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Read the press release here.

Graffiti-Covered Former Bank on Bowery Sold to Developer, Report Says

By Lisha Arino | September 17, 2014 3:34pm
 Businesses will soon be able to lease space in a former bank building built in 1898 on the corner of Bowery and Spring Street.
Businesses will soon be able to lease space in a former bank building built in 1898 on the corner of Bowery and Spring Street.
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DNAinfo/Lisha Arino

LOWER EAST SIDE — A graffiti-covered building that has stood at Spring Street and the Bowery for more than a century has been sold to a developer and could become condos, according to a report.

RFR Holding LLC has acquired the Beaux Arts-style building from photographer Jay Maisel, who bought it for $102,000 in 1966 and has repeatedly refused to sell it until recently, The New York Times reported.

“The building is in terrible shape. There’s no heat, Jay lives in just a small area of the building, another winter is coming, and it was time,” RFR co-founder and principal Aby Rosen told the Times.

The sale has not yet closed and the building's price was not immediately available.

Maisel and RFR representatives did not immediately return requests for comment.

RFR has already listed the building online, offering all or part of the 38,000-square-foot structure for lease to retail tenants, according to the company’s website.

Rosen told the Times it took six months to convince Maisel to sell the building, which was constructed as a bank in 1898.

“When you own a property for that long, and you are not a real estate professional, it takes a lot of convincing,” he said.

The six-story limestone building also has a basement and roof terrace, with floors measuring about 6,260 square feet each, according to RFR’s website  The ground and second floors have 18-foot ceilings that would be ideal for retail use, the site said.

The building was landmarked in 2005, according to the city.

Rosen told the Times that the space could be converted to accommodate retail at the base with condominiums above, or to house offices or an art gallery.