Old and low giving way to new, tall on 8th Ave.

Volume Number 1 Issue Number 10 / Devember 1 - 7, 2006

Chelsea Now photo by Jefferson Siegel

A bicyclist rides along Eighth Ave. between 16th and 17th Sts. across from historic buildings that are being razed for a new six-story development.

By Lincoln Anderson

Several historic buildings that until recently housed a small but thriving commercial strip on Eighth Ave. are being razed for a new six-story, residential building with upscale retail on the ground floor.

The buildings being demolished — along the west side of Eighth Ave. between 16th and 17th Sts. — include three early 19th-century, four-story houses, as well as some undistinguished one-story “taxpayer” structures. While the apartments above in the taller buildings were mostly empty in recent years, the ground floors were home to a bunch of popular neighborhood eateries and small businesses. There was Chelsea Grill, a bar and restaurant; Cajun — a New Orleans-themed restaurant featuring nightly jazz — and Service Station, a popular hair and tanning salon that offered $5 off for lunch-hour trims. There was also a pizza place, and, until a few years ago, a hand-rolled cigar store. Less popular with neighbors was the bar on the corner, which was plagued by violence over the years when it was Rebar.

The restaurants auctioned off their glasses, plates and equipment and closed in August.

Phil Alotta, owner of Chelsea Grill, said the landlords, the Ponte family, who are known for their property holdings in Tribeca and Hudson Square, had the plan to redevelop the property cooking for the last 10 years. The Pontes waited for Cajun’s lease to run out. They also offered Alotta a buyout to vacate, plus the promise of a new space on Spring St. The few residential tenants living in upstairs were relocated by the Pontes to nice apartments in Tribeca, according to neighbors.

According to cityrealty.com, last year year, Centaur Properties entered a 99-year lease for the property, 131 Eighth Ave., with Almavi Eighth Avenue LLC, of which Vincent J. Ponte is a principal. Centaur expects to finish construction on the new apartment building within the year. The project — which may be rentals or condominiums — is as of right, needing no public approvals, and will contain 50 apartments. Winnick Properties is handling the marketing of the retail space, which will have 12,000 square feet with 16-foot ceilings on the ground floor and 10,000 square feet with 13-foot ceilings on the lower level, and is expected to be available in the fall of 2007, cityrealty.com reported. Alotta said he’d heard a bank will be an anchor tenant.

The new building will extend back through the block to Dr. Gertrude B. Kelly Playground.

Cajun, founded by co-owner Herb Maslin, was at the location 28 years. It was the only place in Manhattan that offered traditional jazz from the 1920s and ’30s seven nights a week.

Chelsea Grill was there 15 years. Alotta has relocated the Chelsea Grill staff, many of whom worked there the whole run, to other restaurants he owns, Chelsea Grill of Hell’s Kitchen and Riposo 46, both on Ninth Ave. at 46th St.

If there was any upside to the closing, Alotta noted, “A lot of customers from Chelsea have moved to Hell’s Kitchen — they’re following along with us.”

Alotta said business has been down anyway all along Eighth Ave. for the year before the closing, about 20 percent less than usual. He said the competition from the nightlife and restaurants in the Meat Market was the reason.

Tim Gay, a former Democratic district leader who lives on the same block in the corner building at 17th St., said the strip of restaurants was one of the places straights congregated in Chelsea.

“Chelsea Grill was a major hangout for the heterosexuals,” he noted.

Local residents say they just hope the new building won’t resemble the high-rise across the street — the Grand Chelsea — the design of which most consider to be an abomination. However, the new building will be only six stories tall and relatively contextual with the surrounding architecture.

The neighborhood keeps upscaling, and affordable stores that sell things people who live in the neighborhood need are disappearing, said Lee Fergusson, who lives around the corner.

“It’s not good because the whole neighborhood is becoming generic,” said Fergusson. “The deli on the corner just had its rent raised from $10,000 to $30,000. So the neighborhood loses its deli and what goes in there? Gay T-shirts….”

Two other old buildings on 18th St. were also recently demolished. State Senator Tom Duane said the hope was that the Chelsea Plan, which was passed in 1998, would preserve low-rise buildings on Eighth Ave. by downzoning Eighth Ave. and allowing taller buildings on Sixth Ave. and 23rd St. But, clearly, the downzoning isn’t stopping the wrecking ball.

“The Grand Chelsea was the one that spurred everyone into action,” Duane said. “That’s when people realized, ‘My God, Eighth Ave. could turn into the Upper East Side with towers.’ These new buildings will be low-rise — but they’re still destroying buildings.”

Andrew Berman, director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and a public member of Chelsea’s Community Board 4, also bemoaned the loss of the historic Greek-revival-style buildings, which he said are at least 160 years old, as well as the recent demise of the two 180-year-old Federal-style buildings just a block away on the avenue at 18th St.

“While there has been enormous development in Chelsea in recent years, little of it has been on Eighth Ave., the ‘Main Street’ of Chelsea,” Berman noted. “It’s kind of hard to believe these buildings — some of the oldest in Chelsea — which survived for more than a century and a half and which serve as such a link to Chelsea’s past, are now being lost.”