Joyce Leslie, “the store where you send your daughter to dress like a hooker,” has been gone for a while on the corner of University and 8th. A replacement has finally been named: CVS. So the neighborhood gets yet another alternative to the surly hellhounds at Duane Reade.
A sign of the times. The long abandoned Zen Palate restaurant on Union Square West has been stripped of its copper facade as high as human hands can reach. Copper scavengers on the prowl.
A bit surprising to see Goodwill pop up here at a time when everything is skewing high-end, but here it is, in the former location of the much-missed Metro Drugs.
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It’s a new era for iconic Union Square American restaurant Gotham Bar & Grill: Influential chef Alfred Portale is stepping away from the kitchen, where he spent 34 years leading the restaurant to a Michelin star and several James Beard awards. Replacing him will be former Chumley’s chef Victoria Blamey, the Times reports
Owners Jerome Kretchmer, Jeff Bliss, Robert Rathe, and Richard Rathe decided to switch things up when Portale announced earlier this year that he would be opening his own Italian restaurant in Chelsea. The search for a chef led them to Blamey, who last helmed the kitchen at Chumley’s in the West Village where she earned two stars in the Times.
Blamey plans to add more multicultural flavors to the formerly American menu, such as Indian sauces and chiles. Though she’s been there for a few weeks, her new menu will debut in September after a brief closure for a slight redesign in August.
It’s a big change for the restaurant that for 34 years Portale has kept about upscale seasonal American fare. In that time, he’s racked up awards for both himself and the restaurant, including a Michelin star since 2006, three James Beard Awards, and five three-star reviews in the Times between 1985 and 2011.
Now, Portale will focus on his the fall opening for his new Italian restaurant in Chelsea, to be called Portale. Portale will not be a fine-dining restaurant, the chef told Food & Wine. Rather, he wants to open a “hip and fun” place for the neighborhood, with housemade pasta and seasonal Italian classics.
The chef lived in Italy and has been cooking French-influenced American food for the last few decades, which will all make its way into the menu here. There will be a particular focus in the 130-seat space on the “light and casually healthy” food of the Italian riviera, supplied by his deep relationships at the Union Square farmers market nearby.
Portale says he’s wanted to open his own restaurant “for many, many years.” This “informal type of experience” is a departure from his time at Gotham Bar & Grill, where he remains a partner.
Next week (October 21st to October 25th), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on the academic floors inside the building and we anticipate paving on 5th Ave.
The following week (October 28th to November 1st), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on academic floors.
This weekend the site will be open on Saturday, October 19th for interior activities between the work hours of 7AM and 5PM as permitted by the City.
Expanded pedestrian space and more cycling lanes are central to a planned redesign of Manhattan’s Broadway between E. 17th and E. 21st streets, city officials announced on Monday.
The changes are subject to public outreach — but Department of Transportation officials said they could mimic a change to other areas of Broadway between Union Square and E. 50th Street, where crews in recent years have added more pedestrian plazas, outdoor dining space and wider crosswalks designed to keep pedestrians safe from crashes.
DOT officials also said they’re considering adding a two-way bike lane between E. 17th and E. 21st streets, which already has a one-way southbound lane for cyclists.
The city earlier this year completed an overhaul of Broadway between E. 25th and E. 32nd streets, adding more space for pedestrians, another two-way bike lane and other infrastructure designed to make motorists drive slower.
“This next phase of Broadway Vision will provide the same kind of vibrant public spaces connecting Union Square and Flatiron, just like our administration is doing with incredible success across the entire city,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement.
The latest planned improvements are just north of Union Square — and just south of where a taxi driver jumped a sidewalk last year, sending several pedestrians to the hospital.
