Torch & Crown Beer Garden is back for its third season in the Union Square Park Pavilion, serving up locally brewed beers and fan favorites like the Lou Burger, pizza, and pretzels.
From now through early November, enjoy:
Chick-fil-A is negotiating a lease for a Union Square location formerly occupied by popular restaurant Bluewater Grill. The fast-food chain, known for its chicken sandwiches and controversial support of antigay groups and issues, is likely to open an outpost at 31 Union Square West. Tthe landlord had been asking for nearly $2 million in annual rent, which is what drove Bluewater Grill to close. It isn’t clear whether Chick-fil-A will take the entirety of the roughly 11,000-square-foot vacancy and what the Atlanta-based chain is agreeing to pay in rent.
Next week (December 12 to December 16), DOT approved street connections to underground utilities on Fifth Avenue have been completed. Superstructure work will continue at 1st and 2nd floor levels. Sidewalk sheds will continue being erected around the perimeter of the site. The roof protection at USC Condo courtyard will be started this week as well.
The following week (December 19 to December 23), we will continue superstructure concrete and slabs on 1st and 2nd floor levels.
This weekend the site will be open on Saturday, December 3rd for superstructure related activities between the work hours of 7AM and 5PM as permitted by the City. To control noise levels within the site, work activities will be limited to the placement of formwork, plumbing and electrical work, rebar for concrete placement and use of the crane and equipment to support all activities. Safety horns are used, and required by law, to coordinate lifting with the crane and to alert the workers of the danger overhead. We have directed the operators to limit the use of horns to one short sounding and to use the crane later in the day so as to avoid any excess noise.
The Diesel store on the corner of 14th and Union Square West is no more. In its place will be a Reebok store and gym. Let’s get physical.
As construction for the Union Square tech hub begins, Greenwich Village preservationists have resurrected their call for the city to designate a new historic district in the area, AM New York first reported.
Last October, following a contested upzoning of a lot on 14th Street to build the 21-story training center, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) asked the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to consider designating a new historic district to protect 193 buildings in the area.
Over the summer, the LPC moved to designate seven of those buildings, but rejected the call for a full historic district. At the time, the LPC said that the area mostly contains buildings erected between the 1830s and 1930s, as well as new and altered ones, and that because of their variety in styles, types, and dates, “[the area] lacks the consistent architectural quality, cohesiveness, and sense of place necessary to merit historic district designation.”
But GVSHP is persistent, and this week resurrected its call for a proper district protecting more buildings in the area. In a letter sent to LPC this week, the group made the case for protecting 10 buildings, including 10 East 14th Street, a cast-iron structure that once housed the NYC Woman Suffrage League headquarters; 72 Fifth Avenue, a masonry structure that was the headquarters of Appleton & Company; and 17 East 13th Street, the brick Erskine Press building. The selection of buildings also includes structures associated with 19th-century architect James Renwick Jr.
“[These buildings] speak to the incredibly rich and important social and architectural history of the area, and to New York’s development as the capital of commerce and culture in the late 19th and 20th centuries,” the letter from GVSHP reads.
“With increased pressure on the area from the beginning of construction on the 14th Street Tech Hub, the recent loss of Renwick’s St. Denis Hotel (1855), and the completion of the woefully out of scale tech office tower at 808 Broadway, the time for the city to act is now,” Andrew Berman, executive director of GVSHP, told Curbed in a statement.
The group is also pushing for city lawmakers to implement protections that would regulate commercial development south of 14th Street through a “protective zoning measure,” which was promised at the time of the tech hub rezoning over a year ago.
City Council member Carlina Rivera, who represents the area, negotiated those commitments from the de Blasio administration, but advocates have said those promises hadn’t materialized.
“Councilwoman Rivera continues to work with the community to ensure the history of the Village is preserved and she is meeting regularly with LPC to discuss future protections for her entire district that should be considered,” Jeremy Unger, a spokesperson for Rivera, said in a statement.
From the paper:
A new tech hub, which had its land use application approved on Feb. 27, is one step closer to coming to Union Square — between NYU’s Palladium Residence Hall and University Residence Hall. The new facility, currently branded as the Union Square Tech Hub, would replace the recently vacant 124 E. 14th St. address that P.C. Richard & Son formerly occupied.
Mayor Bill de Blasio advocated for the construction of the hub early last year, but approval has been met by opposition from local community groups concerned of overdevelopment.
On one hand, NYU supports the building addition but it has no part in the hub’s construction besides the neighboring walls of two of its residence halls.
“NYU hasn’t had any direct involvement in the project,” university spokesperson John Beckman wrote in an email. “However, we have supported the overall efforts to strengthen [New York City’s] science, tech and innovation economy, from the creation of our own Center for Urban Science and Progress to the development of 370 Jay St. as a tech hub in downtown Brooklyn to Tandon’s [Tandon School of Engineering’s] stewardship of several incubators. The Union Square Tech Hub is meant to advance NYC’s [New York City’s] tech economy, and that’s an objective NYU supports.”
The hub would generate 600 jobs and would feature office spaces for startup tech companies, according to the mayor’s office.
