The former bookstore space at the southeast corner of Eighth St. and Sixth Ave. has been vacant more than five years. For that whole time, TD Bank has held the lease.
Barnes & Noble closed its store there at the end of 2012. Years before that, it had been a B. Dalton bookstore. It was originally built to be a bookstore.
Our understanding is TD Bank has a long-term, 20-year lease, or thereabouts, and that they are paying an astronomical rent — $200,000 a month, or so we are told by a local source who is up on such things. That rent sounds incredible, but that’s the word on the street. If that’s the case, the landlord clearly feels this is a marquee location that can command the kind of sum from a quote-unquote “national chain” — the holy grail of Manhattan commercial property owners nowadays.
Apparently, even TD Bank realizes we don’t need ANOTHER TD Bank, which is apparently why this spot hasn’t gotten one.
Meanwhile, for all these years, TD Bank could have done something else — something, almost anything within reason, would be better than nothing, in this case — with this key corner property. For example, why couldn’t we have had a bookstore there? On a short-term lease, if need be.
As William Kelley, the executive director of the Village Alliance Business Improvement District, has put it, that corner is “The Gateway to Eighth St.” Eighth St. was once the Village’s main shopping strip. Then it became a shoe-store street, then fell on hard times, filled with empty storefronts, and is now rebounding with upscale restaurants and nightspots.
Corners are key. All you need to do is listen to the recording of Jane Jacobs at the yellow upside-down “periscope” on the other side of the intersection on Ruth Wittgenstein Triangle. Jacobs talks about how important street corners are — places where streams of pedestrians mix and merge, come into contact.
This currently blighted corner reflects terribly on TD Bank — and also the landlord, who is happy to pocket the rent, of course, but should be pushing to reactivate that spot. This whole strip — from the old bookstore space down to the now-also-empty former Duane Reade space at Waverly Place is owned by one landlord, Friedland.
But now the Blue Note jazz club apparently is looking to open up a live-music venue there. Its liquor-license application has been on the Community Board 2 S.L.A. Committee’s agenda for two months but keeps getting “laid over” for some reason.
A music club there would be great, and would hark back to when Jimi Hendrix built Electric Lady Studio a few doors down and, before that, to when Barbra Streisand got her start singing at the Bon Soir on Eighth St.
What would be even better is if the place offered open-mic nights, like some of our favorite recently closed venues, Cornelia St. Cafe and SideWalk, and no-cover entry on at least some nights to see great local talent. Admittedly, that might not be part of the so-called “business model,” and perhaps it’s not very realistic to hope for that. But so far, the TD Bank business model has been a disaster!
