Stephen Rex Brown
No more bumping elbows with the person next to you while gobbling noodles. The new location of Rai Rai Ken is open and roughly double the size of the previous space just a couple doors down on East 10th Street between First and Second Avenues.
Acting manager Yo Katsuse said that the restaurant was in soft-opening mode, and that the official opening date is April 29. “We need to get used to operating in a place this size,” said Mr. Katsuse, 35.
The previous location, which has now closed, only had room for 15 seats at the counter facing the kitchen. The new Rai Rai Ken still has a counter — a feature popular with many customers, Mr. Katsuse said — but also has tables for larger groups. All told, the place can seat 31 people. Read more…
Tomorrow, a public hearing by the Landmarks Preservation Commission will determine the future of East 10th Street along Tompkins Square Park. Over the weekend, The Local spoke with Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, about the history of the strip.
293 East 10th Street
G.V.S.H.P. 293 East 10th StreetThis building, like a lot of buildings in the East Village, shows in a very material way the evolution of the neighborhood from a place of single-family homes for the merchant class to the locus of immigration to New York City. It was built at the corner of East 10th and Avenue A in 1845 for James French, a boot-maker.
Only five years later it was sold to a gentleman named Joshua Varian and a Haraim Chandler leased it from him. Chandler lived with seven other families. This building very quickly became a multi-family home, or a tenement. By the late 1890s it was owned by Charles J. Smith, whose name still appears on the top left-hand side of the building. The top floor of the building was probably added by Smith as part of the tenementi-zation of it.
Interestingly, we know that Chandler worked for the N.Y.P.D. very early in its existence; it was only founded in 1845. Chandler worked as a detective and was injured during the 1863 draft riots. He died in 1881.
Read more…
David Jarrett Details from a building within one of the two proposed districts.A critical hearing regarding a proposed landmark district on East 10th Street has been expedited due to a controversial application for an addition to a building in the area, the Landmarks Preservation Commission revealed today.
Last week, the real estate magnate Ben Shaoul applied for an additional floor to 315 East 10th Street along Tompkins Square Park, which he had recently purchased. The rooftop addition, which would be a departure from the 26 buildings – most of which are four-story 19th- and 20th-century dwellings – that line the block, garnered the attention of the city Landmarks Preservation Commission.
“The reason we’re scheduling the date earlier than we planned is that the Department of Buildings notified the Commission’s staff this past Sunday that the owner of 315 East 10th Street had filed an application for a permit to construct a rooftop addition that could potentially affect the character of the proposed district,” wrote Elisabeth de Bourbon, a spokeswoman for the Commission. Read more…
