Union Sq. Park, Looking Southeast, 1944

ByDon

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  • Upcoming Event: Book Talk

    ByDon

    What: Hotel No Tell:
    A Book Talk by Daphne Uviller
    When:     Monday, June 20
    6:30 – 8:00 P.M.
    Where: Jefferson Market Library 425 6th Avenue (btwn West 9th/10th Streets)
    Cost: free; reservations required
    RSVP: rsvp@gvshp.org or 212-475-9585 ext. 35

    Zephyr Zuckerman, the lovable, hapless heroine of Daphne Uviller’s Super in the City, is back. In Hotel No Tell, she’s armed and undercover as a concierge at a Greenwich Village hotel, tracking down a missing hundred grand. Please join third-generation Villager Daphne Uviller as she reads from Hotel No Tell which will be available for purchase and signing. (More information)

  • BlueWater Grill and Republic Destined to Close

    ByDon

    Because the rent is to damned high….here are the details, courtesy of Eater.com:

    After over 20 years in Union Square, noodle shop Republic and seafood restaurant Blue Water Grill will both close by the end of the year. The culprit is outrageously high rent, with Blue Water Grill facing $2 million-plus annually, Bloomberg reports.

    It’s part of a larger issue that Bloomberg breaks down in greater detail: Restaurants, like Union Square Cafe, which faced this same issue in 2014, open in less desirable neighborhoods with affordable 10- to 25-year leases. Then, in that time period, those restaurants contribute to the neighborhood increasing in value, which in turn causes landlords to raise rents to unsustainable highs once a lease is up.

    Specifically, at Republic, the 3,800-square-foot restaurant went for $220,000 a year in 1995. Now, owner Jonathan Morr will vacate the space three-and-a-half years early so he can split the difference between what [the landlord] gets from us and what he’ll get from the next tenant, and call it a day, Morr tells Bloomberg. Marty Feinberg, of Winner Communications, which owns Republic’s building, says that taxes on it have gone up from $90,000 to $476,000 since the mid-’90s. (It’s not clear in the wording whether the landlord pays the taxes or it’s the responsibility of Republic as part of the lease agreement.)

    Even restaurants with a lot of firepower behind them feel the squeeze. Tilman Fertitta, the tycoon behind Landry’s restaurant group, now owns Blue Water Grill, but still the rent increase to over $2 million a year is an amount at which can’t be successful,according to a Landry’s spokesperson. (This is also the group that just closed Isabella’s after 30 years on the Upper West Side.) The restaurant is currently searching for a new space. Uber-successful restaurateur Danny Meyer’s flagship Union Square Café” named after the very area it can no longer afford” vacated in 2015 after its rent increased fivefold over a 30-year period.

    “That area is going to have to become a food desert” says realtor Leslie Siben of LB Realty Services LLC, because] no normal restaurateur with any experience would touch that as it is now.

    This doom and gloom is met with a depressing solution: more food halls. Optimal Spaces broker Stephen Sunderland tells Bloomberg that it’s an appealing scenario for restaurants for its limited risk and lower costs to open” or close if needed. On the landlord and developer side, Smorgasburg co-founder Jonathan Butler recently commented on an unrelated panel that every developer wants a food hall at the bottom of their building or to anchor their big project.

    There is no set date yet for the closures of Republic and Blue Water Grill. Stay tuned for more.

  • Union Square Night Market Starts July 11

    ByDon

    Union Square will host its first-ever Night Market by Urbanspace. Union Square is no stranger to Urbanspace, as the company is responsible for putting on the park’s beloved annual Holiday Market. However, this will be the first time Urbanspace will operate an open-air food market during summer nights.

    The Union Square Night Market will run for four Thursdays, starting July 11th. More than 20 vendors will come together to bring New Yorkers some of the best bites in the city. It will all take place along the South Plaza of Union Square Park.

    So whether you’re interested in grabbing something to eat on your summer commute home or planning a date night, the Union Square Night Market will serve as the perfect venue for either!

  • Agata and Valentina Building Slated for Demolition?

    ByDon

    This report from Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservaation notes that 64 University Place, the non-descript building currently housing Agata and Valentina, may be scheduled to meet its destiny with the wrecking ball. In its place, a 12-story building.

    Village Preservation has learned that a developer has filed plans to demolish 64-66 University Place (10th/11th Street) within our proposed South of Union Square Historic District we have been fighting to get landmarked.

    No permits have yet been filed for a new building, though we understand a 12-story building is being contemplated. The zoning for the site allows a roughly 42,000 square foot building here, of residential, commercial, and community facility uses, with about 6-7,000 square feet of additional air rights purchased from neighboring 70 University Place. By comparison, neighboring 21 East 10th Street is approximately 56,000 square feet.

    Village Preservation has been campaigning for landmark designation for this area, and our research and documentation submitted to the City shows that this building, in spite of its utilitarian looks, actually has an incredibly important history worthy of recognition and protection. While we have made some progress recently advancing our landmarking proposal, the City has nevertheless resisted landmarking the full proposed district, and Councilmember Carlina Rivera, who represents this area, has not endorsed the historic district landmarking proposal.