MAKING WAY FOR DEMOLITION: Gotta Go To ...Some Other Mo's

Midtown fixture Modell's on 42nd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue is getting close to selling its last jersey. The 25-year old fixture's lease is up in February, and it has to vacate its home at 51 East 42nd Street before the rather elegant building gets demolished to make way for the still controversial 65-story, block-long 1 Vanderbilt skyscraper that continues to irk much of the neighborhood because of its immense size. The outsized building's main selling point to zoning boards and the public is that it comes with tens of millions of dollars worth of transit improvements for the Grand Central area —the same improvements that are forcing Posman Books out of its home on Grand Central Terminal's concourse. Modell's will shut for good on December 31st, and though there are nine other branches of the sports retailer in Manhattan, the company is still looking for replacement space near the Terminal where it has had a presence for over 50 years. 

Modell's loses longtime home by Grand Central (Crain's)