A Proposal for Significant Enhancements Around the Edges of Union Square

The corner of 4th Ave. and 13th St. is vacant once again.

The Observer reports:

 

Richard Cantor, a principle in the real estate marketing firm of Cantor-Pecorella, considers that the best of Village life consists of “very luxurious” apartments that incorporate the “open expanse” of loft-style living with the communal intimacy of townhouse residency. How serendipitous that Mr. Cantor’s firm should happen to be marketing the new(ish) eight-unit development at 12 East 13th Street co-engineered by DHA Capital and Continental Properties, which, he recently told the Observer, evinces just these same qualities! You know what they say, it’s always easier to sell a product that you truly believe in.

Certain longtime denizens of the Village, of course, would no-doubt quarrel with the tenets of Mr. Cantor’s appraisal, but his luck on East 13th Street has been pretty good so far. He reports that the development has made its first sale, of the full-floor Residence #4, which, he said, went for just shy of its $11.25 million asking price. The buyers, he said, were a young-ish family already living in the area and pleased indeed to find a place of this size–four bedrooms, 4,816 square feet–so near the heart of the neighborhood. The patriarch, naturally, is in finance.

But surely it was not size alone that lured the new owners; there is also, for example, the very luxurious open expanse of the condo’s townhouse-like intimacy to consider. The building, which was converted from a parking garage, retains a trace of automotive functionality, offering private parking spaces gratis for residents via a state-of-the-art robotic system. More creaturely comforts include high ceilings and big windows for plentiful light and air, custom Italian cabinetry, and bathrooms with generous portions of slab marble and Italian limestone.

Mr. Cantor said that he expects several more closures in the coming weeks, and occupancy no later than this summer. But for all you big spenders out there, the glass-sheathed triplex penthouse, we were given to understand, remains available. All you need to move in is $30.5 million, which seems eminently reasonable, for the very best of Village living.

Read more at http://observer.com/2015/03/best-of-the-village-garage-to-condo-development-notches-first-sale-around-11-25m/#ixzz3UYu20ZHe

Patisserie Fouet on 13th St. is gone, and now we know what will be next in the space:

After more than a decade serving noodles at Smorgasburg and two years running Noodle Lane in Park Slope, Lane Li and Chris Wang are opening the 40-seat bistro Rulin. The specialty will be Chinese knife-shaved and hand-pulled noodles — like dan dan mian with pork, Sichuan vegetables, and scallions — and a signature “Rulin” noodle served with mustard greens and chicken broth.

Did you know that 5.7% of NYC’s residential waste is textiles, yet they are 100% recyclable? Recycle your unwanted textile materials at the Union Square Greenmarket every Monday, 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. Acceptable donations include used clothing, shoes, boots, hats, jackets, towels, bedding, and linens. Council on the Environment of New York City will provide receipts upon request for those who may want to use their donation as a charitable contribution. Visit www.cenyc.org to obtain up to date information on the status of the Material Mondays textile collection program. Now Saturdays too!

DNAinfo reports:

 

The streets around Union Square will get a set of new protected bicycle lanes this summer in an effort to fill holes in the neighborhood’s bike network, according to the Department of Transportation. 

The DOT will install a new protected bike lane going north along Fourth Avenue, a protected two-way lane on 17th Street between Union Square East and Sixth Avenue, and a series of unprotected lanes on East 15th and East 16th streets that will allow bikers easier travel between Union Square and the east side, according to Ted Wright, director of the agency’s Bikes and Greenway Program.

The new Fourth Avenue lane will be installed on the west side of the street, allowing cyclists to turn left at East 17th Street without having to leave their bike route or cross lanes of traffic, according to the proposal.

As the bike network currently exists, bikers have a protected lane on Fourth Avenue until 12th Street, where the lane loses its buffer and ends at East 14th Street. The new lanes will extend the protected lane with a buffer of flexible bollards until 15th Street, where an unprotected lane will continue north on Union Square East and connect with the new two-way protected lane at East 17th Street, according to the DOT.

The crosstown lanes, meanwhile, will help cyclists access northbound and southbound protected lanes on First and Second avenues, as well as a new protected northbound lane on Sixth Avenue, which the DOT is set to install this summer as well.

The agency’s goal is to have the lanes completed this summer, according to Wright, speaking at a Community Board 5 Transportation and Environment Committee meeting on Monday.

“That’s how we like to do it, quick and dirty,” he said.

In addition, patching up holes in Union Square’s bike lane network will help calm traffic and give cyclists more options to access other parts of the city’s maze of bike routes, but pedestrians will also benefit from the narrower roadways, Wright said.

“Protected bike lanes do make streets safer,” he said. “We see pedestrian injuries go way down with these kinds of projects.”

There was a 15 percent drop in pedestrian injuries along Second Avenue between 14th and 34th streets from 2010, when a protected bike lane was installed, until 2015, according to NYPD crash data.

Community Board 5 Transportation Committee voted on Monday to recommend approving the DOT’s plan, which was long in the making, according to board member Nancy Aber Goshow.

“We’ve been asking for something like this for a decade,” she said.

Still, some members, including Goshow, raised concerns that the plan could add to traffic problems on 17th Street, where they said a construction site and a bus pick-up zone for the Shield Institute, a school for students with developmental difficulties, regularly snarls traffic.

“Have you thought about how this could complicate traffic on East 17th Street?” Goshow asked. “It’s already a very congested street.”

15 Union Square West is how home to a very fancy yoga boutique. Your downward dog has never looked so good.