Along a Viaduct, a Restaurant Row Emerges

New York Times
Square Feet

Along a Viaduct, a Restaurant Row Emerges
By ALISON GREGOR
Published: June 7, 2006

When Pete Skyllas first approached the abandoned freight house at 12th Avenue and 135th Street in West Harlem in search of the owner, all he remembers was the stink. "It was horrible," he said. "You couldn't come within five feet of the place because you couldn't breathe."
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Photographs by Jennifer S. Altman for The
New York Times
A view of the building at 701 West 135th
Street, top, which is being reconstructed.
Above, the arch of the viaduct at the site
in West Harlem.


Mr. Skyllas said he removed about 30 Dumpsters' worth of trash, much of it drug paraphernalia, from the building before buying it from Clear Channel Communications two years ago. Now the structure, which is at 701 West 135th Street, is being reconstructed, poised to become a fulcrum in a five-block restaurant row developing in the shadow of the Riverside Drive viaduct in West Harlem.

The gritty area, stretching along 12th Avenue between St. Clair Place and 135th Street, runs next to the Hudson River but is dominated by a highway overpass. For years, this stretch of land has intimidated joggers and cyclists who happened into it.

The area was once a meatpacking district, but has evolved since the 1970's into auto shops, warehouses and manufacturing businesses. But with the nearest residences up a steep stairway along Riverside Drive, it quickly developed into an area whose dimmer corners were used for drug sales and prostitution.

Now the transactions happening in the neighborhood involve commercial real estate.
"This neighborhood has always been very remote, and before, this place was maybe a dead zone," said Mr. Skyllas, who two years ago planned to move his plumbing business into the 20,900-square-foot building.

But then he learned about an $18.7 million reconstruction of two Harlem piers nearby at 125th Street — one intended for recreation and the other for water taxis and excursion boats — and a new 18-acre campus proposed by Columbia University to extend up to 133rd Street.

Mr. Skyllas said he quickly realized his building might flourish as a venue for restaurants and clubs. "Now, this area is going to have a heartbeat," he said.

Two restaurants have leased space in the building; they will be run by established New York City restaurateurs, coaxed to the neighborhood, in part, by its ample parking, Mr. Skyllas said. A lease is under negotiation with a third restaurant for the final space in the building. One of the confirmed tenants is a duplex restaurant-club called Alma Thai Latin Cuisine that will offer a fusion of Thai and Latin cooking. The restaurant will open in early 2007.

The owners, who also run the Umbrella Bar and Lounge and Mamajuana Café in the Inwood section of Manhattan, say they are paying about $11,000 a month for their 6,000-square-foot space, or about $22 a square foot annually — considerably less than the going rate for restaurant space in Harlem, which is about $60 to $70 a foot off the main avenues and can rise to $125 a foot.

Carlos Saint-Hilaire, co-owner of Alma, said the area had incredible potential. "This area is supposed to be the next meatpacking district," said Mr. Saint-Hilaire, referring to a once-gritty area of the West Village that has become a fashionable neighborhood with many upscale restaurants, popular clubs and expensive boutiques.

The revival along the five blocks of 12th Avenue has taken years to get rolling. An upscale Fairway Market began attracting people from the Upper West Side to the area when it opened at 132nd Street in 1995. And the first restaurant and bar, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, opened in the neighborhood at 131st Street in late 2004.

The Hudson River Cafe, a restaurant and bar specializing in wines of the Hudson Valley and meals made from organic produce, will open this summer at 133rd Street.

Hamlet Peralta, who demolished an auto repair shop to develop the cafe, which will have live jazz, has plans for another restaurant in the area. He has been negotiating with the owner of a wholesale business along 12th Avenue to open a Mexican restaurant in the building, which has a striking river view from its third story, framed by the filigreed arch of the viaduct, he said.

Hudson River Cafe is to have a patio, outdoor bar and terrace, which he hopes will lure boaters who use the Harlem piers, scheduled for completion in the summer of 2007. Eventually, that project, financed by state and city agencies and featuring a landscaped bicycle path running along 12th Avenue, may also include ferry service to New Jersey.

Predictably, real estate agents have created a name for the tiny neighborhood: ViVa, for Viaduct Valley, evoking the ornate arched bridge supporting Riverside Drive, which was built in the late 1800's.

"This area is under a gorgeous structure," said Marlene Hartstein, a managing director at Warburg Realty Partnership who is representing the commercial space at 701 West 135th Street. "There's a lot going on there, and there really isn't any more space, because Columbia University has taken almost everything."

Andrea Rojas, the second restaurant tenant in the former freight house at 135th Street, is creating a duplex pizzeria and bar centered on an Italian brick oven. He said Columbia's proposed expansion, which would reach as far north as 133rd Street, was a boon to the area.

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, the strip's pioneer restaurant, features blues and jazz bands along with smoky brisket sandwiches. Its owner, John Stage, redeveloped the site of an old meat
warehouse — which has since been acquired by Columbia University — maintaining the thick concrete pillars spaced every 11 feet as a foundation, but carting in antique wood from barns in upstate New York to frame the 7,200 square-foot building.

A conventional observation about the area is that it is difficult to get to, but Mr. Stage said this was a fallacy. Because the area is tucked under an overpass with ramps, cars can easily enter and exit the Henry Hudson Parkway from both directions.

The subway is only a block away, and a working bus depot is on 133rd Street. Train tracks run right past the neighborhood. Residents are campaigning to get Amtrak to stop there.

Residents of West Harlem have lived for decades along the streets perched above the strip, and a restaurant row along the avenue buried below them was part of a community plan developed under the city's charter many decades back but never realized. That plan also envisioned the area as a regional transportation hub.

"The original plan for that area when it was still a meat market was for it to be developed into a restaurant and nightclub row, because of its location," said Maritta Dunn, the chairwoman of economic development for Community Board 9. "There were no homes around there to be bothered."


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