NYU’s Massive Rezoning Request

The food hall inside the Zero Irving building and 14th St. and Irving Place didn’t last long, but now it will bounce back as a *different* food hall, this time sponsored by TimeOut, which has a winning example in Dumbo.

Here’s the rundown of vendors that will arrive next month.

50 years is a long time for anyone or anything. That’s why it’s sad to see Village Copiers on 13th St. fade away at least as a storefront. It was the oldest business on the block. By far. Who knows what will fill that unusual below-ground space next?

From the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation:

NYU recently revealed its draft Environmental Assessment Statement and draft Scoping Document for its massive proposed zoning changes and taking of public land to allow its planned twenty-year expansion in Greenwich Village. These documents provide greater detail about what NYU is planning, what the potential impacts are of their proposed changes, and how NYU will be required to analyze those impacts for the public review process of their application.

Community Board #2 will be holding a public hearing on the documents and the response to them on Thursday, May 5 (time and location TBD). Following the Community Board hearing, the City Planning Commission will hold a hearing before the documents are finalized and the review and analysis takes place. This process is expected to take several months. After that, the public hearing, review, and approval process for the actual proposed zoning changes and transfers of public land may take place.

The suburbanization of Union Square continues with the arrival of the Panera Bread chain on Union Square East between 14th and 15th Streets.

As Chris Cannon, formerly a partner in Convivio and Alto, prepares to return to Manhattan this fall with a new restaurant called All’onda,  In a market crowded with salumi boards, how will this new venture fit in or stand out? To get some perspective, Eater.com asked Chris:

What’s the difference between All’onda and every other Italian restaurant in New York? I think we’re taking…effectively, what we’re trying to do is take Venetian cuisine that’s always been a cuisine that is a meeting point of a number of different cultures — as most cuisine actually in Italy is — and Venetian cuisine has always been a meeting point with Eastern cuisine and culture.  I think that what we are trying to do is basically take Venetian cuisine and a lot of seafood cuisine in Venice and take a very sophisticated Japanese lens and apply it to traditional Italian cuisine. So, I would say that you take a traditional dish and really not changing the basic components of traditional Italian cuisine, but changing in the sense that you’re taking the same ingredients and treating them a little bit differently and making them more modern, more interesting.

Next week (November 21 to November 25), DOT approved street connections to underground utilities on Fifth Avenue and 13th street will continue. Superstructure work will continue at cellar, 1st, and 2nd floor levels. Sidewalk sheds will continue being erected around the perimeter of the site. The project will be closed on Thanksgiving Day, 11/24, and open for work on 11/25 and 11/26, weather pending. The following week (November 28 to December 2), we will continue superstructure concrete and slabs. Street utility connection work will continue.