#46th street

[emaadsidiki]

NYC Fire Hydrant 🛠️💦🗽

[weirdlandtv]

A warm spring afternoon in New York City: Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lord visit the Actors Studio in 1955. Photos by Roy Schatt.

I keep forgetting to say this, well, ever since I started out last year—I store all the items I’ve posted, and then some outtakes I didn’t use, on my Pinterest HERE. That goes for Marilyn Monroe pics, sci-fi art, illustrations, everything.

[vintagemanhattanskyline]

Glass facades on 46th. Strreet between Park (left) and Third Avenue (right), Summer 1967.

Buildings from left to right are the 51-story 245 Park Avenue (Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, 1967), 30-story 485 Lexington Avenue (Emery Roth & Sons, 1956) and 34-story 750 Third Avenue (Emery Roth & Sons, 1958).

Photo: Unknown.

Source: MIchele Salvati/Varios Autores. "El Acero en la Construcción Moderna. Buenos Aires, Ed. Víctor Lerú, 1976.

[zombilenium]

“Universal Theater” 46th St., Borough Park, New York,

Will Ellis Photography

[yesterdaysprint]

7th Avenue and 46th Street, New York, November 18, 1941

[charismatic33]

Broadway at 46th Street, feat. Movie Theaters, Trolley Cars, Motorcars, Cigar Stores and the Times Building, New York City, 1946.

[notesonnewyork]

Turmoil has engulfed the Theater District. Whether developers have been importing high rent blight from its outlying neighborhoods is in dispute.

Hoping to mothball the matter with a blockade of imposing advertisements, the greedy Thor Equities has disguised its vacant properties in seemingly normal, Times Square-like billboards. 

While the New York City Council endlessly debates this alarming chain of events, the Manhattan Borough President has secretly dispatched two Volunteers, the students of a former Justice of the Peace, to count the empty storefronts and settle the conflict....

-----

(This has been a presentation of “Absurd New York #68.” Words adapted from the opening crawl of George Lucas’ film “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace,” 1999. The four-story ad as seen on facade of 725 8th Avenue. Photograph by Riff Chorusriff. May 15, 2017....

This actually happened. Last weekend, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer sent out several dozen volunteers to tally the number of commercial vacancies sprouting up along Broadway. As she declared across two posts to her Facebook account:

We are taking action because empty storefronts are completely unacceptable in Manhattan.... We want storefronts to be occupied, not vacant waiting for the higher rent. We want locally owned shops to be on our streets. 

As for why Thor Equities’ building at 725 8th Avenue stands unoccupied, though, that’s still a mystery.

Back in September 2013, Thor paid the pervious owners of the parcel--Martin and Marie Goonetilleke--$12.2 million. A business called DVD Depot had been renting there for over 10 years, but Thor declined to renew its lease and the Depot finally closed in July 2014. That’s when a dispute over back rent and property taxes erupted and Thor took both the Depot and the Goonetillekes and to court. 

But all was not discouraging. In November 2015, the Boston-based Wahlburgers restaurant chain signed a 10-year lease to bring its menu to 725. It would occupy all five floors of the building. In March 2016, Thor took out a mortgage for $2.5 million and the Department of Buildings began to approve construction permits that appeared to be harbingers of the restaurant’s arrival. However, by year’s end, 725 was still vacant. 

If Thor’s litigation with the Depot and the Goonetillekes was holding things up, it received good news in January 2017 when the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York finally ruled in its favor. Oddly, though, Thor continued to market 725 on both its website and, of course, on the structure’s facade itself. In fact, 725 had two leasing agents minding its affairs: Thor’s Director of Leasing Grace Yang (as indicated by the ad) and Executive Vice President of Leasing Sam Polese (as assigned on its website). But hadn’t Thor already leased the space to Wahlburgers?

Earlier this month on May 12th, a Wahlburgers “suddenly” opened on Second Avenue and 85th Street--suddenly because the restaurant’s publicist denied its coming for weeks. While promoting the new outlet with his brother Paul, Mark Wahlberg mentioned to Page Six of the New York Post that “We are looking for a spot in Times Square.” But didn’t they already have one? Again, what happened with their commitment to 725? Since Thor is obviously still promoting the space, its lease with Wahlburgers must have fallen apart. Regardless, 725 remains a disused casualty. It hasn’t had a tenant in three years.)