Courtesy of Eran Chen's Facebook page.

Long Island City architecture, though respectable (The Observer appreciates the relative paucity of façade-ruining PTAC air conditioning grilles in new construction), is not exactly what you'd call edgy.

ODA Architecture would apparently like to change that. Far from the towers on the waterfront, it appears that the New York-based architectural practice is working on a project on Jackson Avenue, across the street from MoMA PS1 and the graffitied 5 Pointz building (which is not long for this world). Details on the project are scant—the woman who answered the phone at ODA was surprised by this reporter's call, and pointed out that the project is not on the firm's website—but BuzzBuzzHome has dug up a rendering on Facebook, posted by ODA principal Eran Chen two weeks ago.

The design is in line with ODA's signature boxy style, most famously employed at 15 Union Square West, but also at 316 Bergen Street, a project in Boerum Hill at the corner of Third Avenue. It is, however, a bit more adventurous: it has a number of cubes bulging out of the façade, which reminds us of a toned-down version of MVRDV's Cloud tower planned for Seoul (but without the overtones of 9/11). There's also something of a brutalist undertone softened by the large glass windows.

Unlike 316 Bergen Street, though, ODA's design in Long Island City won't be marred by a ground level parking garage—or at least it won't have to be marred by parking. Long Island City, unique among outer borough neighborhoods (hear that, downtown Brooklyn?), does not require developers to build parking with their projects.

Judging by the rendering, the plot in question appears to be on the southwestern corner of Jackson Avenue and Crane Street, which currently houses a one-story industrial building with a sign that says "International Delights." The zoning allows for 125,000 square feet of development as of right, but The Observer was not able to determine the identity of the developer of the project—though we will update you when we know more.

Long Island City is confused. (photo via NY Mag)

Is Long Island City the next Murray Hill? Or the next Williamburg? Or has it gone straight from being like the old, before-it-was-cool Williamsburg to the future no-longer-cool because it's all I-bankers living in luxury towers Williamsburg?

Who knows? Definitely not Long Island City. What Long Island City does know is that it doesn't want to be Long Island City anymore. It wants to be "LIC," which will stop tourists from thinking it is on Long Island and therefore, both uncool and really far away.

“It puts us out on Long Island, and that’s inaccurate—we are urban and hip,” Rob MacKay, head of the Queens Local Development Corp told the New York Post about the desired name change.

Poor Long Island City. The neighborhood is always waiting for its (long overdue) moment, always on the verge of becoming. If only it could figure out what it wants to become. So many promising signs, so many new housing units (Rockrose Development is building an additional 2,500), so many new climbing gyms—not one, but two, according to the New York Daily News.

“It just increases the [area’s] cool factor,” Dan Miner of the Long Island City Partnership said of the new climbing gyms. “It’s going to bring people in without a doubt.”

There may be a dearth of amenities (outside of the the luxury towers, that is), but there is a market, there is a bar, there is a plan for M. Wells to open a steakhouse. Rockrose recently bought up a row of buildings on Jackson Avenue that they think will make great "funky retail spaces" according to DNAinfo.

Will the neighborhood that has long felt like the middle of nowhere, despite being close to everywhere, finally feel like somewhere? And most importantly, what will that somewhere be like?

A haven for families seeking more affordable—if not actually affordable—housing? A bland landscape of soulless luxury towers for Manhattan office slaves who spend their free time pumping away at spinning gyms? An extension of Midtown with office towers and the bright lights of Queens Plaza, a kind of Times Square-lite? Will the cool kids finally follow and adopt the neighborhood as their own if it becomes a rock climbing destination? (We have our doubts given that MoMA PS1, for all its popularity, has failed to pull off that feat.)

The problem with Long Island City is that it isn't the industrial, taxi-cab, commercial-bakery filled hub that it used to be, but it can't figure out who it wants to be. It is neither cheap, nor charming, nor particularly gritty anymore, which means that no one is willing, or able, to claim it as their own.

