It's been about six months since our intense but short-lived obsession with the up-and-coming West Harlem micronabe dubbed ViVa, short for Viaduct Valley. We oohed, we ahhed. We learned this was the '#1 worst commercial location in the city,' though one where residents spied both models and six-inch wounds. But more than anything, we saw promise: "Crappy today... gentrified tomorrow," as one tipster aptly put it.
Sure enough, the very commercial building that started our ViVa obsession gets the Times treatment today, with the paper proclaiming that 701 West 135th Street (above) "is being reconstructed, poised to become a fulcrum in a five-block restaurant row." Two restaurants have already leased space in the building; one will be a duplex restaurant-club called Alma Thai Latin Cuisine slated to open early next year; the other, a duplex brick-oven pizzeria.
To those who doubted ViVa, we say: vision, people. Today's bombed-out viaduct is tomorrow's delightful prosciutto and arugula pie. (And hey, fear not: Warburg still has the listing.)
· Along a Viaduct, a Restaurant Row Emerges [NYTimes]
· Listing: 701 West 135th Street (commerical lease) [Warburg]
· ViVa Update: Boom Times Ahead [Curbed]
· ViVa Living: Models and Six-Inch Wounds [Curbed]