Purchase Street Storefronts to Be Demo’ed Next Week
Purchase Street is changing again.
On the heels of the closing of the Rye Smoke Shop and the renovation of that building, next week the wrecking ball will be take to 23-25 Purchase Street. The building is in between R&M Woodrow Jewelers and Poppy's.
From Rye City:
"Please be advised that site mobilization will begin tomorrow (12/2/16) in preparation for the demolition of the building at 23-25 Purchase Street. The sidewalk in front of the building will be closed during the demolition process, which is expected to take a few weeks. A sidewalk detour will be set up into the adjacent parking area. Actual demolition will begin next week."
The building has been vacant for a while but recent housed HomeMade Pizza and That Pottery Place. Neither business lasted too long. The property is owned by Grove Park Realty Corp. and this seems to be some sort of entity or shell controlled by Joseph P. Day Realty Corporation of Manhattan (see the building listing on their site).
And so it begins. It starts with the smoke shop and now it will spread. Historic downtown with many old building soon to be replaced with modern buildings that will probably look out of place. 23-25 purchase street was in my opinion purposely neglected over the past few years. If you look in the rear of the building it’s been broken into with water damage, animals living inside because the back door broken in. Looks terrible. So I’m interested to see what a new building will look like and how high the rent will be. Still a lot of empty store fronts in Rye. More banks or restaurants? Miss the days you could park for the day and actually shop for everything you needed on purchase street.
Why can’t this wait until after the holidays? Downtown Rye is practically inaccessible thanks to lack of parking, the current construction and the added congestion during the holiday season. This demolition will make Purchase street unbearable. I think I will avoid Purchase street altogether during the holidays and do my shopping elsewhere. Such a shame.
So this is ‘Merry Christmas’ from Rye’s currently most influential special interest group, the building industry. Not only do they apparently have official sanction to shortchange the city treasury (see my “Builders Rule – You Get a Tax Hike” story in the left column nearby) but now both semi-official local newspapers continuously downplay their capers and publish glowing infomercials highlighting their continuing city hall permitting successes (see this weekend’s Rye City Review, page 3, “Proposed Senior Facility Nears Final Approval.”)
There’s also clearly a reason Mayor Sack is using taxpayer money to defend a citizen funded lawsuit brought to force him to release his own city related emails (plug ‘Rye Mayor Sack’s Secret Emails’ into the MyRye search box at the upper right here and hit return). And there’s also a reason city hall completely ignores standing adopted city laws, like Chapter 195 (Wetlands & Watercourses) and Chapter 196 (Wireless Communications) when it suits the interests of their apparently insatiable patrons.
And I’ll try to break this to you gently, that’s not us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94bdMSCdw20
Glad i caught 15 good years in Rye but they are doing their best to turn us into Larchmont as fast as possible .
Call the moving company !