Its "rebirth" at the hands of developers, rather than the usual artists and creative types, has put the neighborhood in a strange position. Unlike nearly every other patch of ground in New York, whose identity is constant battleground between the old-timers and the new-comers, Long Island City is a no man's land.

"What people find when they're coming here is they're getting value. They're overlooking the negatives of the area," aptsandlofts.com president David Maundrell told DNAinfo. Which pretty much says it all. No one's particularly excited to be moving in, but they are moving in and maybe once there are enough of them, all the other exciting things will follow.

Does it matter if Long Island City can't figure out who it wants to be? Yes and no. When it comes to economic viability and moving condo units, probably not—its proximity to Midtown means that continued population growth and ongoing redevelopment are inevitable.

But in a larger sense, yes, it really does matter. A safe neighborhood with abundant housing and an easy commute that is grudgingly accepted because it offers "value" is, if not a total failure, then at least a huge disappointment. It's wasted potential, a missed opportunity and something that, from an urban planning perspective, we should look to avoid.

It's also a particularly timely issue because it bears more than a passing resemblance to Hudson Yards—another neighborhood that is slated to rise, all at once, from nothingness—a kind magical apparition that may well find itself struggling with the same issues as Long Island City. Like Long Island City, its location is not far from where people want to be, but it is also not really close. Its surface will be slick, its square footage expensive, its broad corporate plazas quite possibly hard to love. And it seems unlikely, and unfair, to expect Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s Culture Shed to do all the heavy lifting to make the place happen.

As a recent editorial in the Architect's Newspaper argued, the mega-projects rising around the city lack quality of place; their scales are vast, their public spaces uninviting, their surfaces too sleek. The city cedes control to developers with the resources to build these neighborhoods from scratch, willfully ignoring that while developers know how to physically transform a landscape and make money doing it, they know almost nothing about building a community or a sense of place.

Mega-developments like Hudson Yards, writes William Menking, look at the bottom line, "not what this city has been at its best or might be at its best in the future."

After all is said and done and developed, grafting an organic identity onto such spaces is a long, arduous process. It's the difference between building a neighborhood where people will live versus building a neighborhood where people want to live. The difference between Long Island City and Williamsburg, in other words. It's a conundrum well worth considering because with the city's rapid pace of change, and heavy reliance on a handful of developers to create that change, Long Island City's existential crisis could very well become New York's.

kvelsey@observer.com

The Observer took a walk around the neighborhood to see how folks were faring and discovered that, even though the rain was picking up and the wind beginning to gust, the streets weren't yet totally deserted. Several businesses are still open and operating without any evidence of alarm. A couple of cops were caffeinating at Dunkin Donuts, butchers snatched a smoke outside the local meat shop and the grocery stores were still welcoming last-minute shoppers.

One of the many, many nail salon was even giving a couple of last-minute manicures. Can't attract a hurricane boyfriend with busted nails, ladies!

5 Pointz. (The Flooz)

As the above-ground train rolls past the Court Square stop on the 7 line, a stone’s throw into the heart of Long Island City, passengers are awakened by a defiant cacophony of shapes and colors against a backdrop of the graying and decrepit Queens skyline. There, a red-brick warehouse stands proud, one entirely outfitted in graffiti tags and murals by aerosol artists. Born of a mission to create a legal urban canvas for the criminal art form flaring up in excess throughout the city during the early ’90s, the brainchild of founder Pat DiLillo—then known as “The Phun Phactory”—opened in 1993. In 2002, Jonathan Cohen—an FIT grad who had been tagging since he was 13 and is better known in these parts by his nom de plume Meresone—began curating the work. He soon rechristened the building “5 Pointz,” after the five boroughs of New York City. But it has since branched out and become a cultural mecca of sorts, with pieces by artists from cities such as Paris, Madrid, London and Germany.

On any weekday, while businesses—a clothing factory, storage space for city hotdog vendors and a small non-profit gallery called Local Projects—hum away inside the building, Mr. Cohen can be found in or around the building, monitoring projects and making sure nobody is painting without his permission.

“I’m here every day, I have no life.”

