Burritos in the Hood

Souen, the slightly funky smelling organic/vegan/macrobiotic restaurant on the other side of 13th St., has closed for what it says will be a months-long renovation. Will it return? Only time will tell.

Now upstairs at Chard, formerly Le Croque Monsieur, on 13th St., is Singlish, a Singapore-flavored high-end speakeasy with delicious and breathtakingly expensive drinks. Save it for special occasions. Reservations recommended.

The first headquarters of the NAACP, was at 69 5th Ave., where the New School building is now. From 1920 to 1938, they flew this flag whenever they received a report of a lynching anywhere in America. This view, which hasn’t changed much, is looking south on 5th Ave.

Weird that Il Laboritorio del Gelato has chosen to open at 56 University Place on the corner of 10th Street, directly across from Amorino, but so it goes.

13th St.’s historical Erskine Press building will be the home to some kind of new restaurant called Chard pretty soon. No details, but it seems Asian.

From the NY Times:

The latest record store to close in New York is a big one: the Virgin Megastore in Union Square. Following its announcement last month that the Times Square Megastore would close down in April, Virgin Entertainment Group North America will shut down the Union Square shop in late May or early June, a spokeswoman said, confirming a report in Billboard. Virgin will also close its Market Street store in San Francisco in April. The New York closures will leave Manhattan without a large-scale record store. Thousands of music retailers have shut down in recent years as CD sales have plunged, and Virgin has been closing most of its locations around the country since it was bought by the real estate companies Vornado and Related in 2007, but its high-traffic New York stores were said to be profitable.