Building that Once Housed Alleva Dairy to be Demolished After Wall Collapse

An emergency demolition has been ordered for the Little Italy building that once housed the beloved neighborhood institution Alleva Dairy following a Jan. 10 partial wall and chimney collapse.

The owner has been ordered to “start preparations for an emergency demolition of the entire building,” the DOB told Our Town Downton.

Police responded to reports of bricks crashing to the sidewalk shortly before 3 p.m. on Jan. 10. All the workers on the first two floor were able to safely evacuate.

Building inspectors swarmed to the scene a short time later and discovered unpermitted construction work had been underway resulting in serious structural damage. The building was deemed so unsafe that workers were not permitted to go back inside the four-story building to shore it up, since the DOB determined it posed an “imminent hazard.”

DOB engineers rushed to the scene about a half hour after the collapse and began conducting detailed structural assessments of the damaged building. The DOB said the chimney collapse as well as illegal unpermitted construction work found inside the building have “significantly destabilized the structure,” the DOB said.

“The damaged building is now posing an imminent hazard to the public, and in order to prevent an uncontrolled collapse we have ordered the property owners to start preparations for an emergency demolition of the entire building.”

The work was “performed by contractors without approved engineering plans, without DOB approval, and without DOB work permits,” the DOB said.

The illegal work included a major gut renovation including of the interior of the first floor where Alleva Cheese once hung its homemade mozarella and meats. The owner had been installing new steel I-beams, steel joists, and a steel staircase.

DOB engineers determined that the unpermitted construction work undermined multiple structural steel columns in the cellar of the building, as well as removed existing bracing necessary for stability.

They also determined that lowering of exterior foundations took place without engineering plans, further compromising the stability of the building.

For 130 years, the building had housed Alleva Dairy, which was billed as the oldest cheese shop in the United States and was a beloved neighborhood institution that was visited by tourists and celebrities that included Tony Danza, Leah Remnick and Joey Reynolds.

During COVID-19, when business evaporated, the store’s owner Karen King and her husband, who had taken it over several years earlier in order to save the shop that first opened in 1892 were unable to pay the $23,756/month rent. The rent was in arrears to the tune of $630,000, according to a lawsuit filed by the owner, listed as Jerome G. Stabile Realty.

King and the landlord reached a settlement last March and she pulled up stakes. The plan was to open a new outlet in Lyndhurst, N.J. where the shop could continue to sell its ricotta, housemade mozzarella, and a wide selection of meats and cheeses, fresh sandwiches, and specialties like beef braciole but the new outlet has not opened as of yet.

But King said she was shocked to hear what had happened. “Like most people, I was shocked to learn about the collapse of the second floor at 188 Grand St, the former home of my beloved Alleva...Typically on any given day there would have been dozens of people in the story buying fresh mozzarella and cannolis. Thank God no one was hurt, and everyone is safe.”

When informed by Our Town Downtown, that the building now must come down, a spokeswoman for King said, “She did not know. Her heart just fell a couple of beats.”

As for the current site at 188 Grand Street, the DOB said the property owners and their contractors are performing some temporary emergency stabilization work on the exterior of the building shore it prior to its demolition.

The DOB warned “if the property owners fail to move forward with the demolition, then we will work with our agency partners to bring in city contractors to perform the demolition on behalf of the owner, at their expense.”