Do we really want former John Galt Corp. players working on 4 World Trade Center?
Regional Scaffolding and Hoisting Company, a contractor that was the focus of a criminal investigation into a 2007 fire at the Deutsche Bank building that resulted in the death of two firefighters (AND that remains under scrutiny for financial irregularities), is set to return to Ground Zero to work on the office tower at 4 World Trade Center.
According to The New York Times, documents filed with the city show that Regional Scaffolding was issued a permit two weeks ago to install a construction elevator at 4 WTC. And, yes, that means exactly what you think: A company being eyed for criminal negligence and fiscal shadiness has been rewarded with a prime gig at the office tower developer Larry A. Silverstein is constructing at the World Trade Center site.
Street spaces are coming! Street spaces are coming! (Flickr/nyctaxiphoto)
Fed up with the serious lack of parking spaces anywhere below Canal Street? Pretty soon you might — just might — have a reason to dance a jig and thank your lucky stars. The Department of Transportation (DOT) is looking to change street parking regulations in Lower Manhattan, beginning with Tribeca.
At a recent meeting of Tribeca’s Community Board 1, DOT spokeswoman Suchi Sanagavarapu announced the plans, admitting that the regulations governing street parking in Tribeca were devised when the area was an industrial and commercial hub… and do not reflect the neighborhood’s current residential state.
“Our regulations have definitely not kept up, and we’ve been hearing about it from the community for years now,†Sanagavarapu confessed. “There seems to be a mismatch in terms of what the current land uses are versus what the current parking regulations are.”
Pizza doesn’t grow on trees — but it does grow in a Battery Park City garden.
Being that this writer loves nothing more than Battery Park City and  pizza — the addition of a pizza garden has immediately increased the value of living here by about 1000%.
Better watch out Picasso, Pizzabola and Inatesso — Pizza may not grow on trees, but PS 276 has planted the seeds for an excellent idea.
So Congratulations PS 276 for thinking outside the pizza box and into the pizza garden. Today we declare you our first official “Neighbor of the Day!”
Andaz offers a farm-fresh new take on hotel amenities.
It used to be that a complimentary continental breakfast was the pinnacle of a hotel’s amenities. But in a time when 42-inch HD flat-panel TVs, iPod docks and free wireless Internet are considered the norm, hotels can be hard-pressed to impress.
Not so with the Andaz Wall Street Hotel, which (as its names suggests) is located on Wall Street and (as its name does not suggest) will be knocking the socks off its guests (as well as anyone else who wants to come) with a farmers market to be held on its premises every Saturday from July 10 through Nov. 20.
Subway Sandwich Trailer in World Trade Center site.
If you live or work within a 1 mile radius, you might not have a difficult time procuring a $5 dollar footlong.
Now for those who work at the World Trade Center, they won’t either as workers have called a new Subway trailer their lunch home a top the construction site.
It’s a far cry from a PB&J and thermos, but it’s a close meatball hero. Who doesn’t like the smell of fresh baked bread at the office?
David Paterson doesn’t like ineptitude. In fact, he abhors it so much that he’s going to go ahead and gut the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. (LMDC) this summer.
According to the New York Post, Gov. Paterson will slash the 35-person staff — which reaps a combined annual salary of around $3 million — down to a crew of just five. The reason for this drastic measure: The LMDC hasn’t doled out $540 million of the $3 billion in federal funds it was created to dispense, and it has yet to carry out one of its primary duties, the demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building.
The LMDC’s critics, which not so shockingly include one of its own board members, say the corporation has devolved into a money-sucking bureaucracy with only one goal in mind: to justify its own preservation.
Gov. Paterson hopes that this slash-and-burn will jolt the corporation into action, compelling those still left standing after the shakeup to put the remaining Congress-allocated cash to good use in the rejuvenation of Lower Manhattan. This includes paying off cost overruns of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, funding a planned performing-arts center, and giving money to non-profit groups and small businesses.
In fact, the LMDC still has $4 million in its coffers that is supposed to be dispensed in $25,000 increments as grants to local small businesses. And, according to a recent Community Board 1 survey, a whopping 66 percent of local small business owners didn’t even know they were eligible for these grants.
Sounds like the LMDC still has a whole lot of work to do — and pretty soon it’ll have 30 fewer people to do it.
C'mon, how can anyone resist an invitation that looks like this?
If you’re cruising down the East River at sunset on a luxury yacht while sipping a cocktail, you must be some sort of celebrity or rich investment banker, right? Not necessarily. In fact, you could just be a really great person with a soft spot for homeless animals.
