forward to seeing you there.

Coffee Shop to Chase Bank

A tipster friend tells us that the famous and just-shuttered Coffee Shop on Union Square is rumored to become yet another Chase Bank.



He attended the post-closing auction this week and chatted with insiders there. They told him: 1. The space is going to Chase, 2. The rent was hiked to $3 million annually, and 3. Chase might be keeping the antique neon sign and re-doing the letters so it spells out CHASE instead of COFFEE SHOP.

None of this is confirmed for sure, but if the sign switcheroo happens, it would be yet another example of New York City soul snatching, a.k.a. authentrification. (See also: Village Den, Rocco's, Bill's Gay 90s, and too many more to list.)



Ironically, the original coffee shop here before Coffee Shop was called Chase--possibly Jack Chase in the 1950s. The name is still in the floor of the doorway.

In the 1980s, it was Jason's Restaurant.


photo by Karen Gehres, via Flaming Pablum


Tax photograph

Now it's empty, the pots and pans auctioned off, the lamps and decorations removed.

It's time to pass the Small Business Jobs Survival Act and protect places like Coffee Shop from becoming more banks (and Starbucks, and Targets, and pricey boutiques). Go to the public hearing on Monday, October 22. Speak your mind. If that's not possible, here are more easy, quick ways you can make a difference today. The future of this city depends on you.

Coffee Shop

VANISHING

After 28 years on Union Square, Coffee Shop is closing.



From The Post:

Co-owner and President Charles Milite says:

"The times have changed in our industry. The rents are very high and now the minimum wage is going up and we have a huge number of employees.”

Personally, I never went there except once or twice. It was too expensive and full of models. But, you know, the rent. And God save that neon sign.

St. Denis Update

Last week, NY Yimby reported that permits have been filed to replace the historic St. Denis building with a new 12-story office building. The St. Denis is 165 years old, boasts an impressive history (Alexander Graham Bell, Ulysses S. Grant, W.E.B. Du Bois, and lots of communists) and was recently emptied of hundreds of small business people (myself included). You can read all about it here.

For those who hoped the St. Denis would not be demolished, this doesn't look good. But a look at the permits reveals an important note: "Development Challenge Process is pending Zoning Approval. For any issues, please contact the relevant borough office."

Does that mean there is hope to save this building?



The GVSHP put out an email to explain the situation:

"The bottom line is we are working very hard to get zoning or landmark protections for the University Place, Broadway, and 3rd and 4th Avenue corridors, which the Mayor continues to oppose. We are using the leverage provided by his desire to get approval of his 14th Street tech hub, which requires City Council approval. We are not there yet, but the wheels are turning.

What does this mean in terms of the St. Denis site? The short answer is no one can say yet. It is still very much possible for the city to adopt zoning or landmark protections that include that site and would affect what can happen there moving forward – either limiting the size and height of new development, or preventing demolition or significant alteration of the existing building. But that depends upon timing – of when such measures would be adopted, and when demolition or development on the site might begin."

GVSHP asks that you send these quick and easy pre-written letters to the Mayor, the Borough President, and Councilmember Carlina Rivera. Add a note to say that the St. Denis should be protected from total demolition. You can include this history to argue for protection.

The St. Denis Building

The St. Denis building south of Union Square is full of stories. For 165 years, it's been a place for the famous and the radical. Most recently, it's been full of shrinks.



But that's all coming to an end as the building is emptied--displacing hundreds of small business people (myself included)--and as Union Square changes under the pressures of hyper-gentrification and City Halls' "Tech Hub."



I talked to the people inside the St. Denis, and wrote up the story of the Death and Life of a Great American Building for the New York Review of Books Daily. Read it here.

Roland Antiques

VANISHED/MOVED

Roland, auctioneers of antiques, has left the city. Family owned and founded in 1973, they've been in the neighborhood south of Union Square since 1974, and in the St. Denis building at 11th Street and Broadway for several years.

But the neighborhood is being rapidly changed.



In 2015, the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) put out a call to redevelop a city-owned site on E. 14th Street. They were looking to “create an iconic commercial development” for tech startups and co-working spaces. Mayor de Blasio soon announced the winning “Tech Hub,” a glass tower that politicians and developers hope will boost more high-end development. It is attracting major real estate speculation, including Normandy Real Estate Partners’ 2016 purchase of the St. Denis building for $101 million.

Normandy stopped renewing leases, and hundreds of small business people--most of them psychotherapists and other providers of wellness--were forced to leave the building. I was one of them. (A longer story about the building is forthcoming.)

