Have a browse through Idlewild Books, on West 19th St. just west of 5th Ave. on the south side of the street. This travel specialist arranges all its books, no matter what kind they are–fiction, essay, guide–by location, so that E.B. White’s “Here Is New York” is right next to “Fodor’s New York.” It’s a novel idea that makes for great browsing. This is one of the city’s most pleasant independent bookstores. Good luck to them.
University Place already has two high-end ice cream shops, now we get a third. Gentile Gelataria actually has a very long history going way back to the old country.
Reports are coming in that 86 University Place is likely doomed. More condos ahead? Here’s some history on the lovely old building:
“The structure, built as a single-family house ca. 1840 with alterations in the 1880s and 1919, captures some of the great currents of New York and Greenwich Village history. One of its earliest owners and occupants was one of the 19th century’s great philanthropists, involved in founding, expanding, or managing the New York Public Library, the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Historical Society, the nation’s first chronic disease hospital, and the city’s first library for women. Later it was the residence and business place of one of the city’s most prominent and successful German immigrant families, when NYC had the largest German-speaking population of any city outside Berlin or Vienna. And in the 20th century it was home to The Royalist operated by “Mayor of Greenwich Village” Barney Gallant, the first New Yorker prosecuted for violating Prohibition, and The Bagatelle, one of the most prominent pre-Stonewall lesbian bars, frequented by writers Audrey Lorde and Ann Bannon.”
Here’s the plan:
The proposed 193-foot-tall development will yield 16,806 square feet, with 15,213 square feet designated for residential space and 1,593 square feet for commercial space. The building will have seven residences, most likely condos based on the average unit scope of 2,173 square feet. The concrete-based structure will also have a cellar.
There’s much more about the history HERE.
Now taking reservations, the latest location of Serafina, at University and 12th.
Twitter fans go here:
http://twitter.com/SaveUnionSqNYC
Over on East 12th St., it was Piola, the Brazilian pizza place, and now it’s Ribalta, the Italian pizza place. And it’s a pizza school, too. UrbanDaddy writes:
There are book smarts.
There are street smarts.
And then there are pizza smarts.
Today, we’re going to focus on that last one.
Also, we’re going to eat a bunch of pizza pies.
So let’s enroll at Ribalta, the only pizzeria in New York with three different types of ovens and its own university (but alas, no football team), now open.
Bottom line, this restaurant is really quite absurdly serious about pizza. The dough: imported from an Italian mill and aged 48 hours before baking (we’ll let you imagine what this does to a crust). The tomatoes: all San Marzano and all hand-crushed. The ovens: plentiful, varied and powerful.
Yes, these master pizzaiolos/fusspots felt it was necessary to install three different ovens in the place. Brick. Wood-burning. And stainless-steel convection. Reason #1: to bake your sausage-and-sage pie precisely the way God intended. Reason #2: the syllabus required it.
See, when this place is not standing in as the prototypical Friday night date spot, it’s doubling as the city’s first Scuola Italiana Pizzaioli—an esteemed pizza school that’s been around in Italy since the ’80s. So eventually you’ll be able to register here for classes, seminars and lectures on the science of the slice.
Assuming you scored high enough on the pizza SATs.
