July 6, 2015 Construction, Real Estate, Restaurant/Bar News, Shopping
••• Is 56 Leonard finally getting interesting again? This is the view from N. Moore—check out the upper right part (and feel free to click to enlarge).
••• The Ladder 8 firehouse now has two Ghostbusters emblems. (I mentioned the freshly repainted other one last week.)
••• If you have a decent view down at the 111 Murray building site, please send me a photo of it: Email tribecacitizen@gmail.com or text 917-209-6473. UPDATE: Got it, thanks!
••• Anyone looking for really good food that happens to be vegetarian should absolutely try Wassail over on Orchard Street. It’s a cider bar, but you can also get beer, wine, and cocktails, and the food is genuinely impressive. (I’m not sure it can shift to vegan.) Below: The restaurant’s pic of its cauliflower with black garlic and cauliflower purées and cashews.
••• The conversion of the old Pearl Craft Center building at 42 Lispenard has entered the marketing phase. The website includes a sketch that hints how the storefront will look.
••• The newsstand in Citigroup’s 390 Greenwich building—soon to be joined with 388 in a glassy new design—has closed. The sign below indicates that it’ll come back someday, although I doubt it’ll look like that, complete with pipe display.
••• In March, Tribeca Trib reported that Related Companies was planing to “restore and convert the one-story garage” at 438-440 Greenwich (Vestry)—”into a shiny real estate office complete with model apartment” for the 13-story, 44-unit condominium that it’s building at 268 West (along West from Vestry to Desbrosses). Apparently “restore and convert” means “tear the sucker down.”
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Wasn’t 438 Greenwich in the landmarks district? How can they proceed like that without approvals?
Link to a scan of the permit issued by NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission:
http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/BScanJobDocumentServlet?requestid=4&passjobnumber=122354415&passdocnumber=01&allbin=1002913&scancode=ESHS1830485
Not an approval for demolition.
I’m sure the argument is that it’s not being demolished as long as certain structural elements are there. Many buildings that appear to be torn down and built anew are actually approved by the DOT as conversions or partial demolitions—sometimes even because they only take down one half at a time—which for reasons I don’t understand is less bureaucratically burdensome than a full demolition permit.