The Holiday Market Is Back

At long last, L.A. Burdick Chocolate is returning to the City they love!  In late October, L.A. Burdick Café (5 East 20th Street, 212 796-0143) opened featuring their award winning hot chocolate and renowned chocolate mice and bonbons.  The café is open seven days a week serving hot and cold drinks, homemade pastries and a full selection of chocolates. 

By now we all know that the Bowlmor Lanes building on University Place is scheduled for demolition and will be replaced by condos. Goodbye, Stromboli Pizza, Japonica, and Vive La Crepe. Luckily, the newsstand is relocating across the street. Changes….

The holiday shopping season kicks off in November with the opening of the popular Union Square Holiday Market, operated by Urban Space Management.  The market is open every day from Wednesday, November 25th through Wednesday, December 24th with the exception of Thanksgiving. Be sure to stop by for a variety of unique items including handcrafted jewelry, fine art, clothes, handmade ornaments, and toys for kids of all ages. Market hours are Monday through Friday, 11 AM to 8 PM; Saturdays, 10 AM to 8 PM; Sundays, 11 AM to 7 PM; and 10 AM to 4 PM on Christmas Eve. Don’t forget to stop by the Holiday Market Information Booth to pick up coupons for special discounts at over 20 Union Square restaurants and eateries.

Some fun history about 65 5th Ave.

“The New School has been a presence at 65 Fifth Avenue, the site of the University Center, since 1967, when the university converted a Lane’s department store building for student use. But long before the address became associated with educational innovation, it was renown for innovation of another kind. In 1881, inventor Thomas Edison installed at the address (which was then occupied by a handsome brownstone) a permanent exhibition of his electrical discoveries. The biography Edison: His Life and Inventions reports that “the house was thrown open to the public until late at night, never closing before ten o’clock, so as to give everybody who wished an opportunity to see that great novelty of the time—the incandescent light—whose fame had meanwhile been spreading all over the globe.” It is a fitting legacy for the University Center, which upon opening in Fall 2013 will itself serve as a living teaching tool, with exposed energy and water management systems to provide working demonstrations of sustainable design.”

Next week (May 20 to May 24), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on all floors inside the building. We will be working on the new sidewalks around the building and installing new curbs and will be removing the sidewalk shed along 13th st. Additionally we will be working on the roofs of the building.

The following week (May 27 to May 31), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on all floors as well as sidewalk work.

This weekend the site will be open on Saturday, May 18th for interior, roof, and sidewalk activities between the work hours of 7AM and 5PM as permitted by the City.

Long-timers will remember the 40-foot lizard that one sat atop the now demolished deli on the corner of 13th and 5th when it was the famed Lone Star Cafe. The bar closed in 1989, and the iguana disappeared, but as this article says, it has now been found.