Expanded pedestrian space and more cycling lanes are central to a planned redesign of Manhattan’s Broadway between E. 17th and E. 21st streets, city officials announced on Monday.
The changes are subject to public outreach — but Department of Transportation officials said they could mimic a change to other areas of Broadway between Union Square and E. 50th Street, where crews in recent years have added more pedestrian plazas, outdoor dining space and wider crosswalks designed to keep pedestrians safe from crashes.
DOT officials also said they’re considering adding a two-way bike lane between E. 17th and E. 21st streets, which already has a one-way southbound lane for cyclists.
The city earlier this year completed an overhaul of Broadway between E. 25th and E. 32nd streets, adding more space for pedestrians, another two-way bike lane and other infrastructure designed to make motorists drive slower.
“This next phase of Broadway Vision will provide the same kind of vibrant public spaces connecting Union Square and Flatiron, just like our administration is doing with incredible success across the entire city,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement.
The latest planned improvements are just north of Union Square — and just south of where a taxi driver jumped a sidewalk last year, sending several pedestrians to the hospital.
Now baking at 64 University Place is Papa d’Amour, the new bakery from celebrated pastry master Dominique Ansel. It’s gonna be fancy. Here’s New York magazine’s take:
On a recent afternoon inside the kitchen that will open as Papa d’Amour later this month, the pastry chef Dominique Ansel was holding a spoonful of tomato-tinted scrambled eggs for the consideration of his wife, Amy Ma. “White pepper,” she said after trying it. “That’s not a bad thing.” She explained that Ansel will add vermicelli to the eggs to soak up any excess moisture so the mixture can then be stuffed inside a soft, steamed bao bun, which — because this is from the same chef who invented the Cronut all those years ago — will be folded in the shape of a croissant.
A single pastry that manages to reference a dim-sum staple, French patisserie, and the tomato-egg stir-fry that Ma’s mother cooked for her at home in Taiwan is but one of the many complex, globally collaged items on the menu of Papa d’Amour, which is Ansel’s “exploration” of Asian bread culture, as he puts it. More than that, it is a manifestation of love for his two children (the enfants to his papa) where customers will be able to find loaves of shokupan and sandwiches made on that Japanese milk bread (plain or laminated); pretzel-salt-crusted Chinese custard tarts; and a banana bread Malay cake derived not from the humble American home-baking staple but of Malaysia’s more elegant, fluffy, steamed sponge cake.
The Papa is particularly excited about a scallion-basil “blossom,” which, you’d never guess unless he told you, is his take on a Taiwanese scallion pancake. “I wanted something I can pull apart,” he says. He’d seen the way the pancake’s dough is fluffed by hand to give it a flaky, almost shredded surface and a chewy middle and wanted to come up with something that mimics that interplay. He was trained in France, so his mind went to two kinds of brioche: a regular version to encase the scallion component in the middle and a laminated, layered crown to encourage ripping.
P.F. Chang’s has finally opened on the corner of University and 13th, golden horse included. However, Eater.com hates it. A lot.
Now at 51 University Place:
“The Hemp Philosophy was founded in New York City by Jack Scaba. Like many of our customers, his team came across hemp while looking for alternative solutions to ailments. What they found was a need for quality hemp that was more accessible. Thus, The Hemp Philosophy was born. Since then, this philosophy has defined the new standard for premium quality hemp products.”
What might be next in the Virgin Megastore space? The New York Post has these rumors:
RELATED Cos. is negotiating with several tenants at One Union Square South for the Virgin Megastore space, sources said. The chain, which was purchased by Related and Vornado Realty Trust in 2007, is closing the store in late May or early June. All US-based Virgin Megastores are due to shut down by the summer.
Related controls the Union Square outlet, while Vornado handles the one in Times Square, which is closing in April to make way for Forever 21, the retailer that signed a megadeal for 100,000 square feet. The two real-estate giants licensed the then 11-unit Virgin chain precisely so they’d be able to control the retail in their buildings.
Sources said the asking rent in Union Square has recently dropped to $15 million per year from $25 million. According to its CoStar Group flyers, Winick Realty is seeking $700 a foot for the 26,000-foot ground floor and $150 a foot for the 31,035-foot lower level. One Union Square South, at 52 E. 14th St., includes the hulking Metronome artwork on the lower north side of the luxury apartment tower that rises from the retail base. Some of the prospective tenants include CVS and Best Buy, which has its eye on the Circuit City space now being controlled by the bankruptcy court.
Last fall, Related signed a letter of intent with Nordstrom Rack for about 40,000 feet. But Nordstrom in the end was reportedly loath to bring its off-price success story into the Big Apple before it snagged an A-plus site for the upscale department store flagship and nixed the Union Square opening. A Nordstrom spokeswoman said, “We will keep looking for a great spot to serve our customers.”
There is also talk that Forever 21 might jump from Vornado’s Whole Foods building at 40-48 E. 14th St., which also hosts Filene’s Basement, and expand into 19,200 feet at One Union Square. The Forever 21 store, which opened right after 9/11, has seven years left on its deal. But a buyout doesn’t make sense in the current economic climate.
Now open on University after a very long delay: Simo, authentic pizza from the south of Italy.
