Essex Crossing

Seward Park Urban Renewal Area in the background, Essex Street Market to the left, and the intersection of Essex and Delancey streets in the foreground. (Photo from September 2013) Historically, the Lower East Side was an immigrant neighborhood, including Germans, Irish, Italians, and Hispanics; Essex Crossing was envisioned during the neighborhood's period of gentrification. The surrounding portion of the Lower East Side has been proposed for development since the 1950s. The region later became the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA), which covered five vacant plots of land acquired as part of a 1965 urban renewal plan, near Delancey and Grand streets. These sites were originally part of the broader Seward Park Urban Renewal Area, a federal program designed to tear down several tenements to develop low-income housing, called the Cooperative Village. Some original SPURA land was eventually developed, but five lots remain vacant to this day. SPURA was the largest tract of undeveloped New York City-owned land in Manhattan south of 96th Street, but debate over what would be the "appropriate redevelopment" of SPURA had stalled the process and kept it undeveloped. In 1967, New York City leveled 20 acres on the southern side of Delancey Street and removed more than 1,800 low-income, largely Puerto Rican families, with a promise that they would return to new low-income apartments when they were built. However, political corruption abounded, and the new apartments were never built. During the Koch administration that ended in 1989, the city contracted with Sam LeFrak to build, but massive divided opposition caused it to be withdrawn. In January and February 2011, the local community board took the issue of SPURA's development up and came to a community consensus that the area will be built to accommodate mixed use of low-income housing, commercial properties/retail spaces, and market-value homes. The Board, community and city planners and public officials were to finalize the plans for development. The consortium was required to develop at least 1,000 apartments, including at least 500 affordable housing units, and they were required to set aside some units for families displaced by SPURA. Construction The first phase of Essex Crossing was to include 556 residential units, in addition to commercial and retail spaces such as a bowling alley, museum, and cinema. Four parcels, known as sites 1, 2, 5, and 6, were designated for development in the first phase. In June 2014, demolition of structures in the area commenced making way for the development. On August 2, 2014, it was revealed that a municipal parking lot at Broome and Essex streets would be closed for soil testing and planning of the future Warhol museum. Groundbreaking for the crossing was said to come as early as spring 2015, though a definite groundbreaking timeline had not been published. Another parking lot was closed on December 31, this time a private one on Suffolk Street. Detailed plans for the first phase of construction were announced in January 2015, and the Essex Street Market building south of Delancey Street was demolished that March. Delancey Street Associates obtained $250 million in construction loans in July 2015, allowing work to begin on the first phase of the project the same month. and a $95 million loan for Site 1. An affordable housing lottery for the first building, 242 Broome Street, was launched in 2016, followed by lotteries for the Frances Goldin Senior Apartments and The Essex the next year. The final first-phase building, The Essex, topped out in October 2017. The housing lotteries saw high demand; one of the lotteries attracted 60,000 applications for 99 units, The first residents began moving into the development in November 2017, The Frances Goldin Senior Apartments, which formally opened in January 2018, was the first building in the development to be completed, and the first phase's other three buildings opened over the subsequent months. and it presented renderings of sites 3 and 4 to the public later that year. A public park designed by West 8 was completed in June 2019, and a lottery for 140 Essex Street opened that month. By then, one report estimated that Essex Crossing accommodated half a million daily visitors, about the same number as in the much larger Hudson Yards development on Manhattan's West Side. The housing lottery for the Artisan at 180 Broome Street was launched in March 2020, and leasing at that building commenced that August. Verizon leased office space at the development in 2021 but never moved in, instead subleasing it. The developers refinanced the development in 2022 with a $466 million loan. In 2024, Taconic sold of office space at 180 Broome Street and 202 Broome Street to Deutsche Bank. The next year, the Rosenkranz Foundation bought two of the office condos at 202 Broome Street. In addition, plans for a cultural venue known as Canyon were announced for Essex Crossing in mid-2025; the venue would open in 2026. ==Description==

