A pair of Chinatown buildings occupied by two restaurants and a speakeasy are scheduled to be auctioned off Wednesday, according to a notice that appeared in court records this week.
New York-based Global Bank foreclosed on the mixed-use properties at 43 and 45 Mott St. after their owner, a limited liability company named after the address, defaulted on a $10.2 million loan in 2022, documents show. In October the New York state Supreme Court issued a judgment of $13 million plus interest on the two adjacent properties, between Bayard and Pell streets, which will be sold to the highest bidder.
The 6-story building at 43 Mott St. is occupied by Cha Kee, a Japanese-accented Cantonese restaurant, with 16 rental units above it. Next door, the 5-story building at 45 Mott St. is occupied by chef Danny Bowien’s Mission Chinese Food, which started out in San Francisco, as well as the carnival-themed subterranean bar Basement, and an additional 11 rental apartments on the upper floors. None of the units in the residential portion of either property are available; a studio at No. 43 rented in July for $2,050, and a two-bedroom at No. 45 rented the same month for $3,500, according to information from StreetEasy.
Neither of the restaurants nor the speakeasy returned requests for comment by press time. It’s unlikely, however, that they will be affected by the auction except that they will get a new landlord.
The foreclosure action also names individual defendants Kevin Ye and Ping Cheung, who signed for the original loan in 2020, records show, after the two neighboring Mott Street properties were purchased from Dean Galasso for $8.2 million in 2016, according to a deed from that time. Galasso was indicted a year later by now-disgraced former Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on charges of mortgage fraud stemming from an investigation into alleged tenant harassment at one of his buildings on the Lower East Side, multiple news outlets reported in 2017. It’s unclear, however, what came of those charges. Galasso, who apparently faced up to 25 years in prison, has remained out of the headlines since then and does not appear in any state court records. In 2018, just months after Galasso’s indictment, Schneiderman resigned following multiple assault claims against him. Attorney General Letitia James, Schneiderman’s ultimate successor, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Attempts to reach both Ye and Cheung were unsuccessful by press time, and Gary Trop, an attorney at the Queens-based firm Trop Law Group, which is representing the plaintiff, did not respond to a request for comment.
