A couple of weeks ago we wrote about the departure of another Essex Street institution, Zelig Blumenthal. After almost 60 years on the Lower East Side, the torah scribe and Judaica shop vacated its iconic 13 Essex storefront, relocating...
Every tenement building has at least a few stories to tell. 16 Clinton St. may have more than most. It was on this site in 1883 that German shoemaker Gottlieb Rudolph, suffering from malaria, took his own life (NYT). ...
What do we have here? Lo-Down contributor/reader Mitch Weinstein snapped this photo outside 183 East Broadway, a construction site idled in the spring of 2009 by a "stop work order" from the Department of Buildings. According to the DOB's...
Monday night, community activists met in a sweltering auditorium at University Settlement to play a game. No money changed hands, but there were plenty of poker faces, and the stakes were high. The participants were members of Community Board...
There's been a lot of speculation in the last several months about the fate of the Loew's Canal Theater. This morning, at a hearing of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, we learned a bit more about the intentions of the...
Tomorrow's a big day for neighborhood activists intent on protecting one of the Lower East Side's historic jewels, the Loew's Canal Theater. Back in March, we covered an initial hearing of the Landmarks Preservation Commission. It looks all but...
Two Grand Street cooperatives, Hillman and Seward Park, elected new board members in the past several days. At Hillman - where State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver lives - incumbents were defeated for the first time in many years (possibly...
Last year, after sixty years of selling fruits and vegetables from a beyond bare bones storefront at 400 Grand Street, cranky but beloved Ruby Baumgarten decided to call it quits. Now the ground-floor tenement space is about to get...
The attorney representing Chinatown developer William H. Su says he will appeal a decision from the State Division of Housing and Community Renewal ordering payments to the displaced tenants of 128 Hester. As we reported yesterday, the decision requires...
Affordable housing advocates believe a recent ruling from the State of New York ordering a Chinatown building owner to pay more than a million dollars to the former residents of 128 Hester Street has broad implications.
On Friday, State Assembly...