On Tuesday, June 22, Friends of Animal Rescue (FOAR) is hosting a charity sunset cruise from 7-10 PM aboard the beautiful 145-ft. luxury Atlantis yacht. The cruise boards at the Water Club (East River at 30th Street) and offers attendees, cocktails, a buffet dinner, a silent auction, breathtaking views… and peace of mind in knowing that their good time benefits a good cause: pets in need of a little shelter and a lot of love. And it’s all for the bargain price of $100 per ticket (in advance; tickets on the boat are $120) — not a bad deal considering how much peace of mind goes for on the black market these days.
There are 1,000 free reasons to stick around NYC this summer.
It might not be evident by the mass exodus that occurs during the weekends, but New York City is a wonderful place to be during the summer.
Case in point: The 2010 River to River Festival — which celebrates music, film, theater, dance, art, poetry and, of course, family with a summer full of free events –Â kicks off with a massive 100-band punk music festival on Randall’s Island next Sunday, June 20. Don’t worry if punk’s not your bag, though. There’s plenty on the American Express-sponsored festival’s agenda to please an array of age groups, interests and cultural tastes.
For non-punk music lovers, there are a cornucopia of concert options, including a gratis show from singer-songwriter Beth Orton (June 30), a live blues performance by John Hammond and his band (July 1), and countless others.
Film buffs should be happy to hear that beginning on July 29, the festival is screening classic New York films every Thursday at 55 Water Street, as part of a “Movie Nights on the Elevated Acre” series. The flicks include Broadway Danny Rose (July 29), Auntie Mame (Aug. 5) and, for the kids, The Muppets Take Manhattan (Aug. 19).
Theater aficionados will swoon over “Summer Stock 2010: An Evening of Broadway Blockbusters,” a 70-minute show featuring some of the biggest Broadway musical hits of all time.
Dance enthusiasts will dig a free performance by the Rochester City ballet (July 10), as well as a series of performances directed by renowned choreographer Deganit Shemy (July 12-15).
And for families there’s the Children’s Festival & Fireworks on July 26.
There are also a ton of events we haven’t mentioned, but it’d take way too long to list them all. So please forgive our summer-induced laziness, and get more info and a complete itinerary of this summer’s free events at the River to River Festival official site.
A few years from now, New York University students may be calling the World Trade Center’s Tower 5 their “dorm.”
That’s right, according to the New York Post, NYU officials are eying the yet-to-be-built tower as part of an ambitious 20-year plan to expand by a whopping 40 percent, adding 6 million square feet of housing, classrooms and administrative space in the process. Around half of that behemoth square footage will likely be added in the school’s current Greenwich Village neighborhood, but space constraints in the area have forced NYU to look elsewhere for the rest of the expansion. That’s where the WTC and Lower Manhattan figure in to the plan.
Anyone who has strolled through the World Financial Plaza might have noticed a few things recently. A big ol’ country house built smack in the middle of the esplanade, a glass encased metal contraption that has something to do with the weather, and not just one — but two new food stands on the upper level of the plaza.
The trend seemed to have started last year, when Merchants opened up a satellite BBQ stand on the plaza. The food was ambitious — filling in a gap for smokey bbq that doesn’t quite exist on this side of the highway. BBQ is not the easiest thing to cook up or serve to transient tourists and button down banker crowds. This year, they decided to forgo their spitfire aspirations and flip things up with a “quality burger.” Merchants has seemed to monopolize the majority of eateries this side of Broadway owning Merchants, Southwest, the newly acquired Steamers Landing and now Quality Burger.
So I was quite surprised to see standing right next to the expected Merchants fare — Ed’s Lobster Bar. One might plausibly expect that it’s just another Merchants restaurant, but this is not the case. Bringing their claws out on the plaza, Ed’s Lobster Bar serves up an easy to eat, summery and refreshing lobster roll. Some other sandwich offerings are a Grilled Shrimp Po’ Boy, Peekytoe Crab Roll, Tuna Roll and a Soft Shell Sandwich.
The average price for a meal is around $20. Which is not cheap, but unlike the impersonal burger conveyor belt service served at Quality Burger — customer service at the Lobster Bar is exceptional. Case and point, after arriving just before closing at 7pm– they stayed open long enough to receive a few late coming customers. After running out of grilled corn on the cob, they were able to procure a few stalks and offered them up to a patron for free. They were communicative towards the time it would take to grill shrimp skewers and lobster roll — all with a friendly smile and that it was no problem to stay open later than they needed to. Making the meal taste that much better.
So with open hearts and stomachs, we whole heartedly welcome Ed’s Lobster Bar to the neighborhood.
