The outdoor apparel and equipment company, Recreational Equipment, Inc. — better known as REI — is busy renovating a 39,000 square foot grand triplex space at the historic Puck building at 295 Lafayette Street.
A large portion of the red brick building on the south side of Houston between Mulberry and Lafayette streets is being stripped down to its roots, boards and leftover machinery.
Built in 1885 and then added to in 1892, the Romanesque revival building was the home and printing plant for now-defunct Puck humor magazine, and its two iconic gold mischievous cherubs still adorn the building. The Puck building has a round-arched arcade and complex brickwork, which was restored in 1984.
REI will have completely newly built entrances on Mulberry Street and Lafayette Street. The sidewalk is being enlarged for a new subway entrance where Houston Street shifted a bit north.
On a tour last week of REI’s still under construction location, this reporter recalled attending events in the once whitewashed space. But all the white is coming off the columns, ceilings and walls to show off brick walls, brick barreled and ancient southern pine ceilings, cast iron columns adorned with detail and other historic nooks and crannies.
When it opens in October, the first floor will be filled with bicycles and camping equipment for New Yorkers who like to escape the city — or simply enjoy setting up their tents on their tar roofs. A grand stairway, still being punched through the floors, will take shoppers to the cellar area — the cellar wear floor perhaps? — for men’s and women’s apparel and bathrooms.
A large elevator, big enough to hold bicycles and plenty of folks with strollers in tow, is also being installed.
Both the staircase and elevator will reach to the lowest pit level, where REI will locate its storage and bike repair facility, a necessity for a city littered with potholes and pitfalls.
The middle cellar floor, however, is the most interesting. When the architects from Seattle-based Callison got onsite, they recognized they had to work around two historic steam flywheels that the building had been built around.
Currently in a recessed corner about four feet below grade, Schimenti Construction’s workers will build up the floor so about half the circumference of the approximately 10-foot tall wheels will remain visible. Decorative staircases will be reinstalled and used for displays of clothing and shoes.
There’s a lot of work to be done before the store opens in October but it will be well worth a visit when it does. — Lois Weiss