Roland is the latest loss.


2016

For years, people in the building took pleasure in Roland's presence. Regularly, the auction house would receive a truck full of antiques from some estate and unload them onto the sidewalk to take photos for their catalog.



Roland occupied a large corner space with several windows along 11th and Broadway, plus two showrooms along the back hallway and more in the basement, but this was not enough to contain all the items.

The antiques would overflow into the lobby of the building, where they'd stay for awhile, providing an ever-changing--and often strange--decor.



Every month, Roland held an auction.

Before attending the auction, you'd go to the preview, wandering in and out of the showrooms, looking at the objects. Sometimes, a prospective buyer would try out a baby grand piano, filling the halls with music. 



On auction day, always a Saturday, the main room filled with New York characters. Brothers Bill and Robert Roland ran the show, with Bill as auctioneer. Bids came in over the phone and the Internet. A few items sold for as little as 10 bucks. Others went for big money. That large nude painting of Milda, Lithuanian goddess of love, sold for $55,000.

I was looking forward to their March auction. I only went a few times, but I loved the energy of that room, the people, the jokes, the excitement. No more.



Roland is moving out to Long Island--you'll find them at 150 School Street in Glen Cove.

When I visited as they were sadly packing up, an employee told me, "Unless you're Christie's or Sotheby's, you can't stay in the city anymore. The rents are too high."

Broadway Kitchens & Baths

Back in November I noted the closure of Second Hand Rose Records. Its building, 817 Broadway at 12th Street, was sold to Taconic Partners in 2016. They planned to "reposition" the property -- as the Real Deal reported, "by April 30, 2021, all the building’s current leases will have turned over."

Now another local small business has left the building.



Broadway Kitchens and Baths has closed. They've been in business since 1995. Their big corner space is emptying out as they sell off their display sinks.



As you can see in Taconic's rendering for the "Address of Innovation," the small business was not in the plan:



This means the only storefront business left at 817 is Ribalta restaurant. For now.

Second Hand Rose Records

VANISHED

For a few weeks now, there's a been a sign on the door of the Second Hand Rose used record shop on 12th Street, saying they were closed temporarily for renovation.


October

As Alex at Flaming Pablum noted, "maybe they are just renovating, and will re-emerge, Phoenix-style, from the ashes of their former ignominy with a robust new outlook." But "I’m not holding my breath."

Today the sign just says "CLOSED," no more note about renovation, and the shop is empty and dark. A few Bob Dylan posters sit in the window. When I asked, an employee of the building said, "They're closed forever."


October

We do not know the reason for the closure. But we do know that the building, 817 Broadway, was sold to Taconic Partners last year and they planned to "reposition" the property. As the Real Deal reported, "by April 30, 2021, all the building’s current leases will have turned over."

More recently, its anchor tenant, the Social Service Workers Union (SSEU), moved out of 817 to a smaller space in Times Square.

And the building is now wrapped in a new banner declaring it "The address of innovation." The website claims that 817 is "now poised to redefine what a building can do to inspire a city."

We can guess that means "Tech Hub" and not used record shop.

No Thanks, No Tech Hub

This Saturday, April 22, show up for a rally to save the neighborhood just south of Union Square Park.

Over just the past couple of years, we've watched this area be demolished and rebuilt into yet another dull center for luxury housing and corporations. Speculators are buying up whole buildings and evicting them of their small business tenants.

This is happening, in part, because of Mayor de Blasio's plan for a "tech hub."


the proposed tech hub on 14th st.

As GVSHP's Andrew Berman wrote in The Villager: "the new building would tower over its neighbors and form the lynchpin of a new 'Silicon Alley' the mayor hopes to develop between Union Square and Astor Place."

This is not a neighborhood in need of revitalization. It is already vital, its old buildings buzzing with small businesses from bottom to top. Say "no" to more luxurification. Say "no" to more corporate chains. Say "no" to more small business evictions.

Rally with GVSHP on Saturday at 3:00pm, on the east side of Broadway at 11th Street.

Asti

I regret that I never went into Asti, closed in 1999 after 75 years as "one of New York's most beloved and treasured restaurants."



You may remember, it was the place on E. 12th Street where the waitstaff sang opera while they served Italian dishes. Said one baritone at the time of the closure, "In the last decade, our customers either died, retired, or could no longer afford to come regularly."

