By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
EAST VILLAGE — The city has told a Bowery bar to stop extending a wall around its outdoor seating area meant to muffle the noise of late-night revelers.
B Bar and Grill, at the corner of the Bowery and East 4th Street, began heightening a wall surrounding its outdoor dining space this summer to prevent the din of patrons from bothering others in the area.
Five rows of cinderblocks were added above the existing wall, nearly doubling its height from about 6 to 10 feet, city records show.
But last month, the Department of Buildings served up a stop-work order on the property, telling the owners to halt work immediately even though the addition was mostly finished.
“They were trying to alleviate the sound situation,” said B Bar manager Melissa Beck, an employee for the past four years, explaining why the restaurant wanted to further fortify the space. “The wall’s been great.”
She added that the owners previously removed speakers from the garden space to keep the volume down, and that the wall extension acts as a way to contain the noise with so many new families moving into the neighborhood.
“After 11 p.m., it turns more club-ish,” she noted of the garden.
According to Department of Buildings records, the stop-work order remains in place due to the construction being done without a permit.
The DOB did not immediately respond request for comment about the whether the addition will have to come down.
Curbed speculated that B Bar’s move was intended to keep future residents of the massive new apartment building 2 Cooper across the street from peering down into the secluded garden, but Beck dismissed that idea.
“What are they going to look at?” she said. “People eating dinner, or the random drunk girl that’s puking her guts out? It’s not like we have a strip-tease section.”
