Life in and around Hell’s Kitchen, NYC
It’s time for another update in the ongoing saga of the Vintage-to-ASC conversion (previously here). The new venue has put its signage up, and it is nothing more than paint on paint:
For reference, here’s what it replaced:
The new bar will be a “cross between a gay speakeasy and a retro athletic club”, apparently. It’ll be interesting to see what that actually means. The inside will be decorated with classic boxing, bodybuilding and wrestling and bodybuilding memorabilia. Hopefully they put a little more effort into the interior decoration than they did with the exterior.
Back in June, we covered a new gay bar coming soon to 9th Ave. The bar is taking over the location previously occupied by Vintage, which has been closed since April.
The signature Vintage sign is gone:
The same storefront two months ago:
Now that construction is fully ramping up, we should be seeing a lot of progress in the coming weeks.
After this week’s big news of the Supreme Court striking down DOMA coinciding with Pride Week, bars and shops all down 9th Ave showed their pride, draping rainbow flags from windows, fire escapes, and awnings:
Tagg spared no expense:
Flaming Saddles put up a bunch more flags:
And plenty of other stores got in the spirit in their own ways:
Looks like 9th Ave is set to welcome another gay bar:
Ben Maisani, whose partner is CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, is set to open a third trendy New York City gay bar in Hell’s Kitchen, The Real Deal has learned.
The space used to be the wine bar Vintage, which closed down in April.
A bit more on the new bar, from The Real Deal:
The new space is comprised of 2,500 square feet of space on the street level and 2,500 feet on the lower level, according to a listing for the property on BuzzTarget.com. The term of Maisani’s lease is 15 years, sources said. Retail rents in the area range from $150 to $200 a square foot, they said.