The Times takes an interesting look at the Gorham Building at the corner of Broadway and 19th, where today you’ll find Fishs Eddy.
50 years is a long time for anyone or anything. That’s why it’s sad to see Village Copiers on 13th St. fade away at least as a storefront. It was the oldest business on the block. By far. Who knows what will fill that unusual below-ground space next?
This week (June 6-10), contractors will continue to excavate earth and rock, and load out material. We will complete the underpinning of the adjacent buildings. Installation of rakers, line drilling, lagging and sheeting around the perimeter will progress as well. Concrete foundation walls are scheduled to begin.
The following week, we will continue line drilling, rock excavation, and loading out, as well as lagging and sheeting.
Concrete foundation walls will progress.
From The New York Times’ Metropolitan Diary:
Greenwich Village’s Bowlmor Lanes on University Place, open since 1938 and one of the longest continuously running bowling alleys on the East Coast, shut its doors on Monday to make way for new condominiums.
Much more than the disappearance of another landmark is the loss of Mark Braunreuther, Bowlmor’s man at the door for the past 16 years: benevolent minder, gentleman greeter, peacekeeper on the rowdy corner between Bar 13 and Bowlmor, an area labeled by one resident as the intersection between “Bucket” and “Blood.” On weekends, residents regularly awaken to police sirens and find violent traces splattered on early-morning sidewalks. Mark was always deep in the fray. His judiciousness was the reason so many revelers went home unharmed.
Mark B. was the mayor of University Place. He knew most of us, and all of our pets, by name. Last summer he tended corn seeds in the tree bed out front. Just seeing those struggling cornstalks made one glad for summer. This coming season, he was planning some tomatoes.
Mark regularly brought my husband and me cake from his favorite Queens bakery. The box always included biscuits for our dog. We reciprocated with Carolina barbecue sauce.
Mark lost everything in Hurricane Sandy — his entire apartment and his car. His bosses replaced the car so he could get in from Far Rockaway. And when our Bowlmor closed for good, they promised a good position at their Chelsea Piers location. Mark was very grateful but he admitted he’d miss our neighborhood.
Mark died suddenly a few weeks before Bowlmor Lanes closed its doors forever.
Rest in peace, brave knight. I, for one, will miss you long after a bowling alley is a distant memory.
A major renovation is coming to the former Tammany Hall headquarters in Union Square where owners want to put a new glass dome over the landmarked building and demolish a theater to make way for retail and office space, the project’s architects said.
The historic structure at 44 Union Square East, built in 1929 to house the Democratic Party machine, will undergo a major overhaul that will restore the facade, gut the existing theater and add windows and glassier storefronts, according to BKSK Architects which is designing the project.
The most striking change will be a new 30-foot glass dome on top of the building, which will add about 27,000 square feet to the structure and will house office space, according to Harry Kendall, a partner at BKSK.
“Our effort is…to make it a more distinctive destination and presence on Union Square,” Kendall said. “We think we can make this building into something it never was.”
After hearing a presentation about the proposal this week, Community Board 5’s Landmarks Committee voted unanimously to reject it, saying the changes would be too drastic for an historic building that was just landmarked last year.
“While I like the way it looks — can you put something like this on a landmarked building?” said Edward Klimerman, a committee member. “It turns it into a different building.”
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building as a landmark in June 2013, noting its references to early American architecture, including Colonial columns out front. The building’s design drew inspiration from the original Federal Hall in Lower Manhattan, where George Washington took his first oath of office.
A Dept. of Health closure for La Maison de Croque Monsieur, but they claim they will reopen within a couple of days.