“Source”: HoJo Gone By New Year

The Post reports that the the Times Square site on which the Howard Johnson’s restaurant sits has been sold and the restaurant will likely be gone by the new year:

Times Square’s Howard Johnson’s, a neon-lit, fast-food landmark in the Crossroads of the World for 50 years, will soon be razed to make way for a glamorous new retail development, The Post has learned.

No closing date has been set, but the favorite eatery of Times Square sentimentalists “will not likely see another New Year’s Eve ball-drop,” a source said yesterday.

The four-story building with the winking blue and orange lights at Broadway and 46th Street “will soon come down,” confirmed Cushman & Wakefield real-estate broker C. Bradley Mendelson, who represents the new owner, Jeff Sutton’s Wharton Acquisitions.

Longtime owner Kenneth Rubinstein and his family just sold the HoJo’s site at 1551 Broadway, next-door 1555 Broadway, and a building on West 34th Street to Sutton for “more than $100 million,” Mendelson said.

And by “glamorous new retail development” they mean a box-like Toys-“R”-Us-type store. Glamorous, indeed:

Don’t expect another low-cost eatery: Sutton is the owner of such “trophy” retail venues as the Fifth Avenue sites of Hugo Boss, American Girl Place, and the new Abercrombie & Fitch.

Sources said he plans to level both Broadway buildings and construct a gleaming new “retail box,” similar to the nearby Toys “R” Us, that will “offer a world-class branding opportunity for international or Fortune 500 companies.”

Personally, I’m holding out for the return of the WWF restaurant, or better digs for the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company.

The Post, unable to veil its extreme partisan bent, notes that what really is at stake here is a storied tradition of cheap drinks and fried clams:

Its blue-and-brown booths, old-fashioned counter and bar serving $3.75 cocktails — “except premium brands” — seems an anachronism amidst the “new” Times Square’s concentration of media and financial skyscrapers, hip hotels and bright electronic displays.

The grungy but cozy spot for fried clams and open-faced tuna sandwiches is flanked by more recent landmarks, such as the giant Bank of America supersign, the W Hotel and Toys “R” Us with its indoor Ferris wheel.