Seen & Heard: Le District’s Full Opening Appears to Be Delayed

••• I hear that only a small part of Le District is probably opening tomorrow. One certainly sympathizes—the complexity of the place, as you’ll soon see, is enormous. More as I learn it. UPDATE: Yep, only a small part at the front is open—but it include the Beaubourg restaurant, now open for lunch, drinks, and dinner seven days a week.

••• I stopped by the Jungwon pop-up at 49 Warren the other day. Nice looking raincoats! There’s a sale rack, too. (That’s not it pictured.) The shop will be around six months, maybe a year.

Jungwon coats••• If you read the Duane Reade closing post right when it came out, you may have missed the update that followed soon after: A reader hears that Modell’s sporting goods store is moving into the space. Let’s hope Modell’s can make this one less trashy.

••• Boomerang Toys has hidden an egg in Tribeca, and the person who finds it and brings it in to the store gets a Zippy Skateboard. Oh, there’s a hint: “Hopefully the lion’s roar won’t scare the Easter Bunny away.” (If that makes you think you know it, please keep your guess to yourself, eh?) And the store will post more clues daily on Facebook and Instagram.

••• The Municipal Art Society has a new tour, “Traces of the Underground Railroad in Tribeca,” on April 9:

From Frederick Douglass to David Ruggles to Sojourner Truth, the stories of resistance to the slave system in the North and South are tied to downtown Manhattan. Tribeca is little known as the cradle of early black leadership, but its network of vigilance committees, publications, church activists and escaped slaves formed an early society dedicated to defying oppressive laws and racist ideas. Join this new tour with historian Kathleen Hulser to learn more about this neighborhood’s important history as she points out still-standing sites and buildings integral to this story and the Underground Railroad in New York City.

••• Excited to try my Good Stock soups! (Tomato, and potato and leek.)

Good Stock soups••• The 29-story Hotel Indigo being built at 8 Maiden Lane is on tomorrow’s CB1 FiDi agenda in part because of this: “The 240-foot-high upper section of the façade does double-duty as both the building’s face and as a clock, with each floor representing an hour. As the day progresses, the floors light up successively until, at midnight, the entire upper section is sheathed in light, which is then extinguished as the process begins anew.” (From Real Estate Weekly.) Full light at midnight, eh? If I lived nearby, I would have some input for the developer. (You almost have to admire architect Gene Kaufman’s ability to find new ways to achieve crapitude.) The meeting is at 6 p.m. on Wednesday at 49-51 Chambers, 7th floor; bring ID.

8 Maiden Lane Hotel Indigo rendering

 

3 Comments

  1. I actually don’t believe there are any residential buildings directly across the street so I don’t see a problem with this and I applaud them for doing something different and paying homage to this area’s history as a mini jewelry district back in the day. I’ll let you know how the meeting goes tomorrow. :-)

  2. I stand corrected! I passed by the site earlier this evening and there definitely IS a residential building across the street that I had never noticed before. We’ll see what the hotel has planned when they make their presentation tomorrow night.

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