East Village’s Jefferson touts “Olde New York” past

The Jefferson condominiums, located at the long vacant 211 East 13th Street between Second and Third avenues, has started preliminary marketing efforts that bank on the site’s history as a vaudeville theatre, according to a teaser website spotted by EV Grieve. The 82-unit ground-up construction — a rarity in the neighborhood — is slated to open an off-site sales office this spring.

The plot was once home to the Jefferson Theatre, which made its debut in 1913. It first operated as a vaudeville theater, then closed in 1977 while operating as an adult film theater. The old structure was razed in 2000.

Promotional materials skip over the seedier aspects of the site’s history, boasting that would-be buyers “can live on a site once inhabited by W.C. Fields, Mae West, the Marx Brothers, Burns & Allen, Milton Berle and Jack Benny!”

The Marketing Directors is handling sales at the development, billed as “21st century living in the heart of Olde New York,” and Ironstate Development and Charles Blaichman are the developers.

The building will have a mix of studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom units, as well as a gym, lounge and roof deck. [EV Grieve] —Zachary Kussin