The Block: Centre Market Place between Grand and Broome Streets
Matt Elzweig / October 2, 2006 / Our Town downtown

Growing up in the shadow of greatness is supposed to be a tough hand to play, and in many ways, it probably is. On the other hand, it may provide the cover needed to avoid scrutiny and turn one's self into something equally as impressive as the elder.

In 1973, when the NYPD abandoned its headquarters at 240 Centre Street, in whose shadow, literally, Centre Market Place is located, there were plenty of takers, most of whom were all talk. Plans for a renovation finally came through in 1988, while Centre Market Place was left to fester behind it.

Enter Bob and Cortney Novogratz. A former stockbroker and his wife, who specialize in converting mixed-use properties to single-family townhouses, they bought several townhouses on Centre Market in 2004, gutted and rebuilt them, and today the street has a contemporary European look that complements the police building and stands well on its own two feet.

This quiet block is where Little Italy, Chinatown and SoHo converge, Steve Hakimzadeh, a founder of HH Realty Group, the rental company for number 8, says. "[It's] extremely popular with the young professional crowd."

It's easy to miss with 240 Centre towering over it, and the commotion of the surrounding streets where the San Gennaro festival recently ended, but that's probably the point.

Renting

Units at 8 Centre Market are typically shared 600-650 square foot two-bedrooms. Hakimzadeh says there hasn't been a rental in the building in a year. Back then, each unit rented for $2,500, but he estimates they would command $3,000-$3,200 today.

What Happened Here

Until the NYPD moved out in 1973, 240 Centre Street (police headquarters) generated most of the happenings on Centre Market Place.

Designed with London's Old Bailey courthouse in mind, it went up in 1909, with Teddy Roosevelt, then the city's top enforcer, there to lay the cornerstone.

Crime reporters worked out of a teletype-equipped office facility at 4 Centre Market and spent their downtime at the restaurant now called Onieal's, on the Centre Market and Grand. The restaurant still has an incomplete, underground passageway that's rumored to have once led to police headquarters across the street. This tunnel, in what is now the wine cellar, is thought to have been patronized by some of New York's finest during Prohibition when the bar area was a speakeasy, brothel and gambling den.

Several gun dealers were on Centre Market, including John Jovino Co., which dates back to 1911 and claims to be "the oldest gun shop in the USA." In 2003, John Jovino Co., now on Grand Street, made the top 10 – of gun dealers whose guns were linked to New York City crimes between 1996 and 2000, in a Columbia University study. John Jovino Co. was only one of the gun dealers on Centre Market. The Cold War was still on when two men were arrested by Customs agents at JFK in 1984 as they were about to ship $1 million worth of illegal arms and related equipment to Warsaw. From there, it was suspected, the Polish government would resell the weapons to Middle Eastern buyers. The source of the contraband was Sile Distributors Inc., the gun dealer in number 7.

9 Centre Market Place housed the People's Baths, which was opened in 1881 and converted to a church club for homeless men in 1902.

Amenities

Salon

Rescue Beauty Lounge

Clothing

Built by Wendy
No. 6
Nicola Luccarini

Food and Drink

Onieal's Grand Street

Senior Services

Open Door Senior Center Chinese-American Planning Cneter, Inc./City of New York Department for the Aging

Sources: (brainyhistory.com; cityrealty.com; The Daily News; nyc-architecture.com; CTR Market Owners LLC; HH Realty Group; Massey Knakal Realty Services; The Museum of the City of New York online; The New York Times; The New York Post; The New York Times; Onieals.com.)