But the 39-year-old Flushing Native may soon be getting his free time back­—at the price of his life’s work. Though plans to tear down 5 Pointz have been rumored since 2010, Jerry Wolcoff, owner and developer of the site, has recently announced tentative plans to erect two large residential towers with ground floor space for retail. According to Mr. Wolcoff, the September 2013 demolition date is awaiting approval by the community board, which would make the end of this era official.

According to Marie Rouge, a Parisian and self-proclaimed graffiti aficionado who handles the limited public relations for the building, the media coverage was the first they had heard of it.

“He’s not calling us and giving us information. We are learning everything from the press,” she told us. “We fully understand that our landlord is a real estate developer, and that he owns the building and that he can do whatever he wants. [But] we feel that what has been built in the past ten years and what 5 Pointz represents, not only in New York City, but worldwide, is not something you can just dismiss.”

“It’s sad that there’s nothing like this in the city,” Mr. Cohen said. “There is nowhere else to do this.”

But despite the disappointment and occasional outrage, the two seem resigned to accepting the impending demise. They haven’t made any plans to picket or circulated any aggressive calls to action. Most of the protest has come from a petition circulated by fans called “SHOW YOUR LOVE TO 5POINTZ,” which generated almost 15,000 signatures, and by a few minor donations on the PayPal section of the 5 Pointz website.

5 Pointz administrators are instead focusing their energy on the building’s tenth anniversary celebration—an ongoing summer festival featuring free events every Saturday. So far, the building has hosted performances by DJ Marly Marl, ’80s break dancing crew The Dynamic Rockers and various other New York City hip-hop icons. These are the things that drew Mr. Cohen to 5 Pointz and the graffiti world in the first place. “I liked this world when I was young because it was just about having fun,” he said of his goal to re-imagine the glory days of Hip Hop on this corner of Long Island City.

At the event honoring The Dynamic Rockers, Mr. Cohen succeeded in bringing that world to life as the building was rife with nostalgia. One who followed the thump of the bass to the loading dock area travelled back to a pre-Giuliani New York City, straight out of a rap video from the ’80s—flattened-out cardboard boxes made a makeshift dancefloor and the nearby fire hydrant had been broken open, all set against the graffiti backdrop of 5 Pointz. Break-dancers leapt forth into circles, a DJ spun older rap with splashes of James Brown and a few artists worked on new murals for the ever-changing face of the building. Like Mr. Cohen and Ms. Rouge, the attendees seemed nonplussed by the imminent danger to their home. True to a community long under siege, they carried on, business as usual.

Luis Lamboy Jr., or Zimad, once designed backdrops for MTV and clothing for singers like The Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff. He now calls 5 Pointz home. “This place is about the art form itself, the goodness of the art form without the police,” Mr. Lamboy said. “It’s about the positive.”

One of the honorees, a Dynamic Rocker who goes by the name Glyde, refuses to believe 5 Pointz is going away. “I’m not going to promote that,” he said. “I’m a positive thinker. I’m going to keep with that they’re not going to tear it down—until they do.”

For a demographic that vehemently fought gentrification in the past, they appeared suspiciously quiet. Perhaps New Yorkers have just grown used to city landmarks, and childhood memories, being rezoned.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Mr. Cohen was circling the block as usual. Within earshot of the party, he was working, as he had for nearly a decade. He stopped often to make sure everything was going to plan—and that nobody strayed from their designated spot or painted illegally.

He can barely make it halfway down the block without stopping.

“Is this the next generation?” Mr. Cohen asked an old friend carrying his baby, before turning to us. “Kids that were 15 when they started coming here now with their kids, I see that a lot.” He then asked us to wait while he stopped an unauthorized photo shoot.

Truth be told, it doesn’t seem that Mr. Cohen is really fighting the demolition at all, though it might just be because he doesn’t have a second to spare. Or perhaps he is just used to change. After all, 5 Pointz looks different every month.

