Union Sq. Park in 1899

This is the north side of West 14th St. looking west from 5th Ave. in 1909. The 6th Avenue elevated train station crosses the street in the distance.

Here’s what’s on display in the park:

Miranda July is a fiction writer (No One Belongs Here More Than You), a filmmaker (Me and You and Everyone We Know), a performance artist (Things We Don’t Understand and Are Definitely Not Going to Talk About), and an occasional sculptress. It’s that latter designation that’s the focus of a new public art installation, the comparatively terse “Eleven Heavy Things,” organized by Deitch Projects, which opened late last week in New York’s Union Square Park. (The installation will remain in the park through October 3rd.) The sculptures, many of which revolve around a line of text written in July’s own hand, prod the viewer into audience interaction. “What I look like when I’m lying,” reads one, a white tablet through which the viewer can stick his head. A trio of pedestals — labeled ‘The Guilty One,’ ‘The Guiltier One,’ and ‘The Guiltiest One’ — asks participants to gauge (and flaunt) their general culpability. Three of the sculptures are wordless “headdresses,” decorative sculptures that July compares to the dialogue-free stretches of a movie: “The shapes are those parts of this piece.”

A new Panera express shop has opened at 110 University, the first retail shop to open in the pedestal of that high-rise apartment building since it was completed three years ago. The format is entirely new, will be 40% smaller than the average Panera café at 2,000 square feet and will be designed toward to go-customers with dedicated shelves for rapid pickup, a digital menu, tracking screen technology with detailed order statuses, and very limited seating.

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation has published a fantastic online photographic tour of all the historically important buildings in our neighborhood…. including our own building. So much fascinating history. The underlying message…. a lot of this history is constantly under threat.

View it here.

The team behind the world-famous Union Square Greenmarket, GrowNYC, just launched Project Farmhouse, an event space and sustainability center that hosts workshops, galas, speakers, community meetings and interactive exhibits. The new space is located on 13th Street, on the ground floor of the Hyatt Union Square.

The W Hotel Union Square is up for sale after owner Host Hotels & Resorts retained Eastdil Secured to market the 20-story property at 201 Park Avenue South. The brokerage is pitching the 205,00-square-foot, Beaux-Arts style building as a possible residential conversion opportunity, per marketing materials. The 270-room hotel, located on the corner of East 17th Street just north of Union Square, includes 26 guest suites. Bethesda, Md.-based Host Hotels acquired the property in September 2010 for more than $185 million, according to the New York Observer. The building was renovated and reopened in 2000 and houses two dining establishments – the Irvington restaurant and the W Living Room bar and lounge – operated by Scott Gerber’s Gerber Group. The hotel also includes 6,600 square feet of meeting space, a fitness center and a business center.