Reopenings

Will Chumley’s Reopen in 2013?

The speakeasy abides.
The speakeasy abides. Photo: Mike Rogers

The April 2007 partial wall collapse that threatened the structural integrity of five buildings in Greenwich Village and closed one of the city’s most famous bars has been mended, but it’s nonetheless been a hard road to recovery for the former speakeasy Chumley’s, the Times reports. Chumley’s managing partners have kept its interior furnishings in storage for the last five years and are practically ready to start serving cocktails and burgers at the refurbished watering hole where F. Scott Fitzgerald once drank; they’d even previously set reopening dates, but it turns out that Chumley’s will have to get “city permission to reclaim its status as a bar and restaurant grandfathered into a sleepy, residential street,” and it remains possible that 86 will go residential. Still, hope looms: The Times reports there are 75 years left on the 99-year lease. [NYT, Earlier]

Will Chumley’s Reopen in 2013?