“I believe ultimately there’s only so much to do. You can only work so hard to do something,” he told us. “In the end what’s meant to be will be.”

editorial@observer.com

Will Long Island City replace Williamsburg as the next hot neighborhood for gentrifying parents? {The New York Times}

Mainland China, so terribly old, busting at the seams with new glass buildings and office parks.  {The Wall Street Journal}

The ever-polarizing Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation head Andrew Berman gets profiled. {Crain's New York}

Rothman's grand opening party at 222 Park Avenue South bumped until next month thanks to Obama. {The Real Deal}

The Daily News manufactures a little controversy surrounding Malkin's long-standing policy of secularism at ESB. {NYDN}

Times Square Lite? (JetBlue)

It was a big deal when JetBlue decided to move to Long Island City two years ago. The air carrier founded here would not be splitting town, and it would even be boosting a nascent business district that has never done much beyond the Citi back offices despite the one-stop subway ride to Midtown. But it turns out there might also be implications for the skyline.

No, JetBlue is not building a big new tower, it is still moving into an eight-story loft building beside the Queensborough Bridge. But there are plans for a big blue sign on the roof, a 40-footer. That is bigger than the GE sign atop Rockefeller Center, and that is kind of the point. "When complete, it will be easily seen from the east side of Manhattan across the river," the airline writes on its corporate blog, BlueTales.

This has some locals worried, and even though they like the sign, the community board representing the area voted the signs down for fear it would create a cascade of neon. “We don’t want the honky-tonk look,” Board 2 chair Joseph Conley told the Post.

Lights, camera, Queens Plaza! (ArchPaper)

It is not just bright signs and corporate tenants that are revamping Queens Plaza, either. A generous pedestrian plaza is also being finished around the bridge, not unlike the Broadway Boulevard that transformed Times Square. With that project wrapping up in the spring, the architects behind it now want to wrap the viaduct over Queens plaza in dynamic lights, according to The Architect's Newspaper.

Elevated about 15 feet from the ground, these bottomless, illuminated prisms will give visual identity to Queens Plaza. Similarly, the light lines will also provide illumination under the elevated subway. Potentially powered via solar energy, these LED light fixtures will be attached to beams at the lower level and will become “a well-lit canopy for pedestrians and drivers.” MPA co-founder Linda Pollak added that “the light lines are a way-finding device for the highly chaotic crossing of Jackson Avenue.”

They also hope to include a programmable multimedia screen, which could show movies. Or, in true Times Square spirit, ads.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Thomas Elghanayan.

The Commercial Observer: TF Cornerstone is developing what it calls the EastCoast, three luxury rental buildings along Center Boulevard near the waterfront. That’s in addition to the View, another rental complex. Why so confident in Long Island City?
Mr. Elghanayan: We’ve been working on this for quite some time. We have a bunch of buildings there. They’ve all rented well, and as we build more buildings, that location becomes a better-known destination. When people look at the rental possibilities, now they consider Long Island City one of those possibilities. That, actually, is why we’re rushing on all these buildings—because we believe in the sort of critical mass of building the neighborhood and attracting tenants. It’s four minutes on the 7 train to Grand Central.

Besides the TF Cornerstone development projects under way, Rockrose is also building in the area. What else is happening in Long Island City besides what the three Elghanayan brothers are pursuing?
Quite a few buildings. There’s 35 other residential construction projects as you go east from our waterfront, which is sort of the prime area in Long Island City, where the high-rise buildings are quite large. We’re also putting in a park that’s almost finished now, and there’s a school that started construction—K-8—that’s adjacent to one of our buildings. And there’s also a library going in now too. And we have planned a lot of retail in our buildings as, really, a convenience for the neighborhood. We’re putting in a coffee shop called Sweet Leaf. The New York Times said it had the best espresso in the United States. But we consider this a great amenity for the area because we’d be happy to have a Starbucks, of course, but this is better than a Starbucks because it sort of fits into the image of Long Island City—not chain store but more boutique, Williamsburg-like shops.

Do you feel like TF Cornerstone is playing a role in carving out a specific niche for the neighborhood, like the Walentas family has done in Dumbo?
Yes, we’ve been consciously working on it. Just look at the kind of retail we’ve put in there. We put in the coffee shop. We put in Shi, a very good Asian fusion restaurant. And we have a spinning outfit there called rotations. So it’s all community-based services.

