Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky

Developers are a step closer to building condominiums on the historic former site of Streit’s Mazo factory in Manhattan.

Manhattan-based Cogswell Realty filed tentative plans with the New York attorney general’s office to build 45 residential condo units, a commercial condo and 26 storage units on the property, The Real Deal reported.

According to the attorney general, Cogswell filed a “CPS-1” application on December 3, which allows developers to “test the market” before officially filing a condo offering plan, the real estate publication reported.

Streit’s Matzo, a 90-year-old matzah-making facility at 148-154 Rivington Street in New York’s Lower East Side, closed up shop in May after the busy Passover baking season. The factory was the last producer of the unleavened Jewish bread in Manhattan.

“The economics just finally caught up with us,” Alan Adler, the owner of the factory and the Streit’s Matzo store, told JTA in January. “It was very sad, a very hard decision to make.”

Manhattan-based Cogswell Realty paid $30.5 million for the Lower East Side property. With Manhattan property prices shattering records — in July, the average cost of a Manhattan apartment approached $2 million — rumors of a pending condo development of the property immediately began to swirl.

Despite the wide-reaching gentrification and reinvention the Lower East Side, stalwarts of the neighborhood’s rich Jewish history remain, including Economy Candy and Russ and Daughters.

Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief

You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.

And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.

That’s where you come in. Gifts of any size keep the Forward free and accessible to everyone and ensure we have the resources we need to power the Forward at this critical time for American Jews.

Don't just read the Forward - invest in it. Will you support our work today?

— Alyssa Katz, editor-in-chief

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$120 $180 $360 OTHER AMOUNT