Lastest New School Construction Update

Amazing. The 10-foot-tall golden horse that will serve as decor in the upcoming PF Chang’s on University is still cooling its heels outside after more than six weeks. Why don’t they move it inside?

The neighborhood is more fun now that crazy chef Eddie Huang’s Baohaus 2 is open on 14th between 2nd and 3rd. A bao is a little Chinese sandwich usually stuffed with some kind of pork. The inventive and very funny Huang, who has Taiwanese roots, is making many variations on the theme, plus coming up with all kinds of other funky Chinese home cooking. Check it out.

Here is a photo of 5th Avenue looking north at 14th St. sometime in the 1940s. Note that 5th Avenue was a two-way street at the time.

The Center for Jewish Society, at 15 East 16th St., will be presenting a very special exhibit, beginning on January 27th.

For the first time in history, the Anne Frank House will present a pioneering experience outside of Amsterdam to immerse visitors in a full-scale recreation of the Annex, where Anne Frank, her parents and sister, and four other Jewish inhabitants spent two years hiding to evade Nazi capture.

Anne Frank The Exhibition gives visitors of all ages the chance to learn about Anne Frank, not as a victim but through the multifaceted lens of her life—as a girl, a writer, and a symbol of resilience and strength. More than 100 original collection items from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, including several never-before-exhibited artifacts, help to convey the context that shaped Anne’s life, death and posthumous fame. Her diary is one of the most translated books in the world.

Order tickets here. 

Cars will mostly be banned from 14th Street starting July 1 as the city launches a busway to help speed up traffic on the busy Manhattan thoroughfare, DOT announced Monday.

Private through traffic will be banned between Third and Ninth avenues from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily to accommodate the pilot busway during reconstruction work on the L train’s Canarsie tunnel. Cars will still be able to make pick-ups, drop-offs, and access area garages on the street during the pilot, according to DOT.

In April, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that buses, trucks, and emergency vehicles would be given priority on the stretch of road—the same span that had been pitched for a busway under the original L train shutdown mitigation plan but was thrown up in the air after Gov. Andrew Cuomo suddenly swapped plans to repair the Hurricane Sandy-damaged tunnel. But the city had yet to unveil a launch date or hours of operation for the pilot busway until now.

“The 14th Street busway is great news for transit riders and neighborhood residents,” said Danny Pearlstein, the Riders Alliance policy and communications director. “By ensuring fast, reliable transit starting July 1, the busway will provide an excellent alternative to jam-packed L trains and expensive, inefficient car trips.”

To enforce the busway, new cameras on the buses will issue tickets to those violating the street’s new restrictions. But drivers will be given warnings and tickets will not be issued until at least September, according to the DOT.

The busway’s July 1 launch will also be accompanied by the MTA’s new M14 select bus service that will replace the current M14A and M14D routes and nix 16 existing stops—that’s down from 22 after public outcry over the slashed stops. Riders will have to swipe their MetroCards at machines lining the curb before boarding the new select bus service.