The five-story tenement building at 217 E. Broadway changed hands last month for $3.25 million, according to city land records. The buyer is a corporation called 217 East Broadway Management Inc., headed by president Hui Zhen Wang and listing an address in Brooklyn, records show.
The building houses Bo Hai Dumpling Town restaurant on the ground level, which appears to have shuttered.
The sale is just one change happening on the southwestern corner of the intersection of Clinton Street and East Broadway. The building next door, 219 East Broadway, which is also known as 201 Clinton St., is undergoing a significant renovation in the ground-floor commercial space that formerly housed Joon Cleaners. Building department records show permits were issued to owner Mike Wong in January for interior renovations to the existing storefront, with no change in use or occupancy.
217 East Broadway. Three and one-half-story-and-basement, Greek Revival Flemish-bond brick rowhouse with original stone Corinthian piers at entrance enframement and cast-iron stoop railings, c. 1837; now four-story-and-basement building with Neo-Renaissance cornice 1899.
219 East Broadway: Six-story, Neo-Renaissance new-law Roman brick tenement; cornice removed.
Of the two, 217 is the most precious. It has lovely arched windows at the top floor, presumably part of the 1899 expansion.
…and both, presumably, doomed? so sorry that this neighborhood is about to become the next casualty of development…
Will these important period buildings wind up being replaced by such awful, sterile ‘design’ boxes like the dull building that houses Cafe Petisco on East Broadway?
Well, the Petisco building is still there underneath the ugly cladding. That’s somewhat better than tearing it down. Some future sensitive owner could remove the cladding.