Hell’s Angels East Village HQ to become rental apartments
Image via Wikimedia cc.
Another touchstone of colorful East Village lore is becoming apartments: The Hell’s Angels headquarters at 77 East 3rd Street, formerly the New York City home of the notorious motorcycle clan, was purchased for $10 million this week by Lower East Side property management company Better Living, the New York Post reports; Real estate investor Nathan Blatter had bought the building from the bikers back in February. After a year-long $2 million renovation, the developer plans to offer “standard, regular East Village apartments.” The six-story building will have retail spaces on the ground floor that formerly housed the biker clubhouse bar.
The building became the Angels’ main NYC hangout in the 1970s, and was for the ensuing decades a source of controversy even in a colorful neighborhood. While the biker den’s denizens were generally well behaved on the block, tales of scrapes and scuffles from violent to just noisy were common. Many felt the bikers’ presence protected residents from the criminal element that plagued the pre-millennial neighborhood–but if you lived nearby you were advised to get used to the sound of motorcycle engines in the morning.
Post-renovation, the biker crash pads on upper floors will be 22 one- and two bedroom units priced at about $3,500 a month. Better Living spokesman Jonathan Sondry said, “The location is phenomenal. It is a rare occasion to find a fully vacant building in Manhattan.” Sondry says the building’s checkered past won’t be used as a selling point: “I don’t think it will make a difference to young students these days.”
[Via NYPost]
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