Down and Dirty Union Square, 1974

A state Supreme Court judge has lifted a temporary order blocking the city from rolling out its bedeviled 14th Street busway pilot. Justice Eileen Rakoff ruled that the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) complied with state law that mandates the agency study the impact of banning private cars on the surrounding residential streets.

After reviewing documents from the city and the coalition of Manhattan residents petitioning the busway, Rankoff lifted the temporary restraining order that blocked the pilot’s July launch on Tuesday. DOT spokesperson Alana Morales says the agency is beginning work “immediately” and will launch the busway on Monday, August 12.

Transit advocates who have long called for the pilot program, which was originally timed to launch with work on the L train’s Canarsie Tunnel, praised the ruling as a “huge victory.”

“When riders organize, the whole city wins,” says Danny Pearlstein with the Riders Alliance. “The 14th Street busway will provide faster and more reliable bus trips, saving precious time for tens of thousands of people who badly need it.”

Others charge that the ruling sets a key precedent for other streets where residents seek to use the courts to “circumvent the democratic process in order to preserve the car-dominant status quo”— such as Central Park West where members of an Upper West Side condo board are suing to block a bike lane, says Marco Conner, the deputy director of Transportation Alternatives.

A jewelry store called The Missing Link will take half the space formerly occupied by Spice at University and 10th.

Our students have moved into the dormitory which is on the top eight floors with its own entrance. The first day of classes was August 26th and a new semester is now underway. It is anticipated that the academic portion of the building (first eight floors) will be completed in time for this year’s second semester. We will keep you posted. Some of you can see our green roof which is also an exciting addition.

Next week (September 9 to September 13), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on the academic floors inside the building.

The following week (September 16 to September 20), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on academic floors.

Next week (September 23 to September 27), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on the academic floors inside the building. Additionally we will be using a lift on the sidewalk to wash the exterior of the building.

The following week (September 30 to October 4), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on academic floors.

This weekend the site will be open on Saturday, September 21st for interior activities between the work hours of 7AM and 5PM as permitted by the City.

from 6sqft:

Pioneering food hall operator Urbanspace is opening its latest outpost at Union Square reports the NY Post. They’ve leased 10,000 square feet at Zero Irving, the contested tech hub on 14th Street that will serve as office space, a technology training center and incubator, co-working spaces, and an event space when it opens in the first half of 2021.

Located at 124 East 14th Street, at the former site of the P.C. Richard & Son building, Zero Irving has faced opposition for years, as local preservationists and community groups felt that the rezoning required for the development should have included protections for the surrounding neighborhood, which is largely low-rise and residential.

Nevertheless, the $200 million project has been under construction for the past year. Despite the thousands of small business closings around the city, UrbanSpace founder and president Eldon Scott is confident in what will be his company’s fifth food hall in New York City. “We have the ideal business model to help the New York culinary world recover,” he told the Post.

UrbanSpace’s other locations are Urbanspace Vanderbilt near Grand Central (the first location, which opened in 2015), Lexington Avenue and 51st Street, 135 West 50th Street, and 152 West 52nd Street. They’re also behind the holiday markets in Grand Central, Union Square, Columbus Circle, and Bryant Park, as well as seasonal food market pop-ups like those at Madison Square and the Garment District.

In case you missed it on Friday, protesters invaded and occupied the New School buidling on our block for about 6 hours on Friday morning. Unlike the previous demonstration in December, this one was summarily shut down by a powerful NYPD push at the request of the university, and around 20 occupiers, some of whom appear to have been troublemakers as opposed to students, were arrested. The real losers in all this were the businesses on our block, who were prevented from opening until Friday afternoon.