The Good Ol’ Days: Lower Manhattan

Curious to see what our block looked like 400 years ago. Check in at the Mannahatta Project, search for our address, and you’ll discover that as you might guess, it was covered with trees. There was also a lovely little river running north to south between 5th and 6th Ave.

Thanks to Charles Stimson we are gifted with six more images of yesteryear. This one shows the east side of Fifth Ave. at 13th St. See Schrafft’s on the corner, which is now the burned out deli? Remember that you can double click on all these images to get a much closer look at some of the detail. The views of 14th St. are especially interesting. The trucks, the signs, the decorative cornices, including the one on our building . Enjoy.

New near Union Square, SONA reimagines the wonders of Indian fare in a space that evokes a bygone era of a boisterous yet elegant India—all within the heart of New York City. Visit at 36 East 20th St.

Yesterday at 4PM, an attendant in the parking garage on 13th across from our building put an SUV into reverse by accident and drove it out a sixth floor window. The NY Post has all the details plus video. Click here.

Nom!, whatever that is, has signage up at University and 11th at the former site of Whitney Chemists. One can assume it will provide food of some sort, but no other details are available yet.

The Real Deal reports:

Beauty brand NYX Cosmetics signed a lease for a new store on Union Square West, a 2,800-square-foot space on the ground floor of Brause Realty’s 75,000-square-foot commercial building at 41 Union Square West, at the corner of East 17th Street. The lease was signed earlier this month. It’s where Starbucks was before it moved.

The youth-focused chain chose a location close to New York University and nestled among a concentration of cosmetics stores ringing Union Square, including Fresh, Bluemercury and Sephora, each within a block of the new location. On the south side of Union Square, Estee Lauder’s MAC inked a lease at the Feil Organization’s 853 Broadway two years ago.