Zen Palate Is Back

It’s a bit of a hike, but the new Wegman’s supermarket at Astor Place is worth a visit because it is so huge and so suburban. Prices are competitive across the board, and the variety of items beats any other store in the area. The sad and tired Gristedes on University Place should be worried.

Here’s all the info on Harvest in the Square, which takes place on 9/24.

From The Real Deal:

Extell Development is in talks to buy a Greenwich Village commercial property with substantial development rights from the Duell family, the latest of several deals between the two. Gary Barnett’s firm is looking to acquire 530 Sixth Avenue on the corner of West 14th Street in Greenwich Village, Crain’s reported, citing a source familiar with the deal. The site is currently home to a 17,000-square-foot commercial building housing a Moscot Eyewear store, but public records show it has nearly 127,000 square feet of residential air rights.

Extell and the Duells have struck a number of deals in the past two months. In December, Barnett’s company bought two apartment buildings at 116 Seventh Avenue and 204 West 17th Street in Chelsea from the Duells, paying $11 million. He also bought 502 Third Avenue, a rental and retail building in Murray Hill, from the family for $11 million around the same time. Barnett also seems to be the buyer in the $20 million purchase of a rental building at 27 Washington Square North in the Greenwich Village last month, according to Crain’s. At the time of the purchase, the buyer wasn’t known. [Crain’s] – Ariel Stulberg

The MTA is still chipping away at improvements on the L train, having announced a new escalator coming into service at the Union Square station to service the 19,000 pre-pandemic riders that shuffle on and off the platform every hour during the week.

This installation, designed to ease congestion through the busy interchange, follows elevators paired with a new entrance to the L train’s First Avenue station near Avenue A and switch replacements on the 4-5-6 near Union Square in recent months.

These improvements were funded by the MTA prior to the financial crisis they currently face due to COVID-19.

“This new escalator is another achievement for the larger L project team that, delivered that huge project early and below budget,” MTA Chief Development Officer Janno Lieber said. “Even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic we’re using innovative strategies to deliver customer improvements faster and at lower cost than ever before.”

Judy McClain, Chief of Operations Planning at New York City Transit, says that because the L train platform at this location is one of the most congested during pre-pandemic levels of ridership the escalator is one of the fastest in subway system; it can move up to 92 people per minute.

Our new neighbor Ann Roth tells us about this incredible image of the 14th St. building that she dug up:

“I found the image on the web, where someone was selling a hand-colored print of the 14th Street facade, from a magazine that dates to 1891. So it clearly dates to that year (or earlier), not 1899, as all the real estate ads say. I ordered it, and they immediately took it off their site, so I can’t send you the link, but I copied the image first, so I’ve attached it. I must say, I wish it still had the fancy spire. The architects were D’Oench & Simon. Albert D’Oench studied in New York and Stuttgart, and then worked for Robert Morris Hunt (who designed the Metropolitan Museum’s facade) for a while. He was the NY Inspector of Buildings for five years, which seems to have mainly involved fire safety. After that, he had a successful architectural partnership with Albert (or Bernard?) Simon, and they designed and built several fire stations in New York. D’Oench later married the mayor’s daughter. Clearly a man with good connections. The plan calls it a “store building,” built it for Mrs. Mary S. Van Beuren, who was the granddaughter and heir of Henry Spingler (who I think has a building on Union Square named after him). She lived nearby, on 14th Street, just west of 5th, and seems to have been a bit of a sharp customer, to judge from some of the legal tussles I found when I searched her name on Google.”

…replacing Diesel at the corner of 14th and Union Square West