Now Open: Il Laboritorio del Gelato
Weird that Il Laboritorio del Gelato has chosen to open at 56 University Place on the corner of 10th Street, directly across from Amorino, but so it goes.
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A Refresher Course on the Metronome Wall Art
from Gothamist.comThe Metronome, the hulking piece of public art omnisciently keeping time in Union Square, has been an object of both fascination and derision for twenty years. The work is meant to be a rumination on time and rituals, and features a massive rock, a whirring digital clock that means wildly different things depending on who you ask, and a hand from Union Square’s own equestrian statue of George Washington that points to its history.
Yet something seems to be off about the Metronome. As a tipster pointed out to Gothamist, the steam that was supposed to emerge from the center of the piece hasn’t worked in ages, it doesn’t seem to have been maintained in a while, and even its website is defunct.
That might be because the Metronome wasn’t ever finished, as Kristin Jones, the artist who created the piece along with Andrew Ginzel, tells Gothamist. It was always meant to be more than be a “gaping hole,” “void,” or “smoldering anus,” as it’s been called before. Jones says that the “dismissive and inadequate” upkeep from The Related Companies (the real estate company that owns the property) means the Metronome has never looked, or kept time, as they intended it to.
According to Jones, the piece, a nod to European clocks’ different mechanisms for telling time, originally was going to emit steam twice daily (at noon and midnight) along with bursts of sound. It barely has, if ever. She also notes that in spite of “periodic upgrades” to the numeral display, the clock was “never correct in the first place,” especially because the artists never saw it before it went up and it never had the flexible software it needed.
Jones knows that people seem baffled about what the numbers represent: They don’t, say, represent the national debt or the time left until the Earth implodes, and it is indeed a clock meant to be read left to right. (The left half, at least, which displays the time since midnight. The right half, which shows the time remaining until midnight, should be read right to left.)
Curiously, the Metronome, steam and all, is prominently displayed on Related Rentals’ website, currently hawking one-bedroom apartments at the Union Square locale for a starting price north of $5,500 monthly rent. (“Live Luxuriously in a Work of Art,” it reads.) Related did not reply to Gothamist’s request for comment.
The Metronome came about when Related approached the Municipal Art Fund in 1995, as The New York Times reported, about what to do with the building’s wall space. Eventually Related and the Public Art Fund held a competition where artists submitted proposals for the wall. Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel ended up getting the commission, and in 1999 the Metronome first began ticking along at Union Square.
Since then, the artists say, they haven’t had input, or knowledge, as to how the artwork is being maintained, if at all. Jones says she’d personally rather see the Metronome be torn down instead of continue in its current state. “Since they don’t [correspond with us] I’m not interested in seeing the light bulb in the hole where there’s no steam,” Jones says. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Stephen Ross, the billionaire developer and chairman of Related, is responsible for Hudson Yards’ Vessel, the wastebasket-like stairway to…somewhere that owns your photos. Ross hasn’t been shy about his distaste for the piece Related had a hand in creating at One Union Square South. “It was a disaster,” he told The New Yorker last year. “That thing where the smoke comes out? Whatever the hell it is.”
“Union Square South was and is a machine for enrichment, as is so much of real estate development today often without sincere civic vision,” Jones and Ginzel wrote in a statement. “Witness Hudson Yards. If Mr. Ross maintains ‘The Vessel’ as he has Metronome, pity the public who must contend.”
14th St. Busway Arrives on July 1
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.
Sweetgreen Will Land on University Place
Sweetgreen, the expensive high-end organic salad bar place, will arrive in the vacant space on University Place between 12th and 13th St. Kale for everyone.
