Bouley and Kitchen: Joined at the Hip
AFTER David Bouley closed his restaurant a year ago to plan a mini-empire in TriBeCa with the restaurateur Warner LeRoy, the culinary world waited for a glimpse. Here it is: Bouley International, to open next spring, will consist of two adjacent buildings of different heights, happily joined at the hip.
The larger, a seven-story Romanesque Revival building (once a wholesale grocery) at 36-38 Hudson Street, at Duane Street, will house a first-floor cafe, a second-floor formal (expensive) restaurant and a third floor for private parties. The fourth- and fifth-floor cooking school and library will be connected by a grand stairway to Mr. Bouley's home on the top two floors.
The four-story Greek Revival building next door (once a fish store) will house all the kitchens. But there is a 4-foot-10-inch difference between corresponding floors in the two buildings (shown at far left). How to make the interiors flow seamlessly? Like a souffle, the smaller building will rise.
'We are going to lift the facade of the small building,' said Lee Jablin, who, with his partner, Larry Harman, is the architect. The plan for aligning floors, approved by the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission in January (and shown at near left), calls for a masonry band between the first and second floors of the smaller building. The facade, braced in steel, will be lifted by hand-turned jacks this summer.
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