UPDATE: Sunshine Cinema Developers Receive $86 Million In Loans –

UPDATE: Sunshine Cinema Developers Receive $86 Million In Loans –– To Break Ground Soon

Three days ago, it was announced that K Property Group and East End Capital, the developers who purchased Sunshine Cinema for $31.5 million, had received a $67-million construction loan from Capital Source, as well as an additional $19-million loan from Canyon Partners for the new mezzanine. This news indicates the imminent demolition of the 19th century building as plans for a 68,000 square-foot luxury commercial space on the site move forward.

(my original post on Sunshine can be found here)

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Paper Bag Players Sign Disappears From 185 East Broadway

After almost forty years, the simple block letter sign reading "Paper Bag Players" was taken out of the window at 185 East Broadway, almost a year after the building sold for 6.1 million dollars. Founded in 1958 (four years after the start of Joe Papp's "New York Shakespeare Festival", later Shakespeare in the Park, which first held productions at the nearby East River Amphitheater) the Paper Bag Players are a non-profit children's theater group which in many respects attempted to meld aspects of alternative theater with programming for children's education, arriving at 185 East Broadway around 1981. I called and spoke to somebody at Paper Bag Players a week ago and was told they had relocated uptown, having permanently left their space at 185 East Broadway after the building was sold. I wish to speak briefly on the history of 185 East Broadway, but in doing so must include 183 and 187 East Broadway as well (to the ri...

NYCHA's "NextGen Neighborhood" Towers & the Fate of the "White House"

In a previous post I discussed the city's plan to demolish the LaGuardia Bathhouse building, one of the oldest public baths in NYC, an attempt in-part to save face in the wake of the recently unveiled plans to raise the East River Park. I anticipate similar news for the "White House", the former Rivington Street Public Baths, which sits squatly in the middle of the Baruch Houses, maybe a 15 minute walk from the LaGuardia Bathhouse building. A short history: At 118 years old, the Baruch Bathhouse building is not only the oldest public bathhouse in the city, but also the first of its kind to be opened in New York. It's namesake, Dr. Simon Baruch, was an Eastern European Jew who moved to South Carolina in 1855 (at 15 years old) to live with, and work for, a wealthy German-Jewish family. After receiving his medical degree in 1862, Baruch served as a surgeon in the f*cking Confederate army (even treating soldiers for weeks after...

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A Hidden Lower East Side

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