New York For Sale: Developer AvalonBay has long made known…

Developer AvalonBay has long made known its plans to turn Extra Place, the closed-off alley that runs behind CBGB, into a promenade of shops and outdoor cafés reminiscent of "the Left Bank." Now, an update: the developer may buy the de-mapped street from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Holy: "If Avalon owns the street, the sidewalk cafes fall out of much city regulatory oversight, for which private benefit Avalon is willing to take on the burden of cleaning and maintaining the space. HPD doesn't want responsibility for this alley -- they handle housing, but Extra Place is really a street, regardless what the map says. So -- again, always for the public good -- the city wants to sell it to the trusted developer of New York's worst." [Save the Lower East Side; previously]