Steak Frites Returns

The food hall inside the Zero Irving building and 14th St. and Irving Place didn’t last long, but now it will bounce back as a *different* food hall, this time sponsored by TimeOut, which has a winning example in Dumbo.

Here’s the rundown of vendors that will arrive next month.

You may have noticed construction work speeding along at the corner of 13th St. and 4th Ave. This is to be an 11-story, 162-room hotel in the medium price range. It’s being built by Sam Chang, the king of New York hotel development. He’s famous for finding ways to squeeze hotels onto tiny lots. In this case he’s keeping the facade of the former building as a kind of pedestal. Unusually sensitive for a developer who is usually accused of having no architectural taste whatsoever.

Patisserie Fouet on 13th St. is gone, and now we know what will be next in the space:

After more than a decade serving noodles at Smorgasburg and two years running Noodle Lane in Park Slope, Lane Li and Chris Wang are opening the 40-seat bistro Rulin. The specialty will be Chinese knife-shaved and hand-pulled noodles — like dan dan mian with pork, Sichuan vegetables, and scallions — and a signature “Rulin” noodle served with mustard greens and chicken broth.

Another pandemic victim: Babu Ji on 13th St. It was the sixth restaurant to have a go of it in the space in the past 25 years.

DNAinfo Reports:

A 31-foot-tall sculpture resembling a stick of pink rock candy will rise on the plaza at 14th Street and Union Square East this fall, officials said.

The installation — dubbed “Rose Crystal Tower” and designed by renowned glassblower Dale Chihuly — will consist of a 22-foot structure made of glass-like resin sitting on top of a nine-foot base, according to Parks Department representatives.

The department is looking into whether it will be possible to use power sources in the area to light the sculpture from the inside, according to Jennifer Lantzas, deputy director of public art for the agency.

The tower will consist of numerous layers of pink crystals stacked on top of each other to create a column, according to early renderings.

The resin which Chihuly is using in place of his usual glass materials will be hard enough to withstand breakage, according to Dale Lanzone of Marlborough Gallery, which is sponsoring the Union Square installation.

“You could throw a rock at it or really do whatever you wanted to break it and it’s not going to break,” he said at Community Board 5’s Parks and Public Space Committee meeting Monday.

This will be Chihuly’s second public exhibition in the city, coming on the heels of an installation in the New York Botanical Gardens that will debut in April. It will be displayed from October 2017 until October 2018.

Chihuly, who sports a distinctive eye patch stemming from a glassblowing accident, is known for his creations that range from flora and fauna to abstract designs that have helped turn glassblowing into an avante-garde artform, Lanzone said.

“In the world of glass, he really invented the art form,” Lanzone said. “Chihuly is synonymous with glass sculpture.”DN

Next week (February 11 to February 15), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on all floors inside the building as well as roof work. Additionally we will begin work on the new sidewalks around the building.

The following week (February 18 to February 22), Material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on all floors and roofs as well as sidewalk work. The site will be closed on Monday, February 18th, for the holiday.

This weekend the site will be open on Saturday, February 9th for interior, superstructure and sidewalk related activities between the work hours of 7AM and 5PM as permitted by the City.