How will these projects differ from those being planned by Rockrose Development—the development company you and your brother Frederick separated from in late 2009?
I’d say, concept-wise, they’re all high-end luxury projects. If they were on the Manhattan side, the rent would be 25 percent more—in our case, at least. I don’t know what the rent differential is with Henry’s buildings, which are farther inland. We view being on the waterfront, and being directly on the waterfront next to the park, as the equivalent of sort of Fifth Avenue in New York City. This is really the prime Long Island City—or actually the prime Queens—or actually really, really, the prime outer-borough location.
Considering what’s at stake in Long Island City—dozens of construction projects and the chance for each developer to create the neighborhood in his own image—how often does TF Cornerstone interface with other builders in the area, be it small firms or Rockrose?
I don’t really talk to any of the other developers. I’m glad there are these developments going on. I encourage it because I believe in the neighborhood building aspects of this—the critical mass. So I’m glad Henry is building his buildings, and I’m glad these other buildings are being made, too. But ours is the real luxury property out there.

Expedience is always important, but with so many developers rushing to complete construction in Long Island City, is there pressure to go online before the others?
No, no. That’s not my thinking. What’s happened is that the rental market in New York City now is very strong, and part of the reason for that is that the sales market is very depressed and the job market in New York City—as opposed to the rest of the country—is still pretty strong. And there’s been very little new production of luxury rental housing, so it felt right. We’ve owned the land for a long time. We’ve completed the remediation, so we get no income out of the land, yet it’s just sitting there. So we decided to build the project as quickly as possible and bring our product to market. So we’re phasing it out over time but building quickly.
How has TF Cornerstone—and you and Frederick—fared since the split from Rockrose?
Well, from our point of view it’s sort of energized Fred and I, in our end of the company. We’ve actually been very, very active since the division. We’ve taken over the projects we had under construction because we ended up with about 90 percent of the construction staff—because all those people had always worked for Fred, because Fred always ran the construction company. So we ended up with all the projects we had under construction, and we’ve finished them. We’ve finished 1,418 apartments in four buildings, and we rented them out and financed them.

We’ve also been active on the acquisition side. We’ve bought two office buildings in D.C. and we’ve also either acquired or are now negotiating to acquire land in Manhattan where we can build approximately a million square feet. With that, I can tell you it’s on the West Side, in Chelsea and in Hell’s Kitchen—mixed-use, but no condos.

And we’ve done a tremendous amount of financing, too. We’ve completely refinanced our entire portfolio because the interest rates are so low. We’ve done $1.1 billion in refinancings. We never had any mezz debt and things like that; it’s all first-mortgage stuff, and we’ve done $450 million in construction loans so we’ve been very busy.
How would you characterize your relationship with your brother Henry?
The whole division was upsetting. On a business level I think we did it very cleanly and amicably, but we were partners—and we’re still brothers forever—and it happened at a very difficult time in all of our lives, meaning my father was very, very ill, critically ill, and my mother was also not feeling well. In fact, my mother ended up dying during the middle of the whole thing, so emotionally it was difficult. But the division was very difficult—it was emotionally very difficult.

On a business level, has it been difficult without the benefit of Henry’s expertise?
Fred and I work well together. I don’t know if it’s a function of our personalities or a function of the numbers, but it’s been easier to run a business with two people than with three.

The coin toss, which determined how Rockrose’s portfolio would be divided into thirds, has taken on mythological status, but I understand that neither you nor Fred was present at the law firm when it all happened. Why not?
Fred and I did not attend, and we’re quite upset about having the coin toss when it took place because it was actually the day after our mother died and we were sitting shiva so there was no reason to do it then. It all happened at a lawyer’s office, and I think it was just [Henry’s son] Justin and Henry. We had a lawyer representing us, but we weren’t going to attend. And, actually, a day after the coin toss, my father, who was very ill, died.

