November 20, 2015

4 St. Mark’s Place is for Sale

News arrived yesterday that 4 St. Mark's Place, the landmarked building whose first owner in 1833 was Alexander Hamilton’s son, is for sale.

Here's the news release that we received:

One of the rare surviving and significantly intact large townhouses of the Federal period, 4 St. Mark’s Place is over 10,000 square feet and offers four, free market apartments and 5,668 square feet of retail space on the first floor and lower level. Since 1975, the retail space has been occupied by the legendary vintage clothing retailer Trash & Vaudeville, which is relocating to a new site.

“The vacant retail space on the first floor and lower level will offer a new owner significant future upside on a vibrant East Village street that attracts a tremendous amount of foot traffic,” said Ron Solarz, executive managing director and principal of Eastern Consolidated. “Over 53,600 students attend major colleges and universities in the area including and the Manhattan Campus of St. John’s University, which are half a block from the property, and New York University, which is a few blocks away, making the area highly desirable for use as student housing.”

The St. John’s University campus is located in a newly constructed 400,000-square-foot mixed-use office and retail development at , which is anchored by TAMI and financial services tenants including IBM. In addition, Cooper Union has completed construction on its state-of-the art engineering building, which includes a prominent retail space at the northeast corner of East 6th Street, and a new 17-story dormitory built on the east side of Third Avenue between St. Mark’s Place and Stuyvesant Street.

The neighborhood also includes a wide array of hip restaurants and retail shops, and is conveniently located within blocks of the 6 train at Astor Place, the R and N trains at 8th Street, and the L at 3rd Avenue and 14th Street.

Also known as the Hamilton-Holly House, 4 St. Mark’s Place was built in 1831 and designated a New York City landmark in 2004. Col. Alexander Hamilton bought the townhouse in 1833 and shared it with his wife, Eliza, his widowed mother, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, her daughter Eliza Hamilton Holly, and son-in-law Sidney.

In the 1950s and 1960s, a number of cutting-edge performance art venues were located in the building including the Bridge Theater, which hosted the likes of Yoko Ono, The Fugs, and the Bread and Puppet Theater.

The asking price is $11.9 million. (You can find the listing here.)

As we first reported in July, Trash and Vaudeville is moving to 96 E. Seventh St. between Avenue A and First Avenue. (They have yet to announce an official move date.)

No. 4 is likely not the last historic building on the block between Second Avenue and Third Avenue to change hands. Multiple sources have told us that No. 20 — the landmarked Daniel LeRoy House — is in the process of being sold. (There's nothing yet on the transaction in public records.) The circa-1832 building was home until October to Sounds. The Grassroots Tavern still anchors the subterranean space.