Zen Palate Is Back

Popeye’s and its famous chicken sandwich have landed on the corner of University Place and 14th St.

Earlier we reported that the decidedly low-midmarket Burlington Coat Factory, a leading national off-price retail chain, had announced it would open a new flagship store in the space formerly occupied by Filene’s on 14th St. Two months later, no sign of activity and no word when the store will actually arrive.

From the NY Times:

Barry Benepe, an urban planner who in 1976 conceived of inviting farmers to truck their ripe tomatoes, peppery arugula and fresh corn to forlorn patches of New York City, delivering bustling markets and excitement to the city along with flavorful and healthy food, died on Wednesday at his home in Saugerties, N.Y., in the Hudson Valley. He was 96.

New York’s popular Greenmarkets, the largest farmers’ market network in the country, helped start a national farm-to-table culinary movement. They are credited with saving thousands of acres of farmland in the region from development and reviving urban neighborhoods. Renowned chefs who discovered the bounties of fresh strawberries and zucchini blossoms were soon buying much of their seasonal produce from Greenmarket stalls.

Mr. Benepe (pronounced BEN-eh-pea) raised grant money and worked the city bureaucracy to organize the first market with a colleague, Robert A. Lewis, whose role was to recruit wary farmers. During a decade of high crime and urban decay in New York, farmers feared that whatever money they made would be boosted before they escaped the city.

Instead, the first Greenmarket — which kicked off in Manhattan in the summer of 1976 at East 59th Street and Second Avenue with a handful of upstate growers offering an open-air cornucopia — was an immediate success.

“It could not have been a better location,” between two popular department stores, Mr. Benepe recalled in a 2022 interview with On Hand, a foodie newsletter. “We were halfway between Bloomingdale’s and Alexander’s. We were in the passage between the two, so you had to stop.”

By contrast, the Union Square market — today the rock star of Greenmarkets — did not have a promising start. It opened later that year, but for weeks nobody came to visit the farmers who had set up in a park strewn with litter and known for drug sales. Mr. Benepe personally watered crab apple trees on the site.

The market went on to anchor a neighborhood rebirth that included Danny Meyer’s Union Square Café and a multiyear improvement plan by the Parks Department.

“We both loved the idea of the city benefiting from the revival of a European kind of lifestyle,” Mr. Lewis, whom Mr. Benepe hired in 1975 for his one-man planning firm, said in an interview. “He’d spent so much time in France and England. The daily shopping at the market. The fresh bread — this is Barry, a romantic.”

Next week (April 1 to April 5), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on all floors inside the building as well as roof work. We will be work on the new sidewalks around the building as well.

The following week (April 8 to April 12), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on all floors and roofs as well as sidewalk work. By then end of this week we plan to have the rest of the sidewalk on 14th street complete. Additionally we plan to begin removing the sidewalk shed along 5th ave.

This weekend the site will be open on Saturday, March 30th for interior, superstructure, sidewalk, and hoist removal related activities between the work hours of 7AM and 5PM as permitted by the City.

Here’s the official word on how the renovations are going:

Spring weather has brought with it a flurry of activity in Union Square Park, both in the new playground and at the construction site.  Parents and kids have been taking full advantage of the warm sunny days by swinging, climbing and sliding their way out of the winter doldrums.  The Partnership’s new landscape efforts, including more than 260 ornamental shrubs and 650 perennials, will soon be underway, as well as the creation of additional seating opportunities in the center lawn, in front of the new Pavilion entrance and around the James Fountain (a/k/a Mother & Child).

In construction news, structural work on the Pavilion columns and ceiling beams has finished at last, and the protective plywood barriers have been removed from the front of the building, exposing the beautifully restored neo-classical interior to passersby.  As the Pavilion elevator is installed and tested, interior lighting fixtures, gates and handrails round out the final touches of building restoration work.

Park visitors can soon make use of the restroom facilities as they, too, near completion.  Last week, eco-resin panels were mounted above the granite walls to enclose the building, allowing the final plumbing fixtures to be installed.  Once complete, the Parks Department will work closely with the Department of Buildings to inspect all systems in order to open the facilities for the busy summer season.