Why didn’t you just postpone the coin toss?
Henry insisted. We had a tight time schedule on the division, and so the schedule called for the coin toss to happen on that day—I think it was March 5—but on March 4 my mother died. So we said, ‘Look, we’re sitting shiva. We’ll delay this thing for a week. It’s not a big deal anyway.’ But Henry was insistent on going ahead with it.

Why so insistent?
I’ll tell you, I’m still scratching my head about it. There were a lot of financial things floating around in the division and a lot of decisions to be made, and we made those on a pretty friendly basis. But a thing like this, Fred and I are still scratching our heads.

Did Henry ever sit shiva?
He did, but part of sitting shiva is not doing business.

It sounds like there’s still some tension.
Yeah, well, there’s no business tension because we don’t have any business dealings. It’s just that the manner that it was done, I think, has left some bad feelings.

Do you get together for dinners?
We get together for family events and things like that, and I imagine over time things will improve and everything will go back to normal, because we were a very close family.

jsederstrom@observer.com

Justin Elghanayan. (Photo by Kiki Conway)

The Commercial Observer: What’s the latest with Linc LIC, the 41-story rental tower that Rockrose Development Corporation is building in Long Island City?
Mr. Elghanayan: The first phase is under construction. We started in September, and that’s a 709-unit building that’s now on the 12th floor, and it’s quite amazing how fast it’s going up. I went away for the holiday and I came back and there were, like, three more floors, so it’s really zipping along.

Besides Linc LIC, Rockrose is developing two other parcels at the site. What’s the plan?
The second parcel is a big parcel of land that will have an additional 900 apartments that will go in two phases. And the third parcel of land is right in the middle, and we call it the Triangle. That’s going to go last, and it already has on that lot a garage, which, when I saw it, I just said, “Wow, this has an amazing sense of character and place, a real sense of history and character and a sort of neighborhood identity.”

When you say garage I don’t immediately think character.
It’s not like a parking garage. It’s more like a mechanic’s facility. It has wood-beam ceilings, skylights and high ceilings. And we’re going to put a restaurant there.

Have you found a tenant?
We’re pretty close. It’s going to be very exciting what we do there, and that’s just the existing building. That restaurant’s going to have outdoor space and so you’ll have a sort of beer-garden vibe and atmosphere there, and then we’re going to supplement that with additional activity on that site, which is under development. We’ve already been putting food trucks on the site. We inaugurated the Rockrose Food Truck lot on the Triangle site.
Are there neighborhoods, like Dumbo or Williamsburg, that you’ve been inspired by?
We are creating a neighborhood, but I think the key to me at least is that there’s already this core kernel of spirit in the neighborhood because it has a truly deep artistic and cultural past with PS1 and the SculptureCenter. There’s tons of cultural institutions so it has this sort of gritty, existing artistic vibe, which I think is essential to creating a great neighborhood. So it’s not just like we’re going out into the middle of the desert and saying, you know, ‘We shall proclaim this a cool neighborhood.’ It has this sort of incipient potential, and we just want to draw it out.

In the brief time it was open, M. Wells gained attention in Long Island City and the culinary world. Have you spoken to the M. Wells people about leasing the garage?
We have spoken to them, and I don’t want to speak too much about the leasing of the garage, for now, because it’s not public information yet. But we’ve spoken to several groups, and M. Wells is one of the groups we’ve spoken to.

Rockrose Development has traditionally taken a conservative approach to financing and, in many cases, avoided risky instruments like mezzanine loans. With Linc LIC are you continuing that tradition or have you found new ways to fund the project?
It’s in the same tradition. It’s a $155 million loan, which is consistent on a LTV basis to what we generally do. We’re putting in a massive amount of our own equity with no partners. Our total equity in the deal will be over $100 million so we’re very confident in the neighborhood, as evidenced by our equity contribution. In terms of getting financing, it’s a consortium of three banks: Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Helaba. I’m not the first one to say this, but the well-established family developers are able to get financing right now and a lot of smaller developers are not, and that’s containing the supply. As a result, we’re seeing healthy rent growth in our portfolio.

