The new construction taking up the entire block of 7th Avenue between 131st and 132nd Street is quickly coming to completion. We walked by in the past week and noticed that the 140-unit building pretty much has the facade up except for a narrow strip on the side towards the south corner. Out of those apartments, there will be 115 units at market rate and 25 units will be for low-income families. A church purchased this property decades ago and has now leased the land to a developer but we wished that the famous building formerly on site could have been restored as part of deal:
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In all fairness, the church that bought and occupied the theatre did a good job re-configuring and turning the facade into a garish nightmare. It's not a phenomenon unique to the Lafayette Theatre, either. Take a look around Harlem - by all outward appearances, uptown churches cannot resist the compulsion to strip their buildings of aesthetic value.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder if retail is planned for the ground floor. What did the DOB records say?
how about saving the Reny up the road before its too late........?
ReplyDeleteIt's supposed to be a supermarket on the ground floor. Let's hope.
ReplyDeleteA supermarket would be fantastic, Great News!
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