Price Hikes at 12 East 13th St. Condos

Wondering what happened to the cute green building on 13th between 5th and 6th that housed Taste of Tokyo and La Dolce Vita? It’s gone. In its place will rise a small boutique hotel.

As you’re well aware, the demolition and construction of The New School site at 65 Fifth Avenue is well underway. On Thursday, The New School revealed for the first time the official design of the building, which includes some of the elements from its earliest sketches, such as the exposed staircases, but is different in two notable ways: the building is smaller than originally planned, and it is partially class in brass, rather than entirely in glass.

The building is being constructed as of right. There is no more debate over design or size. This is pretty much what we’re going to see: a university hub of about 16 stories with eight floors of campus space topped by a smaller eight floors of dormitory housing for 600 students.

To get caught up on what the building looks like and see many photos of the model, click here.

To read the somewhat positive New York Times architecture critic’s review, click here.

A neighbor attended the public viewing of the model and came away with some great facts:

–The loading dock is on 13th street at the eastern most corner of the lot.

–The main entrance to the building is on the southwest corner. This is for everything except the dormitories.

–The dormitory entrance is on 5th avenue, about 1/3 of the way down from 14th street.

–The northern 1/3 of the building at street level is retail – no word on what though.

–Directly above the retail is a cafeteria. It looks like seating for 300, which makes sense considering the 600 person dormitory.

–The dormitory floors are set back on all sides, and shaped in a ‘C’ with a light well on the eastern side of the stack. They are four bed suites, with kitchenettes in them.

–The set-back between the lower and upper halves is a green roof, and they say that for liability reasons it will not be open to the general building population. Pressing on this, and the answer was that while the green roof hasn’t been engineered yet, it is likely going to be possible to have foot traffic on it and will perhaps be open to supervised use (during a class, or for an experiment of some kind). (So no midnight keg parties, we hope.)

The green roof is at the level of 7 East 13^th St/10 East 14^th St, so about the same height as our roof.

— It looks like it’s designed to keep students inside the building, and not loitering on the street. The canopies are small, and the doors aren’t inset, so there isn’t any natural gathering space just outside on the sidewalk.

We hope that this brings everyone up to date on a project that will be a big part of the pulse of the neighborhood for the next two years….and beyond.

The spectacular old stable building at 128 East 13th has finally been converted into the Peridance Center with six studios, a theater, and a cafe.

Posters have announced that the successor to Le Midi restaurant at 9 East 13th St. will be Reyna, a middle-eastern bar/restaurant that currently has two locations in Toronto. From the menus and pictures (see photo of a Toronto location below), it seems fairly high-end and, one can hope, not too noisy or crazy. As part of a “good neighbor” effort, the bar will host an introductory Zoom call on OCTOBER 26 at 6PM. Here’s the link.

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86012416505?pwd=dGI0cEZ3eHRudWJ0TnJhTzVkSWFVZz09

 

 

 

Zappos — the Amazon-owned online shoe retailer — appears to be launching a brick-and-mortar location.

Zappos has leased the three-level, roughly 16,000-square-foot corner of 19 Union Square West at 15th Street that was previously home to American Eagle and its concept-store spinoff, AE Studio.

The renovated W Union Square Hotel now boasts a hot new restaurant that the New York Post loves:

It took Seahorse, the new seafood spot in the W hotel, four years to open after it was first planned — and only two weeks to conquer Manhattan.

The wonderful eatery from owner John McDonald and chef John Villa is a rare, instant artistic and commercial success that’s just what Union Square needed.

The blocks around the park lost their culinary cred after Brazilian-style Coffee Shop closed in 2018 and Blue Water Grill a year later, leaving the famous Greenmarket its only claim to glory. Seahorse, on Park Avenue South at East 17th Street, puts the juice back. The corner will be even more of a food destination when a giant STK Steakhouse opens soon across the street.

McDonald’s Mercer Street Hospitality owns a half dozen crowd-pleasing eateries including Bowery Meat Company, Bar Mercer and, most famously, Lure Fishbar in Soho, which might lose its home of 20 years to Prada.

Seahorse tops them all. The stunning design by David Rockwell offers everyone open views of the sea of booths, banquettes and tables. Nautical blue trim sets the theme. Walls of rich teak refer to, but don’t copy, Lure and its yacht cabin vibes.

Villa is equally at home in corporate and individual-restaurant settings. He was recently culinary head of Tao Group, but I remember him as well for Pico — a great modern-Portuguese restaurant that didn’t survive Tribeca’s street closings after 9/11.