Coming Soon: Voodoo Doughnuts

It looks like a crepe joint called Vive Le Crepe will open on University near 13th in a former day spa. It joins an upcoming falafel place and the glam Italian place to come on the corner. That’s three chains filling spaces formerly operated by three local businesses. Times change.

The W Hotel Union Square is up for sale after owner Host Hotels & Resorts retained Eastdil Secured to market the 20-story property at 201 Park Avenue South. The brokerage is pitching the 205,00-square-foot, Beaux-Arts style building as a possible residential conversion opportunity, per marketing materials. The 270-room hotel, located on the corner of East 17th Street just north of Union Square, includes 26 guest suites. Bethesda, Md.-based Host Hotels acquired the property in September 2010 for more than $185 million, according to the New York Observer. The building was renovated and reopened in 2000 and houses two dining establishments – the Irvington restaurant and the W Living Room bar and lounge – operated by Scott Gerber’s Gerber Group. The hotel also includes 6,600 square feet of meeting space, a fitness center and a business center.

Wondering how CitiBikes are deployed around town at this very moment. This cool interactive map has live data. See it here. And you can even see how other bike share programs around the world are doing too.

DOB has granted our request to start placing our concrete at 6am, which will allow us to finish this work earlier in the evening. We have 3 more instances like this until we finish our superstructure in early June. Friday, May 4 we will have a pour at the 16th floor with a 6am start time and similar end dime, weather permitting.

Therefore, next week (May 7 to May 11), Superstructure work will continue at the 17th floor level. Deliveries for the internal systems of the building have been ongoing and will continue, although they should not greatly affect the flow of pedestrian and road traffic.

The following week (May 14 to May 18), we will continue superstructure concrete and slabs on the 17th floor and roof levels. Deliveries for the internal systems of the building have been ongoing and will continue, although they should not greatly affect the flow of pedestrian and road traffic.

This weekend the site will be open on Saturday, May 5th for superstructure related activities between the work hours of 7AM and 5PM as permitted by the City. To control noise levels within the site, work activities will be limited to the placement of formwork and concrete, plumbing and electrical work, rebar for concrete placement, using 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. In addition to the normal work on the job site, we will have an additional crane on site at 5th ave. to install the stair trusses on the west side of the building. The crane will be completely on site and should not interfere with pedestrian or automotive traffic in the area.

Zappos — the Amazon-owned online shoe retailer — appears to be launching a brick-and-mortar location.

Zappos has leased the three-level, roughly 16,000-square-foot corner of 19 Union Square West at 15th Street that was previously home to American Eagle and its concept-store spinoff, AE Studio.

This remarkable photo looks west on 14th St. from Union Square in 1898. Isn’t it amazing how many buildings, including our own, still stand? The Lincoln statue is now inside the park.