Eclectic destination for the Lower East Side

Located on portions of nine blocks in the heart of Manhattan’s historic Lower East Side, Essex Crossing is rising on six acres that sat mostly vacant since 1967, representing one of the most significant urban renewal projects in the history of New York City.

Essex Crossing is now home to more than 25 individuals displaced by Robert Moses’ slum clearance program more than a half century ago.

The project includes 1,079 units—51 percent of which are affordable—including market rate and affordable condominiums and market rate and affordable rentals, including affordable rentals for seniors built on top of a magnificently diverse mix of uses.

Essex Crossing is the site of some of the neighborhood’s most venerable social service organizations: Grand Street Settlement, which operates an intergenerational community center, and Henry Street Settlement, which runs a job training center at the Frances Goldin Senior Apartments. Grand Street Settlement also operates a job-training coffee shop, GrandLo Café, at street level. The Chinese-American Planning Council and Lower East Side Partnership also provide services in the building and NYU Langone operates a 55,000 square-foot ambulatory health care facility.

Residents are able to meet most of their shopping needs on site, and Essex Crossing is fast becoming a destination for the Lower East Side. The Rollins, a mixed-income rental building, includes a Target and the largest Trader Joe’s on the East Coast. More uniquely, the project is the new home of the Essex Street Market, New York City’s most historic public market, with rows of vendors specializing in meat, fish, cheese, produce and specialty foods. At the basement level of three Essex Crossing buildings will be the new Market Line, an expansive bazaar-like marketplace. Upon completion, the 150,000 square-foot Market Line will be one of the largest such facilities in the world, eventually housing more than 100 locally sourced vendors.

Essex Crossing Phase I won a 2019 Charter Award from the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) for Delancey Street Associates, a joint venture of L+M Development Partners, BFC Partners, Taconic Investment Partners, Goldman Sachs Uig and The Prusik Group. The architects are Beyer Blinder Belle, Dattner Architects, SHoP Architects, and Handel Architects. The landscape architect is West 8. The winners will be formally recognized on June 14 at CNU 27 in Louisville.