Latest New School Construction Update

From Curbed.com:

Word of the imminent demise of Greenwich Village’s iconic Bowlmor Lanes arrived in early 2014, when EV Grieve reported that site owner Billy Macklowe—whose father is none other than Harry Macklowe of 432 Park Avenue fame—wanted to slap a condo tower up on the site. Details of the new development have been few and far between in the meantime, but 6sqft has gleaned a few primary renderings of the project that seem to confirm 1) that it’s actually happening, and 2) that it will be amongst the tallest residential buildings in the neighborhood. According to 6sqft, the building will rise 23 stories to stand a “modest” 280 feet, and will contain 56 condos averaging more than 2,000 square feet apiece.

Plans filed with the Department of Buildings list SLCE as the Architect of Record, but a design architect has yet to be pegged, at least publicly, for the project. The building, which consumes a majority of the western side of the block between East 12th and East 13th streets, will have bike parking, a ground-floor community facility, a resident lounge and terrace, a parking garage, and ground floor retail.

Here’s one problem we haven’t had in our bulding (yet): a bee swarm. Bee experts had to be called in last week to collect a swarm of bees at 4th Ave. and 14th. St. Weird.

The details are emerging about 116 University Place, the five-unit condo currently rising on the corner of University and 13th. The lower four units will range from $7.2  to $3 million (each is 3,050 square feet). The penthouse, with its expansive roof deck, will sell for a cool $10 million.

An unusual crime at Giant Bagel, on the corner of Universty and 13th, last Friday night:

Three peed-off perps brutally beat a man for taking too long in the bathroom at a Greenwich Village bagel shop, police said yesterday. The thugs — identified as Osman Jalloh, 19, Amadou Diallo, 21, and Mohamed Sow, 21 — became enraged waiting for Zaaven Castelan, 23, to finish his business in a restroom at Giant Bagels on University Place at 10 p.m. Friday, sources said. When Castelan emerged from the bathroom, the trio started pummeling him, the sources said.Police quickly rounded up the men.

An urban planner who has been looking around for ways to make the city more pedestrian-friendly (and to open up more space for protesting) wrote “Union Square could be greatly enhanced by following through on a 2010 plan to pedestrianize Union Square West. Also pedestrianizing University Place would be a bold step that could link Union Square and Washington Square Park, merging two vital public spaces into a permanent platform for open expression.”

That would certainly change the neighborhood.

The New York Post offers this brief history of Union Square. It’s interesting to note that before the subway was built, the park was at street level. When the subway came through, the whole park was torn up and elevated several feet, which why you enter it via stairs today.