If you missed it as I missed it--or if you just miss it--watch this extensive video report I recently came across:

Mariella Pizza

Joe writes in about the closure of Mariella's Pizza on 16th Street and 3rd Avenue:

"After 37 years, Mariella's bit the dust. I spoke to the owner and he was fuming over the long list of expenses, rent and rent tax being the biggest culprits.

He was so pissed as he explained it to me, you would have thought I was the one throwing him out. They had the best food hands down of any pizzeria around! They always hosted a brisk business no matter what time of the day I went there, but as he fumed, 'After a while, how much can I charge for a slice?'"



Back in February, I heard from Liz Solomon. She wrote:

"There is a pizza place on the corner of 16th Street and 3rd Avenue called Mariella's. It has been there since 1976. Everyone needs a place like Mariella's in their life or they need to go back to Iowa. Great slices, pies, and low-end Italian food.

Con-Ed workers came across the street in droves, kids from the extreme demographic divide of Friends Seminary and Washington Irving were after school slice regulars and there delivery business was enormous. I live in a medium sized building two blocks away and I could guarantee on any given night four or more Mariella's deliveries came through our building alone.

Then all of a sudden Mariella's shut down. This was about three weeks ago. They said it was due to a 'gas leak in the building' but nothing has happened and I don't see anyone working there. The metal gate has been down constantly. No one who generally knows everything that happens in the neighborhood knows anything.

If this is the end of Mariella's, it closes another door to MY New York and no doubt will open another for tourists and transplants and the kind of people who line up for farcical desecrations of the sacred bagel, the existence of which must be making my father spin in his grave."



Mariella's had reopened after the "gas leak," and then closed again for good, possibly in part to lost business during the forced closure.

Ever since the 2nd Avenue gas explosion, "gas leaks" have been killing small restaurants, shuttering them for months and requiring expensive upgrades. Is this necessary? Or is it the city asking too much of mom and pop? Why don't we ever see Starbucks shuttered due to a gas leak? Instead of the B&H Dairy, The Stage, La Taza de Oro, The Carnegie Deli, and other longtime locals? Someone needs to look into this. 

Tammany Hall Empties Out

Last spring, Curbed reported that the Tammany Hall building on Union Square East will be topped by a large glass dome as part of a major renovation.

As you can see from the before-and-after renderings, all the small businesses currently on the first floor have been removed from the future vision.

That removal is happening.



I went by the find the owners of the magazine and smoke shop closing their gates for good.



Frank's Wines & Liquors is draped with a large CLOSING SALE! sign. Inside, I was told that "the landlord is redoing everything." They've been there at least 40 years and don't expect to be reopening.

The Trevi Deli on the corner is already gone.



Around the corner on 17th Street, the building housed two cultural institutions, the New York Film Academy and the Union Square Theater.

The Film Academy has now moved down to Bowling Green. They'd been in the Tammany building since 1994.



The Union Square Theater has also closed. Its long-running show, 39 Steps, had its last performance earlier this month.

I poked around inside to find the place a wreck. According to DNA, the theater will be gutted and "replaced with retail and offices."

It's been hosting shows since at least 1985.



What sort of businesses do you think will replace these small businesses and cultural institutions? Well, almost every single thing around Union Square Park is a national shopping mall chain. (Here's a list.) Those that aren't, like Blue Water Grill, tend to be upscale.

The Tammany Hall building was a final remnant of the old Union Square, holding the last collection of low-rent independent businesses and cultural centers on the park.

What's left?

Douchebag Storage Locker

Last week, we looked at the destruction of the historic Blatt Billiards building and the opinionated graffiti on its "Work in Progress" poster.

On the image of the glassy luxury tower to come, people had written: "Ugly Work in Progress," "YUCK," and more.

The poster was quickly replaced with a fresh one and covered in plastic, presumably to deter the detractors. They have not been deterred.



This week they added "UGLY" and the colorful descriptor "Douchebag Storage Locker," with an arrow pointing straight at 809 Broadway, so there could be no mistake.

Think Less

Barnes & Noble is removing its stores from Queens, including a location in Forest Hills that preservationists tried to save. It's ironic to fight for a chain, but the neighborhood is otherwise a bookstore desert. And what's coming to replace it? A Target.

Meanwhile, on Fifth Avenue and 18th Street, the flagship Barnes & Noble bookstore (since 1932 and closed in 2014) has been completely transformed into a Banana Republic.



The plaque on the outside wall ("Founded 1873") has been pried off, leaving a shadowy scar on the masonry.

Inside, a message for all who might still think books have value: THINK LESS.



(I took this picture awhile ago, so it may not be there anymore. It was there when they opened.)