How has Rockrose fared since 2009, when Henry’s brothers—and your uncles—divided the company and formed TF Cornerstone?
It’s been fantastic. We’ve gotten this project going, which is exciting. And in tough economic times, it’s great to get this kind of project happening.

Unlike other family-owned real estate companies that have splintered, the Rockrose division has been relatively amicable. What do you attribute that to?
It’s not surprising and it makes complete sense. First of all, we had an enormous advantage, which is that Henry, Tom and Fred were very smart about creating a good contract for the partnership. They had a mechanized methodology in place for how to divide the company so there was little room for conflict because everything was laid out, down to the day. It was a fair system so everyone got a fair share.
Leading up to the split, your father and his brothers holed up in a conference room in early 2009 and flipped a coin to determine how best to divide a $3 billion real estate empire comprising 8,000 apartments, nine development sites and nine office buildings in New York and Washington, D.C. Were you in the room during that coin toss?
I was. I remember it. It was a pretty dramatic time, just to have things sort of hinge on a coin toss. But it’s been somewhat overdramatized because the truth is it was really a win-win. It was heads you get this amazing thing, tails you get that amazing thing, because you were going to get something good in any event.

As a result of the split, Thomas and Frederick won a portion of the portfolio, including six office buildings in Washington. Has Rockrose attempted to rebuild what it lost?
We have. What we’ve done is re-established the portfolio in D.C. with a two-building acquisition—one we closed on, 1150 18th Street NW, and one we’re in contract with, 1776 I Street NW. And we’re looking to acquire more, and we have a great team and so we’re poised to do bigger and more exciting things going forward.

Does your family still have roots to Rockrose Place, the street in Forest Hills where your grandfather, Nourallah, settled after emigrating from Iran in the 1950s?
Well, actually, it’s interesting you asked that. My grandparents lived there until they passed away two years ago, and their house was recently sold so I would say the answer is no, no more, because the house was just sold.

As the only offspring working at Rockrose—your cousins are now at TF Cornerstone—is there pressure to keep the company’s legacy alive and successful?
In terms of extending the Rockrose name, I do have big shoes to fill, but my father’s a great leader and a great chief executive, and I learn from him all the time and every day, and I’m actually very proud to be working with him.

Do you call him Dad or Mr. Elghanayan?
I never call him Mr. Elghanayan. I call him dad in a personal context and I often call him Henry—I call him by his first name—in a business context. But we’ve been very careful about separating the two things. When we’re at family functions at home, like if we’re at dinner with my mother and my brothers, then I’ll say, ‘Okay, dad, no business talk. We’re not going to talk about business for the next two hours.’ And I’ll be religious about it. And then later we’ll be having coffee or something and one of us will peek over and start bringing something up and we have to stop ourselves.

jsederstrom@observer.com

Diner off the tracks!

The general manager of M. Wells, perhaps one of the best-reviewed new restaurants of the year, didn’t want to talk about the sexual harassment scandal.
“The only people that know what transpired would be the server’s butt and the hand,” said Deven DeMarco.

The Observer sweated out the 7 train to Long Island City last Sunday to take in the mash-up of greasy-spoon and gourmand—once an abandoned diner left for dead, just spitting distance from the Pulaski Bridge. Regrettably, the journey couldn’t wait until, say, a brisk September weekend: due to skyrocketing rent after the spot’s one-year lease expired, M. Wells, which was just named one of the top 10 restaurants in the country by Bon Appétit, will close after dinner this Tuesday.

The trip was a long time coming. Fashion editors at Greenwich Champagne lunches had gushed to us about the bone-marrow-and-escargot concoctions. Friends got giddy when describing the well-worn vinyl seats and the hot hiss of fat on spatulas. It all sounded very good.

A steamy article in this month’s GQ, however, made things even more interesting. Food critic Alan Richman had come out to review the place and after his third visit, one of the co-owners, Sarah Obraitis, accused him of giving a female server “a hardy pat on the ass.” Mr. Richman was aghast, ran the whole story in the magazine (along with a full denial of said ass-slapping), and M. Wells’ perfect record was smeared and tarnished.

