By Devin Gannon, Thu, October 18, 2018 Via Handel Architects
During a City Planning Commission hearing on Wednesday, local residents and officials of the Two Bridges community voiced their strong opposition to four towers planned for the Lower Manhattan neighborhood. Those who testified against the buildings questioned the developer’s draft environmental impact study (DEIS), which found the projects would not cause displacement, amNY reported. Developers also announced measures to mitigate the potential adverse effects on the neighborhood, which include upgrading the F train station at East Broadway, improving public parks, and implementing flood protection measures.
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By Michelle Cohen, Thu, October 18, 2018 Image courtesy of Trader Joe’s.
Yet another Trader Joe’s store has landed in New York City; the quirky discount grocery chain’s newest location is scheduled to open tomorrow at the new Essex Crossing development on the Lower East Side, Bowery Boogie reports. The new TJ’s–the seventh in Manhattan–is located in the lower level of 400 Grand Street, and the 30,000-square-foot emporium is being hailed as the largest one on the Eastern Seaboard.
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By James and Karla Murray, Wed, October 10, 2018 6sqft’s series “Where I Work” takes us into the studios, offices, and businesses of New Yorkers across the city. In this installment, we’re going inside 130-year-old Lower East Side shop Mendel Goldberg Fabrics. Want to see your business featured here? Get in touch!
Mendel Goldberg Fabrics, a fourth-generation family-owned textile boutique, has been in business since 1890 and is located on a quiet side street on the Lower East Side. People who walk down Hester Street often take the time to notice the exquisite designer imported fabrics that hang in the window display as well as the huge range of brocades, silk, gabardine, lace, wool, novelty fabrics and boucle´ in a wide variety of colors and textures, which line the shops walls from floor to ceiling. Despite a devastating fire in the building in 2012 that destroyed the entire basement fabric stock and required substantial rebuilding, the business is thriving. On a recent visit to the fabric store, we had a chance to speak with Alice Goldberg, the great-granddaughter of Mendel Goldberg, about how the business went from a pushcart to a unique destination, the joys of running one of the oldest surviving shops in the neighborhood, and the secrets of some of their most high-end fabrics.
Get a fabric lesson from Alice
By Michelle Cohen, Tue, October 9, 2018 This 1,400-square-foot open loft space is located in the heart of the historic, iconic and fun Lower East Side at the corner of Eldridge and Rivington Streets at 193 Eldridge Street; the neighborhood was, a couple of decades ago, a relative bargain, rent-wise, when it was a diverse and low-key stomping ground for downtown rockers and punks. A complicated evolution of New York City’s neighborhoods means the area now counts itself among downtown Manhattan’s chicest and priciest, and this narrow but sunny third-floor walk-up loft above a former dance hall, with one existing bedroom area, is a condominium that’s asking $6,250 a month in rent.
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By Lucie Levine, Mon, October 1, 2018 As a media sponsor of Archtober–NYC’s annual month-long architecture and design festival of tours, lectures, films, and exhibitions–6sqft has teamed up with the Center for Architecture to explore some of their 70+ partner organizations.
With stunning stained glass windows and a striking mix of Moorish, Gothic, and Romanesque features, the Eldridge Street Synagogue cuts an imposing figure on the Lower East Side. The Synagogue opened in 1887 as the first and finest Orthodox house of worship built by Eastern European Jews in America and served as a spiritual headquarters for millions of immigrants as they made new homes in New York. By the turn of the 20th century, over 4,000 congregants supported three daily services, and holiday crowds overwhelmed the building.
But, by the 1940s, the congregation dwindled, and the doors of the great sanctuary were sealed; not to be reopened until the 1970s. When preservationists rallied to save the building on its 100th anniversary, they rediscovered the splendor of the sacred structure and spent 20 years restoring it. Following a meticulous restoration, the Synagogue reopened in 2007 as the Museum at Eldridge Street. Today, the museum welcomes visitors from around the world, and preserves city’s immigrant history as well as the structure’s sacred secrets.
Learn about these 10 secrets of the synagogue
By Dana Schulz, Mon, October 1, 2018 A previous rendering by Bjarke Ingels Group of ESCR, courtesy of the Mayor’s Office of Recovery & Resiliency
In July, Rebuild by Design released an RFP for a stewardship partner for the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project (ESCR), a reconstruction of the 64-acre, 1.5-mile East River Park, a flood protection system conceived in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. ESCR is the first of three phases in Bjarke Ingels’ Big U, a series of self-sufficient flood zones stretching from West 57th to East 42nd Streets. Under the city’s new mandate, construction on ESCR, which spans the loop from Montgomery Street on the Lower East Side to East 25th Street, will begin in spring 2020. Roughly 70 percent of the design will be updated, allowing flood protection to be in place one year earlier, by summer 2023, with the entire project wrapping up six months sooner. According to a press release from the Mayor’s Office, the updated $1.45 billion design will also “raise the entire East River Park, with the flood wall at the water’s edge integrated with the bulkhead and esplanade that does not obstruct views to the water.”
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By Devin Gannon, Mon, September 24, 2018 Via Tenement Museum
Starting in October, the Tenement Museum will stay open late every Thursday night for exclusive events, programs, and tours. Recently added programming includes a new permanent tour, a pop-up exhibition, and a costumed interpreter tour, all offered on Thursday nights. The Lower East Side museum, which opened in 1992, is a national historic site with a mission to share the stories of immigrants in New York City.
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By Dana Schulz, Wed, August 29, 2018 A prime Lower East Side location for under $1 million, a top-floor duplex layout with lots of windows, and a super-low maintenance fee of $498/month–no, it’s not too good to be true. This charming unit at 208 Forsyth Street is an HDFC co-op, meaning that prospective buyers can’t make more than a certain amount in order to qualify. And with loads of exposed brick and wood ceiling beams, an adorable spiral staircase, and a country-chic kitchen, this $850,000 is even more of a deal.
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By Devin Gannon, Thu, August 16, 2018 Image via Tenement Museum
The Tenement Museum will open a new kiosk at the Market Line inside the Essex Crossing development on the Lower East Side, developer Delancy Street Associates announced on Thursday. The kiosk will feature a screen with tour times and other information about the museum. When it opens later this year, the Market Line will run three city blocks and include 100 locally-sourced food, art, fashion and music vendors. The market, projected to be the largest of its kind in New York City, sits inside Essex Crossing, a 1.9-million-square foot mixed-use development.
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By Michelle Cohen, Fri, July 20, 2018 6sqft has been closely following the progress of photographers James and Karla Murray‘s Seward Park art installation “Mom-and-Pops of the LES,” featuring four nearly life-size images of Lower East Side business that have mostly disappeared. The pair, who have spent the last decade chronicling the place of small neighborhood businesses in 21st century New York City, was chosen for the public art project by Art in the Parks UNIQLO Park Expressions Grant Program and ran a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the wood-frame structure’s build out. James and Karla will be having a free public exhibition of their photography for “Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York” at The Storefront Project (@thestorefrontproject) at 70 Orchard Street from July 25-August 12, 2018, with an opening reception on Wednesday, July 25th from 6-9 PM.
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