Latest New School Construction Update

The New York Post reports this robbery just one block away:

A woman who left her Union Square apartment to check in on a 102-year-old neighbor returned to find a well-dressed burglar grabbing $50,000 worth of her jewelry, cops said yesterday.

The thief — decked out in a black suit and tie — had sneaked into an apartment building on University Place at 3 p.m. Monday and was prowling around for an unlocked door when he hit the jackpot at Linda Kaplan’s home, sources said.

As the thief was stashing bling in a canvas bag, Kaplan, 76, walked in.

She demanded to know what he was doing, and he responded, “I’m with the Fire Department,” according to cops.

When Kaplan demanded to see ID, the 6-foot-2 bandit threw her down.

“He grabbed my shoulders and pushed me to the ground,” Kaplan said. “I grabbed his legs. I tried to stop him from leaving.

“Once he knocked me down, I started screaming for help.”

Among those who ran to her aid was a painter working in an apartment upstairs. Minutes earlier, the thief had poked his head in that unit but fled when he saw the worker.

Cops said the bandit operated like an “office creeper,” a well-dressed thief who looks for laptop computers or purses at unoccupied office desks.

Here’s a very old and undated photo of Union Square West. The 1842 building at 35 Union Square West that currently houses Barn Joo is one of the neighborhood’s oldest structures.

From the Observer:

Jason Scherr, owner of the cafe that the New York Press named best new coffee shop in 2008, has signed a lease for about 1,600 square feet at 123 Fourth Avenue, between 12th and 13th streets, in which he will open his third Think Coffee by the end of the summer, according to Jason Turner, his broker at Zelnik & Company Real Estate. Think is taking the space of the closed Panorama Galleries on an otherwise rather shoddy block that just happens to be steps away from N.Y.U.’s Third Avenue North dorms and its soon-to-be-completed new dorm on 12th Street.

Think Coffee’s two other cafes are at One Bleecker Street and 248 Mercer Street.

“Think Coffee thought it was an emerging street that had some upside,” Mr. Turner said. “Rents are significantly lower than on Broadway or University, so he can be within the Union Square submarket without having to pay Union Square rents.”

Next week (July 2 to July 6), Mechanical equipment and work will continue at the 17th and 18th floor levels. Deliveries for the internal systems of the building have been ongoing and will continue, although they should not greatly affect the flow of pedestrian and road traffic. The site will be closed on Wednesday, July 4th, for the holiday.

The following week (July 9 to July 13), we will be working on the machine room levels on the 17th and 18th floors. Deliveries for the internal systems of the building have been ongoing and will continue, although they should not greatly affect the flow of pedestrian and road traffic. The crane is scheduled for demobilization on Saturday the 7th.

This weekend the site will be open on Saturday, June 30th for superstructure related activities between the work hours of 7AM and 5PM as permitted by the City. To control noise levels within the site, work activities will be limited to working on the mechanical systems of the building and using the crane and equipment to support activities. Safety horns are used, and required by law, to coordinate lifting with the crane and to alert the workers of the danger overhead. We have directed the operators to limit the use of horns to one short sounding and to use the crane later in the day so as to avoid any excess noise.

Sal Anthony’s Italian restaurant, which recently took over the space of that unremarkable Mexican spot on East 13th St. (which used to be the original Crunch gym), has closed.

More branches of Barnes & Noble are closing. Most recently, the huge store at Lincoln Center was shuttered. However, the megastore on the northern edge of Union Square Park is safe.