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A developer plans to clear an Upper East Side corner that’s been anchored by the same Irish pub for 54 years. Two neighboring walkups are slated to come down for a new residential building, and one of them has been the home of Finnegans Wake since 1972. The pub is still open for now, but its lease was written with exactly this scenario in mind.
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The four-story walkup at 1361 First Avenue, on the northwest corner of East 73rd Street, sold for $9.5 million on Tuesday, according to Crain’s New York Business. The buyers are a partnership between Cheskie Weisz of Williamsburg-based CW Realty Management and nursing home investor Yaakov Klein, and the purchase is tied up with the building next door.Weisz already owned 1363 First Avenue, a prewar walkup with nine apartments and a storefront that’s been dark for years. He was about to lose it. A lender held a $7.5 million judgment against him, and a court-ordered auction was set for Tuesday afternoon. Klein’s money paid off the debt at the last minute, the auction was cancelled, and Klein took majority control of 1363 in the process, Crain’s reported, citing a representative of Weisz’s firm. The same day, Weisz closed on 1361.
With both buildings in hand, the partnership plans to tear down the two of them, CW Realty told Crain’s, which described the project as a luxury rental development. Under current zoning, 1361 alone could be replaced by a building of up to about 24,500 square feet if affordable housing is included. What could rise on 1363 isn’t clear yet.
That brings us to the pub. Finnegans Wake’s lease runs through March 2030, but the building was marketed this spring as a development site, and the JLL listing spelled out a demolition clause in the lease: the landlord can serve 180 days’ notice, and the pub has to go. The listing pitched that as a feature, noting a buyer could collect the pub’s rent while drawing up plans. The 16 apartments upstairs are already empty. Whether the nine apartments at 1363 are occupied is unknown; CW Realty didn’t answer Crain’s on that.
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The seller of 1361 was the Kadvan family, which owned the building through a company called Three Kadvans and had held it since the late 1950s, according to Crain’s. Finnegans Wake has been the ground-floor tenant since 1972, per the pub. No deed had been filed with the city register as of Crain’s report, which is normal given the lag after a closing.East Side Feed reached out to Finnegans Wake to ask whether the 180-day notice has been served and if there’s a last-call date. We’ll provide an update if and when we hear back.
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