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Pizza and Pasta, located in the Financial District’s Southbridge Towers, is forced to close

Last week, several wheelchair-bound, elderly residents of Southbridge Towers tried to meet at their usual spot, Pizza and Pasta (77 Fulton Street), only to find that it was gone. Because it was Thanksgiving, everything else was closed — but Pasta and Pizza had always stayed open on holidays for those who had nowhere else to go.

Pasta and Pizza’s owner, Michael Magliulo, opened the shop 34 years ago. He watched neighborhood children grow up, paid for some resident’s funerals, and handed out water on September 11th and during subsequent blackouts.

“They were always so welcoming, so friendly and neighborly, ” said 77 Fulton Street resident Christine Tabone of the pizza shop that she stopped in every week with her daughter, Violetta, 12. “They’d say, ‘Oh, she’s getting so big, ’ to my daughter. They were such a big a part of the community.”

Pizza and Pasta stayed put during the two years that DeLury Square Park construction was underway, a project that obscured sidewalk space, created dangerous street crossings, and caused a severe, unending rat infestation that terrorized residents.

On October 16th, Magliulo received a letter telling him that he had until November 30th to vacate the premises.

The issue was this: the small, adjacent retail space next door, sandwiched between residential building 77 Fulton Street and the Pizza and Pasta space, has been vacant for the better part of a year. Because the storefront is “obscured” by DeLury Square Park, it has been essentially “unrentable, ” on its own, according to John Fratta, a resident of 77 Fulton Street and a member of the Southbridge Towers Board of Directors.

“Anyone who rents that space wants to have visibility from the street, and when they built the park, they took visibility away from the store, ” he said.

A deal has already reportedly been made with the owners of the 55 Fulton Market/Key Food to put a Korean Bakery in both spaces, and local residents are shocked.

According to Fratta, they had no choice but to rent out the space to other tenants. “Mike’s lease was almost up anyway and he opted not to renew his lease, ” said Fratta.