SHED OUT OF LUCK
This kind of thing is always going to leave a bad taste.
The city demolished an elaborately decorated $25,000 outdoor dining shed belonging to an artsy East Village eatery Thursday — and the owners are torn up about it, The Post has learned.
“This is our whole livelihood. We put every f--king penny into this place,” said Mimi Blitz of the restaurant and art gallery Pinky’s Space, who claimed she was given “zero warning” that her disco-balland neon-light-decorated structure would be razed by Department of Transportation workers. “I’m very emotional about it. We were still struggling from the pandemic but making it work. And then someone comes and takes it away.”
The city had inspected the 30-foot shed on East First Street and First Avenue earlier this month but said nothing about plans to tear it down, she said.
They only told her to get rid of a vending machine that “wasn’t food-related” and to pick up a trash can that encroached six feet into the amenity zone between the shed and the sidewalk, Blitz said.
She said she promptly removed the machine and admitted she was unable to move the garbage can because some movers failed to show up. But she said the DOT workers never cited that as a reason for their demolition when they arrived to tear the shed down Thursday — and, in fact, gave her no reason. “They didn’t tell us why. They said we had orders from the city to take this away,” Blitz told The Post. “I had zero notification, no letters in the mail. I had no indiction they were taking the structure down, taking my whole livelihood down.”
The workers took everything down from the shed’s wooden beams and artificial grass to its decorative chandelier and small garden. Blitz said she got so mad that she tried to stop them — but police threatened to arrest her.
“The cops said you will get arrested if you don’t move. They said the structure is going down, or the structure is going down and we will arrest you,” she said.
The DOT disputed Blitz’s claims and said the owner received three separate warnings about the shed’s noncompliance and removal dating back to August.
In recent weeks, the city has removed dozens of outdoor dining sheds and said it is considering more regulations for the ones that remain two years after the pandemic prompted the trend.
The crackdown comes after some Manhattan neighbors complained that the structures have attracted rodents and resulted in trashed streets.