“On the one hand, it’s nice to have a little negativity,” Mr. DeMarco said as he took a sip of his Rogue Ale. The Observer was attacking a peach cobbler with dragon fruit sorbet, which was excellent by all metrics. “There’s a balance … I have a lot of opinions on that article that I don’t want to offer.”

Mr. Richman treated his experience as emblematic of the entire downfall of service in New York restaurants. But judging by our time at M. Wells, he seemed a little off. We walked in for brunch at 4:00 p.m.—it was a late, late night before—to an offer of lemonade accompanied by Bulleit bourbon.

The place is anything but understaffed. Behind the counter, at least seven young men tended the grill and chopping boards, flinging fist-size hunks of meat onto mayo-slathered rolls, or plopping glistening olive oil onto large crocks of soup, or cutting out slices of pineapple upside-down cake, a dessert that even the sour Mr. Richman spoke of in breathless prose. As closing time came so did the cans of Tecate for the waiters.
For all the hype, and the prices, the place does seem a hell of a lot like a normal diner, or at least a low-key night out. Amid the Boyz II Men blaring from speakers a cell phone rang. No sweat. Its owner slid two towering Dagwood sandwiches into the microwave, pressed the zap button and flipped it open.

“Dude, but last night,” said the cook with tattoos crawling down both arms, into the phone.

The microwave whirring turned off, and without missing a beat the cook slid the massive hoagies out to the counter.

“You know what? Lemme call you back.”

The dreaded “hipster diner” appellation could work as well, though. Affixed above the counter, in no particular order, were, to name a few: an ironic “customer of the week” award, an illustration of St. Francis of Assisi, strips of masking tape with incomprehensible messages, a wooden cross and a postcard that proclaimed “Welcome to Twin Peaks!” When the afternoon downpour that comes like clockwork on August afternoons started, “Dancing Queen” was playing on the stereo.

Too cute, too calculated? Mr. DeMarco tried to dismiss that idea.

“At first we were only open in the morning and people would scoff at us and be, like, ‘Oh, well, it’s only for hipsters who can come here when they don’t have a job,’” he said. “And I’m, like, ‘Do you know how many people come here on their lunch breaks from out of town?’”

For M. Wells, moving out of the diner space means losing some of the charm, but perhaps the schtick will fade too, and the food—which, despite any complains regarding service, is probably worth the wait, price and time spent in L.I.C.—will be the only point of conversation.

The last night for M. Wells will be Aug. 30. The owners, who had been out of the restaurant Sunday celebrating Ms. Obraitis’s birthday, are scouting locations nearby and hope to open in two to four months.

In other words, it appears that a scandal and high rents will not be stopping M. Wells.
And Mr. DeMarco has a loose plan for the final night in the diner.

“Rather than mourn, come celebrate. It’s sort of like an Irish Wake—it’s fucking terrific,” he said, polishing off his beer. “From the opening we always joked that we would do shots when the Pulaski Bridge went up. I can guarantee you we’ll be watching intently for it to go up that night.”

Then, we looked out toward the bridge to find the rain had stopped, and when we looked down at our plate, not a speck of the cobbler remained.

nfreeman@observer.com

Crank Cycling Studio will occupy 800 square feet for 10 years at "The View" at 4630 Center Boulevard, which is distinguished from every other new building in the neighborhood only by its waterfront location. The studio will be open seven days a week, and is scheduled to launch this spring featuring 26 state-of-the-art Schwinn torture racks (a.k.a. spin cycles). At least the instructors are said to be "inspiring."

Long Island City has been transformed from gritty warehouse district to a burgeoning hall of mirrors, but where can the 20-somethings work off their organic lattes? "We are committed to serving the community and are now bringing Long Island City their very first indoor cycling studio," said Steve Gonzalez of TF Cornerstone, which is in charge of leasing for the building, adding, "This new amenity will complement the active and healthy lifestyle the residents of Long Island City embrace."

Winick Realty's Steven Baker and Josh Singer repped the landlord. Modern Spaces' Ted Kokkoris represented the tenant. Retail asking rents in the area around $35 a square foot annually.

lkusisto@observer.com