Kim's Is Coming
Recently I reported a rumor on the street that the old Kurowycky butcher shop on First Ave in the East Village would become a video store--possibly a XXX video store. It's not XXX, but the rumor has been confirmed: Kim's is coming east again, four years after closing their "mean" location on Avenue A, where the original Kim's was born in 1987.
From a source close to the source, we hear that after the Community Board roadblocked Penmanship, the upscale eatery that may have preserved some of the vintage butcher shop elements, the building and former butcher shop's owner decided not to further pursue the restaurant route.
Already, Kurowycky is being gutted. The sign recently came down--the letters were too brittle to save, crumbling in the demolition men's hands--revealing an older sign, spelled out in the ghosts of lost tiles: STASIUK BROS, the meat market bought out by Jaroslaw Kurowycky in 1974, long before these days when, as the shop's head butcher once told Drawger, "everybody want Whole Food stores: a lot of lights, decorations, show off, that’s what they want."
Thankfully, some folks from the neighboring International Bar have been working with Kim to salvage some of the marble and the porcelain subway tiles from Kurowycky. And while I'm sad to say most of it is going, I am not sad to know that we're getting a Kim's instead of another crowded, noisy restaurant. Especially when the big Kim's on 8th Street will be closing.
From a source close to the source, we hear that after the Community Board roadblocked Penmanship, the upscale eatery that may have preserved some of the vintage butcher shop elements, the building and former butcher shop's owner decided not to further pursue the restaurant route.
Already, Kurowycky is being gutted. The sign recently came down--the letters were too brittle to save, crumbling in the demolition men's hands--revealing an older sign, spelled out in the ghosts of lost tiles: STASIUK BROS, the meat market bought out by Jaroslaw Kurowycky in 1974, long before these days when, as the shop's head butcher once told Drawger, "everybody want Whole Food stores: a lot of lights, decorations, show off, that’s what they want."
Thankfully, some folks from the neighboring International Bar have been working with Kim to salvage some of the marble and the porcelain subway tiles from Kurowycky. And while I'm sad to say most of it is going, I am not sad to know that we're getting a Kim's instead of another crowded, noisy restaurant. Especially when the big Kim's on 8th Street will be closing.
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