The development covers Essex Crossing, split among ten sequentially numbered lots, is on the east side of Essex Street between Stanton and Delancey streets (lots 8, 9, and 10); the municipal parking lot at Broome and Essex streets (lot 7); an area bounded by Attorney, Broome, Essex, and Delancey streets (lots 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6); and a block bounded by Grand, Clinton, Broome, and Suffolk streets (lot 5). which involved the development of 561 affordable apartments and 518 market rate apartments, for a total of 1,079 apartments. in addition to local New York City Bus routes M9, M14A, and B39. Existing Residential There are both public housing and condominiums in the area. In the SPURA area, public housing is operated by the Seward Park Housing Corporation, part of the Cooperative Village, located in the triangle between Grand Street and East Broadway, and abuts Seward Park. The buildings, designed by Herman Jessor, were finished in 1959. Condominiums include the Blue Tower at 105 Norfolk Street, designed by Bernard Tschumi, opened in 2007 with 32 condominium apartments over 16 stories, a ground floor commercial space occupied by the Thierry Goldberg Gallery, and a roof terrace for residents on the third floor, using a common setup with commercial space at the ground floor with residential space above. The Blue Tower is not LEED certified. The tower had a characteristic slant that sets it apart from other buildings in the vicinity. Essex Street Market The Essex Street Market is an indoor retail market, one of a number of such facilities built in the 1930s under the administration of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, at 120 Essex Street, north of Delancey Street. The Essex Street Market, a group of markets constructed in the 1940s to reduce pushcart congestion on the narrow streets of the Lower East Side, is operated and managed by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). In September 2013, it was announced that the market would be integrated into the Essex Crossing. Essex Market formerly had an additional food market known as the Market Line, which opened in November 2019 and closed in April 2025. Essex Street municipal parking lot An existing parking garage at 107 Essex Street, north of Delancey Street, is also being renovated as part of the redevelopment plan. Originally slated to be converted into housing under an idea by Councilwoman Margaret Chin, it was dropped from the project and later put back on. Parkland Part of the development includes a new public park on Broome Street between Suffolk and Clinton streets, spanning . The park, which is part of the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area, will only be 35% planted, with open spaces, signage, bike racks, and skateboard-proof park benches. It will include a playground for toddlers, in anticipation of a new primary school nearby. The large trolley terminal under Delancey and Essex streets sat unused for 60 years and became the location for a proposed park. The project, known as Lowline, was first proposed in 2011; the next year, it successfully raised over $150,000 from 3,300 backers on Kickstarter to create a full-scale exhibition of the solar lighting technology. If completed, it would have been within the Essex Crossing development, though the project was indefinitely postponed in February 2020 due to a lack of funding and was considered in the planning stages as of 2021. The Market Line space occupies part of where Lowline was supposed to be built. Phase 1 Phase 1 includes four buildings. 55-unit condominium building designed by SHoP Architects. Completed in 2018, The International Center of Photography signed a deal with Delancey Street Associates to house its museum and school there in 2017, and the new center opened in January 2020. Designed by architecture firm Gensler, the space has galleries, media labs, classrooms, darkrooms, shooting studios, a shop, café, research library and public event spaces. The Gutter, a 12-lane bowling alley in the basement, opened in October 2020. At site 2 on 115 Delancey Street (125 Essex Street) is The Essex, In October 2014, a movie theater, with 14 screens, was announced. Located in the Essex building and operated by Regal Cinemas, it includes digital cinema projectors and recliners with padded footrests, among other amenities, as well as an RPX Regal Premium Experience auditorium and bar. Scheduled to begin construction in spring 2015 for completion by 2018, the theater opened on April 6, 2019. The sixth floor has a urban farm that opened in August 2019. Site 5 at 145 Clinton Street contains the Rollins, a 15-story structure designed by Beyer Blinder Belle, with 211 rental apartments. Trader Joe's opened a location on the first floor and basement of 145 Clinton Street, at the northwest corner with Grand Street, on October 19, 2018. The space on the building's second floor, immediately above Trader Joe's, is occupied by a Target store, which opened in August 2018. Site 6 at 175 Delancey Street is occupied by The Goldin, a 14-story structure designed by Dattner. One of these buildings will also include Canyon, a combined museum and performing-arts center designed by New Affiliates Architecture. Canyon would include of exhibition space, a 300-seat performance hall, and a piazza. Other structures The second phase of the development includes three buildings: • 140 Essex Street, an affordable housing development designed by Beyer Blinder Belle, has 92 apartments that are all reserved for senior citizens. has 83 residential condominiums and of office space, It would have taken up a parking lot as well as the 75 Essex Street building, a building at the corner of Broome and Essex streets that some locals are fighting to have landmarked. It was reported that Taconic offered 75 Essex Street's owners a huge sum to redevelop the building as part of the museum. In 2016, the Children's Museum of Manhattan announced plans to relocate to Essex Crossing. The museum planned to occupy , but these plans were canceled the next year due to financial and logistical conflicts. ==Reception==

In 2019, New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman described Essex Crossing as "the anti-Hudson Yards", saying that the developers had won over local residents and that "this may come as close as we can now get, in a political system obeisant to private enterprise, to balancing equity with gentrification". Political issues The SPURA area, now the Essex Crossing's site, was kept empty, except for parking lots, since 1967 due to suspected political alliances. In 1977, then-to-be-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty (Met Council) head William "Bill" Rapfogel accompanied then-mayor Edward Koch through the area, promising to turn some of barren land on Delancey Street's south side into a never-delivered development that had displaced more than 1,800 residents a decade before. ==References==