Just days after the Body Elite Gym building collapsed at 348 Court Street at the corner of Union Street in carroll Gardens , PMFA received an email from a reader in regards to the building at 449-451 Court Street that housed the former Irish Tavern P.J. Hanley, one of Brooklyn's oldest.
The reader reported:
"I’m not sure of who the new owners of Hanley’s are and I do not need to make any enemies, that being said we all saw the Body by Elite building collapse. The new owners of Hanleys just had a Stop Work Order issued because they did not get permits for their demolition and alteration work. One of the items was failure to file permits for work to reinforce the main girder structural beam in the cellar supporting the first floor Itself. The work may have been done properly but by not filing a permit a city inspector would never review the work, this is dangerous. Hanleys has been vacant too long. I can’t wait for it to reopen. I wish the new owners had done things by the book. They will now be delayed. Their liquor license has yet to be granted, this will not help. "
Sure enough! The New York City Department Of Buildings did indeed issue a Stop Work order after an Emergency Response Team visited the address and discovered that recent structural, electric and plumbing work on the ground floor retail space and the basement had been done without permits. In addition, a support beam may have been compromised.
The commercial space has been empty since 2014, so the community was excited when it became known this past fall that a new business had taken over.
In November, representatives of the new venture came in front of Community Board 6's Permits and Licenses Committee to ask for an "on-premise" liquor license, Thee Committee voted to recommend approval to the NYS Liquor Authority.
Matthew Shendell of the Paige Hospitality Group, which also owns The Ainsworth, a small chain of restaurants in Manhattan, seemed to be behind the business.
The new family friendly restaurant was first supposed to be named Flora, but according to new signs in the windows, it has been renamed "Court Street Tavern."
Construction work at this address has been going on for a while, including during the City's Covid-19 lockdown, as another reader reported and which we witnessed ourselves on May 3rd, when all construction was stopped in the city.
Photos showing work at the site during the City's shutdown on May 3rd, 2020
As much as we would like to see a thriving new tavern at this location, we are concerned that the business failed to secure the necessary building's permits and that the place could have easily opened to patrons while structurally unsound. It does not speak well of the operators.
This corner location of Carroll Gardens has had its fair share of problems in the past.
McGown, known as 'the bankruptcy baron' for the trail of failed businesses and real estate investments he left in New York City, took over Hanley's in 2005. By February 2013, he filed for Chapter 11 for the bar. Months before, he had done the same for his South Brooklyn Pizza chain that occupied the retail space next door at 451 Court Street.
Rather than vacate the premises to return it to the Hanley family, he remodeled the space (without permits) and renamed the bar Goldenrod.
The matter ended in court when the Hanley family accused McGown of having "breached his lease by making substantial alterations without getting consent from the building owner or the Department of Buildings" and for paying rent only sporadically. The Hanleys began eviction proceedings and City Marshals finally seized the property in November 2014.
The place has been empty since then.
The entire building was up for sale in 2019 for $6,750,000. It was being marketed by Meridian Capital Group. We could not determine if it sold yet.
courtesy of Meridian Capital Group
.JPG)
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