Robotic Parking Revealed

Right across the street and down one block from the popular Unregular Pizza, you’ll now find Unregular Bakery at 4th Ave. and 12th St. in the former location of that place that sold pizza by the inch for years.

Expect slightly weird variations on usual bakery favorites.

An urban planner who has been looking around for ways to make the city more pedestrian-friendly (and to open up more space for protesting) wrote “Union Square could be greatly enhanced by following through on a 2010 plan to pedestrianize Union Square West. Also pedestrianizing University Place would be a bold step that could link Union Square and Washington Square Park, merging two vital public spaces into a permanent platform for open expression.”

That would certainly change the neighborhood.

Next week (November 14 to November 18), 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. A street crane will be moved into position early on Wednesday the 11/16 on 13th street to place structural steel in the building and should be out by the end of the day, weather pending.

The following week (November 21 to November 25), we will continue superstructure concrete and slabs. Street utility connection work will continue. 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.

This weekend the site will be open on Saturday, November 12th for superstructure related activities between the work hours of 9AM and 5PM as permitted by the City. To control noise levels within the site, work activities will be limited to the placement of formwork, plumbing and electrical work, rebar for concrete placement and use of the crane and equipment to support all activities. Safety horns are used, and required by law, to coordinate lifting with the crane and to alert the workers of the danger overhead. We have directed the operators to limit the use of horns to one short sounding and to use the crane later in the day so as to avoid any excess noise.

As you know, the north end of the park is under heavy renovation, but the big question is what will become of the pavillion? For a while now, there has been discussion of handing it over to a restauranteur, but park boosters feel it should become a more public facility. As to the question of who that restauranteur might be, Danny Meyer of Union Square Cafe and many other great restaurants is a natural, especially since he has helped oversee the rebirth of Madison Square Park with his Shake Shack, but he says he’s not interested.

Ralph Lauren Denim and Supply, a fixture on the corner of University and 12th for the past few years, is done.