By Nicole Breskin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
NOLITA — Celebrity hot spot La Esquina has been shuttered by the city following a report that the building conditions are “imminently perilous to life.”
La Esquina, an A-list eatery frequented by Kate Hudson, George Clooney and Julia Roberts, was issued an emergency vacate order by the Department of Buildings on May 7 because the underground, cellar-level restaurant had "combustible ceilings and inadequate egress."
A large part of the restaurant's allure is the underground, "secret" passageway patrons use to get to the restaurant, but that very feature is what the DOB deemed unsafe.
Signage posted by the DOB on La Esquina's locked doors warned that the the restaurant posed an "imminent danger to life or public safety or safety of the occupants."
Store managers could not be reached for comment, but a bartender at Café Select, which sits across the street and shares the same owner as the restaurant — club guru Serge Becker — said the problem could have stemmed from neighborhood complaint.
Neighbors have been burned by bad behavior by local hot spots in the past, and already have reservations about Michael White's new restaurant at the former site of The Falls bar, where Imette St. Guillen was abducted and brutally murdered four years ago.
“There’s been complaints from neighbors who don’t like the noise or the smell coming from La Esquina,” he said. “I think they’ve lived here awhile and they’re just upset about the new crowd.”
According to DOB documents, the investigation into the restaurant stemmed from a complaint that La Esquina's exhaust system is letting out smoke into a residential window.
While some locals bemoaned La Esquina’s closure, neighbor Georgette Fleischer, who is the founder of Friends of Petrosino Square, located just across the road, welcomed it.
“Residents are having difficult time,” she said. “We get woken up by partiers coming into Petrosino Park. It’s really disruptive.”
Signage on La Esquina says the store will be reopening within the next few days.
