Mars Bar Slated for August Demolition

Mars Bar is indeed on its deathbed, and will likely be demolished by the end of the summer.  EV Grieve points us to an article published in Crain’s yesterday that provides plenty of inside information as to what’s happening at the Yuppified corner of Second Avenue and First Street.

[September 2008]

BFC Partners got what it wanted and will be dismantling the 1920′s era building come August.  Those permits were filed with the DOB last month.  In two years, the lot will sprout a 12-story condo with 65 total apartment units; only 13 are listed as affordable housing.

An octogenarian playwright, a drag queen and a kvetcher provoked nightly by the bar’s cacophony are among the nine tenants in two adjoining buildings at the corner of Second Avenue and East First Street who will receive this sweet deal.

At the end of the month, they will vacate their 1920s building, which will be demolished in August. When they return in about two years, each will pay $10 (tax free) to buy an apartment in a 12-story luxury high-rise.

“The neighborhood went from arson to devastation to landlord abandonment to development, where the profits of market-rate housing are strong enough to throw off a little surplus and make some units of affordable housing possible at really no cost to government,” said Richard Heitler, chief operating officer of UHAB. “It’s a win-win-win.”

In the new, 65-unit building, nine of the 13 affordable apartments will go to the tenants in the existing buildings. The other four will be sold by lottery for around $150,000 to people making less than $64,000, according to BFC Partners.

Word on the street is that the decades-old dive will shutter long before its August meeting with the wrecking ball.  Some are postulating June 30.  “Shed a tear ’cause I’m missing you..”