Bowery Boogie | A Lower East Side Chronicle

It’s really no secret that the leather vendors on Orchard Street are hanging on for dear life.  Their demise is gradual, but seemingly inevitable in the face of the gold rush.  Sunday pedestrian malls don’t attract so much foot traffic anymore, and many of the old-school storefronts are quietly shuttering.  One-by-one. And now another. Rita’s Leather [...]

As of today, the Orchard Street Hell Building, is in a new phase of existence.  It now boasts some reflective flare.  One word, folks. Glass.

It’s a sad day for music lovers and vinyl aficionados throughout the Five Boroughs.  For more than five years, the Sound Library at 165 Orchard Street has been a choice destination for crate-diggers seeking impossible-to-find titles and classics alike. The staff was always quite knowledgeable and the selection pretty deep.  But as of this week, [...]

Almost four years after opening, it’s now the end of the road for BBlessing, the men’s gallery-cum-boutique located at 181 Orchard Street.  At the end of June, a Misrahi Realty leasing sign first appeared above the entrance, but was quickly removed days later.

The leather-and-latex fetish shop Demask is the latest victim in a string of recent Orchard Street closures.  Its R-rated window displays, forever wrought with half-naked mannequins in bondage poses, are all gone.  The entire store has been stripped, and there is now a fresh scaffolding in place.

Judging by the new Misrahi Real Estate sign now hanging from the Orchard Hell Building, it seems that, one year later, the strip-mall threats could be back on the table.  The latest rendering boasts a more modest two-story row of retail, hawked as 160,000 square-feet of space plus underground parking.