Unboxed

The neighborhood is more fun now that crazy chef Eddie Huang’s Baohaus 2 is open on 14th between 2nd and 3rd. A bao is a little Chinese sandwich usually stuffed with some kind of pork. The inventive and very funny Huang, who has Taiwanese roots, is making many variations on the theme, plus coming up with all kinds of other funky Chinese home cooking. Check it out.

From Metro:

The L train “slowdown” will come with bus priority on 14th Street after all.

The de Blasio administration will ban private through-traffic on 14th Street between Third and Ninth avenues as part of a new pilot street design to help speed up buses during the L train’s Canarsie tunnel reconstruction, according to a draft release of the plans obtained by amNewYork.

But the changes won’t come until June, more than a month after the subway rehabilitation work begins.

Under the city’s plans, the new stretch of 14th Street will consist of four lanes, two in each direction: the center lanes will be dedicated to bus and truck traffic, while the outer curbside lanes will be reserved for truck loading and local traffic looking to make pickups, drop-offs or to access garages along the block.

Private vehicles in these lanes will be required to turn right, off the street, at the next possible opportunity and left turns will be barred. The city, in the draft release, said it drew inspiration from the King Street project in Toronto, where similar vehicular restrictions were put in place to improve cripplingly slow streetcar service on the major city artery.

A City Hall spokesman did not immediately respond to questions on the draft plan and declined to confirm its details.

New M14 Select Bus Service will roll out with the street changes in June, along with additional painted pedestrian space at intersections. The city plans to use automated cameras to enforce the rules of the road.

The city Department of Transportation will conduct “significant outreach,” including to the five different community boards overlapping 14th Street, and will promote education campaigns for people who commute on the block, the draft release states. There doesn’t appear to be any space dedicated for parking in the plan.

The city also plans to announce that bike infrastructure projects on Manhattan’s 12th and 13th streets, as well as Grand Street in Brooklyn, will be made permanent. Grand Street’s protected bike lanes will be adjusted to add more loading zones and metered parking, and to “help accommodate the needs of industrial businesses along this section of the corridor,” according to the draft release.

Under the original plan, the city had pitched a bus-only corridor along 14th Street for 17 hours of the day, but from the outset, the DOT had assured that local pickups and drop-offs would be accommodated.

The city has been criticized for dragging its feet on the fate of 14th Street. The new design comes just days before L train tunnel reconstruction begins Friday evening. Advocates have long called for a dedicated busway on 14th Street to help alleviate potentially dangerous overcrowding at stations during the work, which will take place during nights and weekends for 15 to 18 months.

During the night-and-weekend work, the MTA will run three trains per hour, at 20-minute intervals, between the Bedford Avenue station and through Manhattan. That service schedule translates to an 80% reduction in trains at certain hours. The authority advised riders this week that they may not be able to even fit on the first trains rolling into their stations.

Exciting new for the neighborhood that proves that the 14th St. shareholders live in an important building: our neighbor at number 22, namely the Duane Reade building, has been landmarked by the city for its historical significance. This action protects it in perpetuity. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation gives us this historical background:

“The Baumann Brothers Furniture and Carpets Store was built in 1880-81 for James McCreery (1826- 1903), a well-known textiles merchant of Scottish descent. It was designed by the architectural firm of D. & J. Jardine, whose principals, David and John Jardine, were brothers also of Scottish birth. One of the more prominent, prolific, and versatile New York firms in the late-nineteenth century, D. & J. Jardine executed designs for a wide variety of building types, including a number of notable cast-iron fronts, in contemporary styles. The wide cast-iron front facade of the Baumann Brothers store is one of the firm’s and one of the city’s most inventive, unusual, and ornamental. Built toward the end of the heyday of cast-iron fronts in New York and the flourishing creativity in that material, the Baumann Brothers store is also a signal achievement of Aesthetic Movement design. An amalgam of ornamental influences, including neo-Classical, neo-Grec, and Queen Anne styles, is embraced to achieve a decorative overall composition. Another designed, though simpler, facade on 13th Street is clad in brick and stone with a cast-iron ground story. The building’s prime location was in the midst of Manhattan’s primary retail shopping district, which included 14th Street, Union Square, and Ladies’ Mile. From 1881 to 1897, it housed Baumann Brothers, a furniture-manufacturing company established c. 1870 by Albert and Ludwig Baumann, Bohemian Jewish immigrants. By 1884, the firm occupied the entire structure and billed itself as “the largest and most complete furnishing establishment in America.” A painted sign advertising Baumann Brothers is still visible on the building’s western wall. For eight decades, the ground story contained 5-10-and-25-cent stores, beginning with the fourth Woolworth store in Manhattan (1900-28), acclaimed at its opening “the largest ten-cent store in the world.” This space was later a store for F. & W. Grand, H.L. Green, and McCrory. The upper stories were leased for over eight decades for show rooms and manufacturing by various firms related to the textile and sporting goods industries, as well as a gymnasium and classrooms for the Delehanty Institute (1930-63), which trained candidates of the Police and Fire Departments. The building currently contains a drugstore, while the upper stories are used as an annex to the Parsons School of Design.”

Posters have announced that the successor to Le Midi restaurant at 9 East 13th St. will be Reyna, a middle-eastern bar/restaurant that currently has two locations in Toronto. From the menus and pictures (see photo of a Toronto location below), it seems fairly high-end and, one can hope, not too noisy or crazy. As part of a “good neighbor” effort, the bar will host an introductory Zoom call on OCTOBER 26 at 6PM. Here’s the link.

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86012416505?pwd=dGI0cEZ3eHRudWJ0TnJhTzVkSWFVZz09

The Union Square Partnership Business and Broker Report for the 1st quarter updates us on what’s new and pulsating in the neighborhood.

Union Square has started the year off on a high note with 10 new business openings and foot traffic recovering to 99% of 2019 levels, a 4% increase from the last quarter. Newcomers include a range of quick service eateries and high-profile sit down establishments, such as the new Coastal Indian
restaurant Kanyakumari from well-regarded Fungi Hospitality. Popular mattress retailer Saatva joined the established home goods corridor on Broadway, and Sweet Cats Cafe brings more family-friendly entertainment to the neighborhood.

Here’s a guide from the Union Square Partnership.