By Julie Shapiro

The long-shuttered Loew’s Canal Theater in Chinatown could get a new life as a performing arts center.

The proposal to fix up and reopen the 83-year-old theater is far from a done deal, but the space’s owner agreed last week to do a feasibility study.

“It would be the first theater opening in Chinatown in over a generation, probably several generations,” City Councilmember Alan Gerson said. “It’ll bolster the arts and culture of Chinatown and it will also bolster the economy.”

Gerson began fighting for a performing arts center for Chinatown after 9/11. Amid many disagreements over the future of the neighborhood and how revitalization money should be spent, a cultural center was one of the few ideas that garnered no opposition, recalled Amy Chin, president of the nonprofit leading the project’s planning.

“There’s no central gathering space, no place indoors for large-scale community events,” Chin said. “Virtually all cultural groups [in Chinatown] are operating out of spaces that are just decrepit.”

Progress on the performing arts center has been slow over the past eight years, in large part because it is difficult to find a large, available space in Chinatown. With the nonprofit CREATE in Chinatown (Committee to Revitalize and Enrich the Arts and Tomorrow’s Economy), Chin has looked into dozens of possibilities.

But no space is quite like the Loew’s Canal, at 31 Canal St. near Ludlow St. Designed by renowned theater architect Thomas Lamb, the 2,339-seat theater opened in 1926. Many of the original, ornate, terra-cotta details remain, although the seats were cleared out long ago when the theater was turned into a warehouse.

For about the last 25 years, the theater has been owned by Thomas Sung, founder of the Abacus Federal Savings Bank in Chinatown. CREATE started talking to Sung about the space three years ago and even sent Rogers Marvel Architects in to examine it.

But Sung initially had other ideas, hoping to rent the theater to a commercial tenant and build condos above. He filed plans to that effect with the city Department of Buildings during the summer, though they have not yet been approved, possibly because the city is looking to landmark the building.

But then, this week, Sung and CREATE released a joint statement saying they are committed to rebuilding the theater. In an interview Tuesday, Sung said a theater would be good for the community, especially because it would offer a central place to experience Chinese culture.

Sung said he is willing to give up the rent he could make from the ground-floor theater space, but only if he is able to use the building’s air rights to build 12 or 13 stories of condos on top. It is unclear how feasible it would be to build the condos, because they would have to be supported by the theater below, which is an open space with no columns. Sung is consulting with an engineer.

“We are very much dedicated to seeing this happen,” Sung said, “but there are always financial constraints and physical constraints.” On the chances of the theater being built, he said, “I hate to speculate.”

CREATE has received $150,000 for the performance center from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and is slated to get an additional $140,000 for the next phase of planning.

In case the Loew’s Canal space does not come through, Chin is still looking at other possibilities. One is 70 Mulberry St., a city-owned building that houses the Chinatown Manpower Project, the Chen Dance Center and, formerly, the Museum of Chinese in America. Even if the building could not house a 500-seat theater, renovations and the addition of an elevator could still make it a place for the Chinatown community to gather, Chin said.

But Chin said no other space comes close to the grandeur and historical significance of the Loew’s Canal Theater. It was once one of many theaters on the east side of Lower Manhattan, before Broadway and 42nd St. became the city’s theater district. Most of those old theaters have since been demolished, to make way for Confucius Plaza and other buildings, Chin said.

“This is a cultural treasure in our community,” Chin said. “There’s a long history there. It would just be astounding if it was restored.”

James Rossant, Architect

By Albert Amateau

James S. Rossant, the architect and planner who co-designed the 1962 Butterfield House in the Village and was involved in the 1966 master plan that led to the development of Battery Park City, died Tues., Dec. 15, of leukemia in his home in Normandy, France, at the age of 81.

Rossant was a principal designer, with William J. Conklin, of Butterfield House, 37 W. 12th St. The glass building, which rises seven stories on W. 12th St. and 13 stories on W. 13th St. around a central courtyard, has been hailed as a model of modern architecture integrated in a historic townhouse block.

In its 1969 report on the Greenwich Village Historic District, the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission praised Butterfield House’s “delicacy of form and elegance of detail inherent in the design that make it as one with its residential neighbors.”

In 1979, Paul Goldberger in The New York Times said Butterfield House was one of the 10 best postwar apartment buildings in the city.

With Conklin, his partner on Butterfield, Rossant developed plans for Reston, Va., a city of 75,000 about 20 miles west of Washington, D.C.

