The Buildings Department yesterday approved demolition permits for 355 Grand St., a nearly 200 year-old row house formerly home to Vic’s Pizza and Flower’s Cafe.
The owner, Jennie Lai, plans to build a mixed commercial and residential building on the site. But the 6500 sq. ft. project has yet to win city approval. The initial plan was disapproved by the Buildings Department earlier this month.
355 Grand St. (also known as 51 Essex St.) is a “contributing building” in the National Register’s Lower East Side historic district. The Federal-style row house is not, however, a city landmark (it has undergone too many alterations over the years to be eligible.)
Lai purchased the building for $4 million a couple of years ago. Both Vic’s and Flower’s Cafe went out of business.
Sad, blocks away from the useless Lower East Side Business Improvement offices who obviously don’t care about ipreservation. They have more important things to do like change their name to a so-called partnership.
Just what the neighborhood needs. An out of scale monstrosity that totally destroys the character and is unaffordable to anything but chain stores and oligarchs.
Meanwhile, a block away is the a building which has been boarded up for 20 years. I gather Margaret Chin and her staff are walking around with blind folds when it comes to this type of real estate corruption.