Brooklyn Lyceum Slated for Auction
The Brooklyn Lyceum on 4th Avenue and President Street on the border of Park Slope and Gowanus is headed for a foreclosure auction. The café and theater space in the former bath house is facing a lien of over $5 million. The property is owned by an LLC run by Eric Richmond who converted it to…
The Brooklyn Lyceum on 4th Avenue and President Street on the border of Park Slope and Gowanus is headed for a foreclosure auction. The café and theater space in the former bath house is facing a lien of over $5 million. The property is owned by an LLC run by Eric Richmond who converted it to a cultural space in the 1990s–it now has three separate stages. According to The Real Deal, the lien consists of four separate mortgages taken out between 2003 and 2006. The building was a public bathhouse from 1908 until 1937 and re-opened as a city-run gymnasium in the 1940s before closing in the early 1970s. It was then used by a transmission repair business. It was placed on the National Register for Historic Places in 1985, and had been landmarked a couple of years prior to that. The building is scheduled to be auctioned on February 28 at 360 Adams Street in Brooklyn.
Brooklyn Lyceum Building to Hit Auction Block [The Real Deal]
Building of the Day: 227 Fourth Avenue [Brownstoner]
Photo via PropertyShark
As someone who lives right by this building and spends a lot of time on 4th Ave, I totally agree with everyone who wants a Duane Reade. The 7th Ave Neergard is too far and so is the 9th St/6th Ave CVS. A big chain drugstore is needed in this spot. And maybe the bottom floor/basement could be made into a new access (with an elevator) to the subway platform!!
Duane Reade was bought out by Walgreens, which is taking over America. No thanks.
I got married there! We paid nothing to rent it, but a lot to decorate it and make it look like a wedding. It was an awesome space and very dramatic, but it could definitely use some better upkeep. The bathrooms were disgusting and our caterer wanted to kill us for making him work out of that kitchen. It would be great to keep it for events, there’s really nothing else like it.
The important point here is that the Richmonds (supposedly Eric bought it in partnership with his sister) were bad at upkeep, but milked this building for all it was worth; $5 million in loans attests to that. They charged high rental prices for crap facilities, and I was there for events twice when the power went out; even wiring was substandard. It’s been almost 20 years with nothing really done. Scaffolding goes up and comes down, for no purpose. Netting keeps masonry and terra cotta chunks from falling to the sidewalk. It’s a beautiful building that needs SOMETHING done for it to survive, and they never even replaced the decayed windows or removed the trees growing from the cracks in the cornice. I can’t say for sure that the lenders will recoup their loans, but at least it will be in better hands regardless of who buys it.
i hope this guy does us all a favor and let’s the auction go through without trying to delay the inevitable. it would be nice to see this building restored and repurposed.
Interesting- I always wondered about that building. Maybe too much of a beast for the owner to keep in good repair. I’m really glad it’s landmarked and I hope the new owner will breathe some new life into it. (and not ass it up!)
“Part of the problem this building faced was that it was zoned industrial so it could not be converted to apartments as of right. A couple of developers bought it and looked into it but ultimately walked away and it landed in the hands of the fellow who basically just milked the building of all its equity. Now that all of Fourth Avenue has been rezoned, it should not be hard to convert this to beautiful apartments.”
not that i support this guy richmond, and i like you minard, but you have no idea what you’re talking about.
you think this would look good as a residential building?! i think about that place on union and gap from last week.
Yeah! What planet are you people living on!