New School, Smaller

UNION SQUARE—Starting today, sandwich shop Num Pang is serving snow cones. Choose from Lime Lemongrass topped with Lychee and Pineapple Ginger topped with Toasted Coconut.

12th St. West of University

David Chang’s impressive restaurant empire is a joy to have in the neigborhood. His latest accomplishment is the weird and wonderful Momofuku Milk Bar on 13th near 2nd Ave. Try it out for some wild and tasty takeaway desserts. A little pricey, but it’s one of those “only in New York” things. We’re lucky to have it. Get the crack pie or the compost cookies.

The University Diner has finally found its new identity…as a European cookie shop. The details:

“Almost a year after the closure of the classic diner University Restaurant, an Austrian corporation will open a specialty food shop in its place later this month, the owner of the incoming business said Tuesday.

“Gunz Fine European Food will sell cookies, snacks and other fine foods imported from across Europe, Daniel Gunz said.

“It will be everything from Belgian chocolate to Spanish cakes to Italian olive oil,”

The 2024 Harvest in the Square celebration takes place on October 29. Tickets start at $200.

Here’s the pretty big news about upcoming traffic redesign and new pedestrian areas in and around Union Square:

A plan to reshuffle traffic around Union Square and add a new pedestrian plaza nearby has been given the final green light after months of contentious debate.

Community Board 5 voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Department of Transportation’s plan for the square despite continuing cries from a group of vocal residents who say the changes will only make traffic in the congested neighborhood worse.

The revised plan, which the DOT will begin implementing in the coming months, will restrict traffic to one-way westbound on E. 17th Street between Broadway and Park Avenue South.

Broadway will be narrowed to one lane from 17th to 23rd streets, and a new pedestrian plaza will be added to the east side of Broadway between 17th and 18th streets. The exact design of the plaza, including whether or not it will have tables and chairs like Herald Square and Times Square, is still up for debate.

To improve traffic on Park Avenue South, southbound cars will be prohibited from turning left at 18th Street, while northbound cars will be banned from turning left onto 19th and 23rd streets, among other restrictions.

Numerous dedicated turning lanes will also be added, in addition to new protected bike lanes and revised parking schemes.

The DOT’s Ryan Russo said the department hopes the plan will make the stretch more pedestrian-friendly, less chaotic and cut accidents in half.

Nonetheless, a handful of residents continued to complain that they’ve been left out of the decision process and haven’t been given enough time to consider the changes.

“I think this plan is being rushed to the extreme and rammed down neighbors’ throats,” lawyer Milton Meyers, 63, a 20-year resident of 18th Street and Irving Place, told the standing room-only crowd at the CB5 meeting Thursday.

Artist Silvia Kolbowski, who has collected more than 300 neighborhood signatures opposing the plan, accused the DOT of caring less about improving safety than pushing through another pedestrian plaza as part of a larger city plan.

“If the issue was safety at the crossings, then surely this plan is overblown,” said Kolbowski, 56, who has lived on East 18th Street at Park Avenue South for a decade. The plan, she said, will create “nothing but chaos.”

While such opinions were overwhelming when the idea was first presented back in April, opposition has faded as the DOT has made revisions, including dropping an initial plan to completely shut down Broadway to traffic between E. 17th to 18th streets at certain times of the day.

Numerous organizations, including representatives from New York University, the Union Square Green Market, the Union Square Partnership, and Transportation Alternatives have now joined in support of the plan.

“This neighborhood has a chance to have some significant safety improvements that other neighborhoods are clamoring for,” dance instructor, Detta Ahl, 31, who lives in Morningside Heights but frequently cycles in the area, told the audience.

The plan was ultimately adopted on a ‘pilot’ basis, with a provision that the DOT return in three and six months after implementation to report on the results.

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation has been doing some reconnaissance to find out what exactly developer Billy Macklowe has planned for his new condo building that will replace Village icon Bowlmor Lanes, and what they’ve found has not heartened them: “[The building] will take the form of a short base with retail uses coming out to the streetwall, and a very tall, narrow, residential tower rising above it. At approximately 308 feet in height, this will be one of the tallest, if not the tallest, buildings in the Village. Apparently Mr. Macklowe has told elected officials that the building will be limestone rather than glass or steel