A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from April 10, 2006
Red Square (and the Lenin statue)
A red brick apartment building put up in 1989 at East Houston Street and Avenue A was named "Red Square." In 1994, a statue of Lenin was added to the top of the building. A conversation piece was born.

Only in Russia -- I mean, only in New York.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lenin-east_village.jpg
Statue of Lenin atop "Red Square" luxury apartments in New York City's East Village Sculptor: Yuri Gerasimov | Installed on Building: 1994

http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/houston/houston.html
It's not just another block of luxury apartments: Michael Rosen's 13-story "Red Square" at East Houston and Avenue A has been open since 1989 and features a statue of Vladimir Lenin, defiant in the post-Soviet age, and a misnumbered "Askew" clock.

http://www.translucency.com/frede/redsqu.html
Red Square, New York

Open for occupancy since June of 1989, Red Square, luxury project in the East Village, concerns the creation of an image in architecture. The story revolves around Michael Rosen, an untypical developer, and Tibor Kalman, a seminal graphic designer. Michael Rosen of Park Square Associates, a former NYU professor of radical sociology, currently develops subsidized, low-income housing for battered women and people with AIDS. However, his first project in Manhattan was Red Square, a luxury building constructed on family owned land on the Lower East Side. He hired Tibor Kalman of M & Company to design the building's identity.

9 April 1989, New York Times, pg. R1:
But now Michael Rosen, who describes himself as a radical sociologist turned real estate developer, is opening a 130-unit rental apartment house at 250 East Houston Street and naming it Red Square.

"I thought it was a nice name, considering the location and the fact that the building is both red and squarish," said Mr. Rosen, a former assistant professor of management at New York University and now an adjunct professor at its business school. (...) A year ago they started the $25 million Red Square project on land between Avenues A and B that had been a service station for over 25 years.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950CEEDB163AF934A15754C0A961958260
27 July 1997, New York Times, FYI, pg. CY2:
The 19-foot Lenin statue was originally a state-commissioned work by Yuri Gerasimov, but the Soviet Union's implosion prevented the statue from going on public display. It was found by an associate of Mr. Shaoul's in the backyard of a dacha outside Moscow.

The developers have made a postcard that read "Greetings From Red Square," depicting Lenin with his right arm raised victoriously over the downtown skyline. Mr. Shaoul noted that Lenin faces Wall Street, capitalism's emblem, and the Lower East Side, "the home of the socialist movement."

Posted by Barry Popik
Buildings/Housing/Parks • Monday, April 10, 2006 • Permalink


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