Public Hearing Set To Discuss New La Marina Ownership

INWOOD, NY — Inwood hotspot La Marina has a new ownership group and has been cleared to reopen for the end of the Summer following a shutdown by the State Liquor Authority and lengthy bankruptcy proceeding.

Local Community Board 12, a longtime opponent of La Marina's former owners the Manhattan River Group, will hold a public hearing to welcome the Dyckman Street business' new owner and give residents an opportunity to ask questions about the future of the site. The hearing, which is being cosponsored by nearly every local elected official in Upper Manhattan, is scheduled for Sept. 12 at IS 52 on Academy Street near Broadway.

According to a notice for the event, the community board already has a number of questions prepared for the city and La Marina's new owners. The board wants to ensure that the city will do a better job of holding new ownership to account, that La Marina's former owners have no involvement in the new business and that debtors get their deposits back for events that were canceled while La Marina was shuttered.

A state bankruptcy court approved an agreement earlier in August to transfer the La Marina restaurant to Jimmy Goldman, founder of the Brother Jimmy's restaurant chain, through an operating company called 348 Hudson River Partners LLC.

The marina is city-owned concession, which means that private business owners pay to operate on the public parkland located where Inwood Hill Park meets Fort Tryon Park along the Hudson River. Goldman agreed to a number of rules put in place by the Parks Department to address complaints that some Inwood residents had about La Marina.

Some of these rules include:

• The separation of the restaurant from the marina, which will be operated as a separate concession going forward. The concessions will continue to share a Dyckman Street entrance;
• The restaurant will not use amplified sound outdoors after 10 p.m.;
• The restaurant's season will run from May 15 to Sept. 30 with closing hours of 11 p.m. on weekdays and Sundays and 12:30 a.m. on weekends;
• The restaurant will not allow outside promoters to hold events at the venue;
• No valet parking will be offered on the marina premises.

Goldman is expected to attend the Sept. 12 public hearing, according to Community Board 12.

Read more about the agreement and La Marina's troubled past here.