Once upon a time in lower Manhattan (specifically the NoHo/Bowery strip) was as littered with gas stations as it now is with expensive restaurants, but as the latter moved in the former have been drying up one by one. And now one of the last gas stations standing, the BP at Lafayette and Houston, is reportedly looking into giving up the ghost and becoming another commercial "loft" developement. Is it strange that we find ourselves mourning the loss of gas stations?
Because really, they are almost all gone from the neighborhood. The gas station on the Bowery and Bond? That's a six-story "loft" building itself these days. The gas station on the Bowery and Third Street? Why, that's the Bowery Hotel. The Gulf gas station on the Bowery and fourth? That's been BBar for ages. And the gas station and Whale of a Wash car wash on Houston and Broadway (which we insisted on calling the "spaghetti car wash" when we were wee)? That's the Adidas store now. If you are looking to fill up in the neighborhood (and so very many cabbies seem to be) your options in the area are the Mobil on Avenue C and Houston, the Gulf on Second Avenue and First Street and, for the moment at least, the BP on Houston.
A Gaseteria until it became a BP in 2003, the gas station across from the always entertaining Calvin Klein billboards (which used to live above the Whale of a Wash, but don't get us started) is reportedly being shopped around by CB Richard Ellis as one of the few great undeveloped properties left in nearby SoHo. Specifically, though we haven't been able to get confirmation and nobody at the gas station seems to know anything about it, the space is being marketed for a "five- to seven-story commercial loft development with luxury retail." Just what the neighborhood needs!
