Monday, April 30, 2018

Demolition Days (& Plans Revealed) on 23rd Street




















The rodent bait notices are up at 305 23rd Street, a sure sign of demolition on the way. Both 305 and next door 303 were sold earlier this month - 305 for $3.15M & 303 for $1.74M - to Manhattan-based 303 23rd Street Development LLC.  The mortgage lender is Derby Senior Greenwood LLC, with the West 57th address of Derby Copeland Capital.  No new building plans are currently on record.

The lot at 303 is occupied by a one-story garage building. The building at 305 23rd is imposingly wide.  It appears on an 1880 property map as a wooden, irregularly shaped dwelling straddling two lots (304/305), and at some point after 1916 it looks as if it was expanded, on what was then the 304 lot, to make it a regular, rectangular shape.  If you look at the pitched roofline from across the street, you can get an idea of the building's original shape. The roofline suggests that though the building is faced in brick it may still be wooden underneath.  I'd love to know how old it is, and if it was connected to the flourishing monument and florist businesses that operated around Green-Wood Cemetery in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.





















Update  5/17:
Plans have been filed for a four-story, eleven unit building, with a 303 23rd Street address.  The architect on record is Manhattan based Marin Architects.  The 50 ft. tall, 20,000 sq. ft. building, standing on a 78 ft. lot, will, according to NY YIMBY, include car & bicycle parking, & a recreation room.

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