Good Old Days, West Side of Union Sq.

DNAinfo Reports:

A 31-foot-tall sculpture resembling a stick of pink rock candy will rise on the plaza at 14th Street and Union Square East this fall, officials said.

The installation — dubbed “Rose Crystal Tower” and designed by renowned glassblower Dale Chihuly — will consist of a 22-foot structure made of glass-like resin sitting on top of a nine-foot base, according to Parks Department representatives.

The department is looking into whether it will be possible to use power sources in the area to light the sculpture from the inside, according to Jennifer Lantzas, deputy director of public art for the agency.

The tower will consist of numerous layers of pink crystals stacked on top of each other to create a column, according to early renderings.

The resin which Chihuly is using in place of his usual glass materials will be hard enough to withstand breakage, according to Dale Lanzone of Marlborough Gallery, which is sponsoring the Union Square installation.

“You could throw a rock at it or really do whatever you wanted to break it and it’s not going to break,” he said at Community Board 5’s Parks and Public Space Committee meeting Monday.

This will be Chihuly’s second public exhibition in the city, coming on the heels of an installation in the New York Botanical Gardens that will debut in April. It will be displayed from October 2017 until October 2018.

Chihuly, who sports a distinctive eye patch stemming from a glassblowing accident, is known for his creations that range from flora and fauna to abstract designs that have helped turn glassblowing into an avante-garde artform, Lanzone said.

“In the world of glass, he really invented the art form,” Lanzone said. “Chihuly is synonymous with glass sculpture.”DN

This view shows the east side of 5th Ave. at 13th St. in 1911. In other words, it’s where the New School now has its main entrance. Down the block on 13th St. you can see the tallish building that is now apartments. Ah, the good old days. Note that even in 1911, those elegant brownstones had seen better days. Since then, three large buildings have stood on this block, so that’s one reinvention about every 35 years.

Credit: New York Public Library Digital Collection.

A state Supreme Court judge has lifted a temporary order blocking the city from rolling out its bedeviled 14th Street busway pilot. Justice Eileen Rakoff ruled that the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) complied with state law that mandates the agency study the impact of banning private cars on the surrounding residential streets.

After reviewing documents from the city and the coalition of Manhattan residents petitioning the busway, Rankoff lifted the temporary restraining order that blocked the pilot’s July launch on Tuesday. DOT spokesperson Alana Morales says the agency is beginning work “immediately” and will launch the busway on Monday, August 12.

Transit advocates who have long called for the pilot program, which was originally timed to launch with work on the L train’s Canarsie Tunnel, praised the ruling as a “huge victory.”

“When riders organize, the whole city wins,” says Danny Pearlstein with the Riders Alliance. “The 14th Street busway will provide faster and more reliable bus trips, saving precious time for tens of thousands of people who badly need it.”

Others charge that the ruling sets a key precedent for other streets where residents seek to use the courts to “circumvent the democratic process in order to preserve the car-dominant status quo”— such as Central Park West where members of an Upper West Side condo board are suing to block a bike lane, says Marco Conner, the deputy director of Transportation Alternatives.

This finding from the Union Square Partnership:

The Union Square Partnership analyzes and promotes visitor activity by conducting pedestrian and bicycle counts every two years over several Fridays and Saturdays in July.  Working with BFJ Planning, counts were taken from 8 AM to 10 PM at 26 locations around Union Square Park. To gain the most accurate account of how many people move through  Union Square on a typical summer day, the data gathered was then combined with transit turnstile information for the 14th Street – Union Square station. The station is the fourth busiest subway hub in NYC on a weekday and skyrockets to second position on weekends. Based on turnstile count patterns, it is estimated that during the summer a record-breaking 383,000 people visit the area on a Greenmarket Friday over a 24-hour period, a 10% increase from our last survey.

Find the full 2014 Pedestrian Activity Report here.

The retail retreat continues, with the departure of American Eagle from Union Square West.