The owners of a popular local bagel shop are in contract to acquire the site of a historic Orthodox Jewish synagogue in the Garment District, records show.
Victor Mejia and Alex Vithoulkas, who founded Liberty Bagels, have put down a 10% deposit through the entity New Liberty Realty LLC to purchase the 2-story, Art Deco house of worship at 1025 Sixth Ave., according to a petition filed Friday in Manhattan Supreme Court. Millinery Center Synagogue, as a nonprofit religious corporation, must get court approval to sell its real estate. The sale price is listed as $3.1 million.
“With heavy hearts, the synagogue’s constituents had determined that selling the building and dissolving the synagogue’s corporate existence were inevitable eventualities. Accordingly, a committee was formed with the purpose of finding a suitable buyer,” the temple’s attorney, Jonathan Weiser, wrote in court documents. Weiser did not return a request for comment by press time.
Mejia and Vithoulkas, along with business partners Vincent Camaj and Nicholas Vithoulkas, are named in the contract, dated Feb. 6, 2024, records show. It’s unclear if the name of the entity through which they are purchasing the property is any indication of their intention to open a new bagel shop on the site of the synagogue, which was founded in 1934 by the neighborhood’s then-thriving population of hat makers. It was apparently not intended for regular services but rather as a place to say prayers for the dead, although it later evolved into a more traditional synagogue, Crain’s previously reported as part of a larger look at the block itself.
Members of the synagogue tried to find a buyer with shared values or a Jewish organization to take over the space and entered into a previous contract of sale, but the offer was subsequently rescinded, court records show. The sale to New Liberty Realty LLC was ultimately approved by the synagogue’s board of trustees by a vote of 11 to 1 on Feb. 13, 2024, records show. Crain’s contacted the synagogue, but a person who picked up the phone Friday could not answer a question about why there is a gap in the contract filing and the petition filing.
The site, between West 38th and West 39th streets, is zoned for commercial uses, typically accommodating such properties as department stores and large office and mixed-use buildings. It’s unclear what the new owners, if approved, intend to do with the property, however. Attempts to reach Mejia and Vithoulkas, who have been rolling fresh bagels in the city for more than 32 years at locations in Lower Manhattan and Midtown, on Fifth Avenue and in Jackson Heights, Queens, were unsuccessful by press time.