After working on Butterfield House and Reston, Rossant became involved in developing a master plan for Lower Manhattan. The design team, led by Wallace K. Harrison of Harrison and Abramovitz, completed a master plan in 1966 for a mixed-use and planned residential community to be built on landfill. The concept eventually became Battery Park City.

James Stephen Rossant was born Aug. 17, 1928, in Manhattan, grew up in the Bronx and attended Bronx High School of Science. He earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture in 1950 from the University of Florida. In 1953 he earned a master’s degree in city and regional planning from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, where he was a student of Walter Gropius, the leading Bauhaus architect of modern architecture. Rossant taught architecture at Pratt Institute from 1970 to 2005, and urban design at New York University’s School of Public Administration from 1975 to 1983.

He was recognized as a consummate draftsman and frequently exhibited his architectural drawings and paintings. His shows included paintings of fantasy cities free of gravity with buildings radiating everywhere, many of which were collected in “Cities in the Sky,” which was published earlier this year.

His wife, Colette Palacci Rossant; a son, Tomas, an architect with the Village firm Polshek Partnership; three daughters — Cecile, of Berlin; Juliette, of Reston; and Marianne, of Queens — and eight grandchildren survive.

By Helaina N. Hovitz

It was a beautiful moment earlier this month on Clinton St., when Johanny Lugo and Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez hosted the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Johanny’s Beauty School.

Lugo came to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic 20 years ago, and originally opened her beauty salon on Avenue C. High rent forced her to move a bit further south after 10 years in business.

On Saturday morning Dec. 12, Lugo’s customers, community members and other people who helped her build her business, about 30 in all, gathered outside the salon, at 23 Clinton St., along with the salon owner and the congresswoman for the ribbon-cutting. The daylong event included tours of the new beauty school, demonstrations, free haircuts and beauty product giveaways.

The beauty school is located at the former site of Lugo’s salon, which will reopen on Jan. 21 at a new location right nearby, 20 Clinton St.

“Nydia Velazquez’s department was highlighting trying to keep local small businesses in the Lower East Side in business,” said Zebi Williams, the economic justice campaign organizer of Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES), who helped organize the ribbon-cutting event. Williams said the congresswoman gave a speech about how small businesses are the backbone of communities, and that small businesses opened by Latina women are the fastest-growing sector.

“I have always said that owning a small business is one of the greatest achievements a person can accomplish, and Johanny is the perfect example of how today’s entrepreneurs are working to rebuild our economy while improving their communities,” said Velazquez.

Lugo participated in GOLES’s Lower East Side small business survey, which was conducted in 2006 and 2007 and released in early 2009.

Lugo’s goal is to create affordable training for people in the neighborhood that will ultimately give them a viable income.

When asked what it was like to have the congresswoman at the ribbon-cutting, Lugo responded, “Oh my God, this is amazing. I feel very proud to have her in my party.” She also noted that the congresswoman will continue to help her. “I am going to register around 50 students, but right now it’s little by little. I have six registered already,” Lugo said.

As the Lower East Side’s first beauty school, Johanny’s will be offering affordable job training opportunities for those interested in pursuing a career in the beauty industry as a cosmetologist, hairstylist or nail technician.

By Albert Amateau

New York University, owner of the Washington Square Village residential complex, and Cushman & Wakefield, managers of the four buildings on the superblock between Bleecker and W. Third Sts., are investigating the heating oil spill from a 6,000-gallon tank on Sun., Dec. 27.

The oil, stored as part of a backup system for heating and hot water, leaked from a residual fuel tank at 4 Washington Square Village at Bleecker St. and LaGuardia Place. The leak’s cause and the exact time it began remained undetermined on Tuesday.

“We are determined to figure out what caused the spill and resolve it,” said John Beckman, N.Y.U. spokesperson.

No one was evacuated from the complex and no one reported any interruption in heat or hot water. But many residents complained about fumes from the spill. Three trucks from Miller Environmental Group spent several hours pumping out the residual fuel tank and left the scene at 4:30 p.m. Sunday.

“The spill has affected the area between No. 4 and No. 3 Washington Square Village,” said Barbara Backer, a resident who said she was concerned about the effect of the spill on the area’s infrastructure, including the water supply. “We don’t really know what has happened to the oil that spilled,” she said.

By Tuesday the area in front of the buildings facing Bleecker St. had been roped off and a large tree had been removed. Signs posted by Cushman & Wakefield said that excavation in the area of the leak would begin soon.