This very interesting article from the New York Press describes the battle between a noted urban planner and his son, who happens to be the Parks Commissoner. They disagree about the future design of Union Square and they’ve been battling publicly. Ouch.
The annual meeting of shareholders took place on July 22. Two days later we distributed the minutes and the Powerpoint presentation via e-mail to everyone whose address we have. If you did not get this material and would like to see it, please contact donwillmott@hotmail.com.
The New School, has picked up 34-42 West 14th St, a five-story, 180,000 square foot building, for $153 million.
The seller was Samson Associates and the sale closed on Jan. 10, according to the Commercial Observer. Samson had owned the property since 1985. The building’s tenants will remain and pay rent to the school until their leases expire but those leases won’t be renewed. The school will take over space over time and convert it to academic uses. The building has about 25k SF of ground-floor retail space and comes with additional air rights.
Note that price: $153 million.
Click here to see 21 archival photos of Union Square dating back as far as 1888.
The very expensive new condo at 64 University Place will eventually have a very expensive bakery at street level. Dominique Ansel, inventor of the cronut, is bringing his talents to the street at Papa D’amour. Read all about it here.
As Chris Cannon, formerly a partner in Convivio and Alto, prepares to return to Manhattan this fall with a new restaurant called All’onda, In a market crowded with salumi boards, how will this new venture fit in or stand out? To get some perspective, Eater.com asked Chris:
What’s the difference between All’onda and every other Italian restaurant in New York? I think we’re taking…effectively, what we’re trying to do is take Venetian cuisine that’s always been a cuisine that is a meeting point of a number of different cultures — as most cuisine actually in Italy is — and Venetian cuisine has always been a meeting point with Eastern cuisine and culture. I think that what we are trying to do is basically take Venetian cuisine and a lot of seafood cuisine in Venice and take a very sophisticated Japanese lens and apply it to traditional Italian cuisine. So, I would say that you take a traditional dish and really not changing the basic components of traditional Italian cuisine, but changing in the sense that you’re taking the same ingredients and treating them a little bit differently and making them more modern, more interesting.
The No Difference shoe store on the corner of Broadway and 12th has been transformed into the neighborhood’s second Pret a Manger. Hungry?