Seen & Heard: Café Temporarily Closed

••• I got a peek inside the Royal Green Appliance Center showroom opening at 280 Broadway (where Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf was), because the folks at the company are excited about what they’ve discovered while renovating. When they poked through a hole in the wall on the south side, they discovered an old escalator—so the space is actually 200-plus square feet larger than anyone knew. Upon further research, they learned that the wall in question used to be an exterior wall for the building (which is why it’s three-feet thick; the hole was in the doorway pictured below). 280 Broadway was expanded several times during the mid-19th century. There’s a lot more about the building in this Untapped Cities post from last year. Also, the company sent out a press release that included this about the showroom, which should open in April: “The company sought to design a state of the art showroom in the mecca of NY’s design community, focused on the trade and what their needs would be as they walked a client through the space. ‘Appliances are still a commodity that the end user wants to touch and feel and so we have created a space that gives the client the ability to see over 10 high end vignettes in one space,’ continued Rob Satran, ‘the key was not to overwhelm the client but at the same time be able to give them the look and feel of each of these amazing manufacturers and what their capabilities are.’ The showroom features manufacturing standards like Sub Zero, Wolf, Viking, Thermador, Bosch, Miele and Monogram. It also displays modernist collections like Dacor, Bertazzoni, Liebherr, Jenn-Air and Fisher Paykel. It also gives the client exposure to professional product that has custom color capability and high-end output like Blue Star and La Cornue’s Chateau Collection.”

••• The TV show “Daredevil” (a.k.a. “R3”) is shooting all over northeast Tribeca tomorrow and Wednesday.

••• I hadn’t realized that Ward III has a sister establishment in Washington D.C., Quarter+Glory.

••• Galerie de Café on Warren has closed due to “unforeseen construction.” There’s no word of a reopening date.

••• The new paper towels in Pasquale Jones‘s restroom are the perfect counterpoint to the James Brown photograph on the wall outside.

 

1 Comment

  1. Thank you (and Untapped Cities!) for the lowdown on this landmark.

    The building was mentioned (but without its address) in E. B. White’s classic book, Here Is New York. White said, of his early NYC years, that “I would hang around the corner of Chambers Street and Broadway), thinking: “Somewhere in that building is the typewriter that archy the cockroach jumps on at night.”

    The “archy” White was referring to was the creation of New York Sun columnist Don Marquis, one of White’s early journalistic heroes.

Comment: