••• “Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday he believes the 9/11 sphere should remain in Battery Park.” —DNAinfo

••• “Still no news on where the Port Authority plans to move the WTC Sphere but according to the Staten Island Advance, Staten Island Borough President James. P. Molinaro is lobbying for WTC Sphere to be moved to Staten Island Sept. 11 Memorial.” —Tribeca Trib

••• “After months of delays and millions of dollars in cost overruns, workers are making progress on repairing the landmarked 126-year-old [Pier A] at Lower Manhattan’s tip and will finish by the end of the year, Gayle Horwitz, president of the Battery Park City Authority, said Monday. The authority will then turn the pier over to a team of developers, including the Poulakakos family, to open an $18 million oyster bar and catering hall there. The new three-story bar and restaurant, along with a tourist information center and a new public plaza, is scheduled to open in the summer or early fall of 2013.” —DNAinfo

••• VE Equities will break ground soon on 11 N. Moore (at Varick), first written about here. “The company has once again tapped Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Eklund Gomes team, headed by Fredrik Eklund and John Gomes.” —The Real Deal

••• “The high-spending husband of beautiful socialite Annie Churchill was hauled off to jail this morning for stealing $590,000 from three of her rich investor pals via his bogus ‘virtual reality shopping mall’ Web site. Andrew Albert, 50, conned his wife’s pals for cash back in 2008, then spent the next two years blowing the money on fancy meals, clothes and renovations for the couple’s new Tribeca loft.” —New York Post

••• “Operation Sail is coming back to New York City this morning to commemorate the oft-forgotten War of 1812, which Henry Adams considered America’s second revolution. The bicentennial of the war will be marked by free boat tours and two parades: The Parade of Sail features an international array of 17 tall ships, and the Military Parade of Sail includes ten warships, plus military aircraft.” —Broadsheet

••• “Facing orders from the Department of Education, [P.S. 276] Principal Terri Ruyter will open a fifth kindergarten class that all but eliminates the kindergarten waitlist but creates future crowding concerns. ” —Tribeca Trib

••• “Law enforcement officials are searching for one person they say is responsible for mailing 380 suspicious envelopes to elementary, middle and high schools, as well as government offices and other institutions across the U.S., the FBI announced Wednesday. Two elite lower Manhattan schools [including P.S. 234], which received envelopes containing white powder last Thursday, May 10, were among those terrorized by the mysterious substance sent out last week with a North Texas postmark. [...] They believe the suspect is likely to be a male who may not demonstrate a mastery of formal English. The suspect is also likely to be over the age of 30 and perceived by others as odd or eccentric.” You think? —DNAinfo

••• “Meg Ryan’s downtown home hunt continues. She was spotted this week at 153 Franklin St., the infamous Tribeca townhouse where [...] disgraced former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn lived while under house arrest after being accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid.” —New York Post

••• “Parents at the Spruce Street School are demanding pedestrian safety improvements in the wake of a crash that killed a UPS worker across the street last month.” —DNAinfo

••• “The questions came fast and furious but the answers were frustratingly few in a meeting with school officials over what lies ahead in September for children on kindergarten waitlists.” In other news, the world continues to turn. —Tribeca Trib

••• Those three buildings the city wants to sell (22 Reade, 346 Broadway, and 49-51 Chambers) have been deemed unsuitable for schools. —Downtown Express

••• “In the last few days, three little cottages have appeared at the base of the World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan, like a rural-themed mirage. The installation is for Country Living’s semiregular House of the Year.” —New York Times

••• “After just a few months at the restaurant, Atera‘s Wine Director Alex LaPratt announced yesterday that he will no longer oversee the restaurant’s deep and ambitious wine list.” —Eater

••• Bruce David Martin of Reade Street Animal Hospital was the subject of this week’s “The Hunt” column in the New York Times‘s real estate section.

••• “Goya Foods began when Prudencio and Carolina Unanue, two Spanish immigrants living in Puerto Rico, decided to seek a better future in New York in the early 1930s. They opened a ‘mom and pop’ food shop serving Hispanics in Manhattan’s Tribeca section and later acquired the Goya brand.” —Tampa Bay Online

••• A young woman stabbed her boyfriend at their FiDi apartment then tried to pass it off as if he had stabbed himself. —New York Post

••• The city released a map of proposed bike-share locations. I would’ve expected at least one on Greenwich between N. Moore and Murray. The Tribeca section is pictured; click to enlarge. (Click “map” above to see the whole map.) —New York Times

••• “Two elite Downtown schools received envelopes containing white powder Thursday afternoon [....] The mysterious substance was sent to P.S. 234 in TriBeCa and NEST+m on the Lower East Side, police and school officials said. Police later determined that the substance at both schools was non-toxic and investigators are trying to discover where the white powder came from.” —DNAinfo

••• Curbed on 50 Varick (between Laight and Beach), which is “in the process of going from a Tribeca Verizon building afterthought to a model-magnet photo studio with a roof top made to throw parties. The architects are Adjmi & Andreoli, who are turning the Verizon building at 50 Varick into a U.S. outpost for London-based Spring Studios. The renovated building will feature 11 studios photo, 9 green rooms, a signature restaurant, bar, an art gallery, a small movie theater, library, offices, 20,000 square foot roof green roof deck, lighting and equipment rental, and event spaces.”

••• Sarabeth Levine of Sarabeth’s Tribeca did Grub Street‘s “food diary.”

••• “Governors Island announced their summer series of events for 2012.” Repeat after me: Its, its, its. —DNAinfo

••• “At 3:20am on Wednesday morning, Maserati, the 70 foot race boat that had been visiting North Cove for more than a month, [...] officially began her pursuit of a new sailing speed record across the Atlantic.” —Broadsheet

••• “Meg Ryan is on an apartment search again, with her rocker boyfriend John Mellencamp.” What?! Nobody told me they were a couple! In the photo, Mellencamp sort of looks like Judy Davis. “But Ryan, who as we previously reported has rented at 40 Mercer St., is now looking to buy. The actress recently toured a condo at Tribeca’s 51 Walker St. that was once rented by Leonardo DiCaprio. [...] Ryan and Mellencamp also visited the Marble House triplex unit at Tribeca’s 60 Collister St.” —New York Post

••• “A redesign of 1 World Trade Center’s mast may cost the building its 1,776-foot stature.” Seriously, this is a concern? It could also lose “its claim to unseating the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) in Chicago as the tallest building in America. It would not even be the second-tallest building in America. That is the Trump International Hotel and Tower, also in Chicago.” Pictured: The old design (left) and the new one. —New York Times

••• “In the latest example of his increasing focus on his next mayoral campaign, William C. Thompson Jr. informed the Cuomo administration on Wednesday that he was stepping down as chairman of the Battery Park City Authority.” —New York Times

••• FiDi bar-and-someday-café Demi Monde “officially opens to the public on May 18, but the rumor is that they’ll start letting regular customers into the space as early as this Saturday night.” I’m confused by the use of “regular” in the context of a yet-to-open restaurant. —Eater

••• Terroir‘s Paul Grieco won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Wine, Beer, or Spirits Professional. —Eater

••• “At a meeting of Community Board 1′s Battery Park City Committee, an executive from GrowNYC [...] said that her office is working with Brookfield Properties [...] to find a new location for the [World Financial Center Greenmarket]. The old site, at the corner of Liberty Street and South End Avenue, no longer generates enough foot traffic, as a result of the World Financial Center reconstruction project.” —Broadsheet

••• Behold the 61-foot (?) ground-floor pool at 250 West. Also: “StreetEasy shows 60 apartments in contract so far.” —Curbed

••• New restaurant Woodrow’s is now offering delivery, via phone or Seamless.

••• Just Scandinavian is in the final phase of its escalating closing sale. I bought some awesome dessert plates today. (You know you’re old when….)

••• Real estate broker Ryan Serhant (of the “Million Dollar Listing” TV show) tweeted “It’s a done deal! My new office in Tribeca. 3 years in the business and I’ve got my own office!” I can’t quite place the location. Collister? (Wait, was he the guy getting photographed there this morning?) Someone please advise.

••• Passing this email along: “As a Writer for Bronx Mama I wanted to bring your attention to a rally that will take place at Zuccotti park this Wednesday and Thursday May 9-10 between 8 a.m. & 1 p.m. This rally is an action of All Our Power, a social movement that is bridging the gap between the 99% and the 1%! All Our Power brings a solution to the critical issues raised by the Occupy Wall Street movement. We will utilize the leverage of the user base to negotiate with the largest companies in every sector (from cell phones to health insurance and groceries) to lower pricing.”

••• And the Sign of the Week award goes to… New York Vintners!

••• From New Amsterdam Market: “Please hold the date of Tuesday, May 15, when I will be presenting our proposal to house New Amsterdam Market year-round within the old Fulton Fish Market buildings to the Seaport and Civic Center Committee of Manhattan Community Board One. [...] Your presence at this important meeting will be tremendously helpful towards supporting our shared vision for the Seaport. Please spread the word to your lists, come if you can, and please let us know by sending a note to: rsvp@newamsterdammarket.org.”

••• A tweet from @MMDevoe about the new restaurant (and soda fountain!) on Peck Slip: “Grandma’s looked near opening—cute decor, reminded me of Cosmopolitan Café or Kitchenette.”

••• Kanye West has a new song called “I Don’t Like” that includes this line performed by Pusha T: “Soho, Tribeca / Three hos, trifecta.” (I don’t think the plural of ho is hoes, like the garden tool…?) Anyway, people on Twitter think it’s hysterical and/or clever. You can hear it here; not work appropriate. UPDATE: A spelling that never occurred to me.

••• And another reader (who wants to remain anonymous) sent in this video of model Karolina Kurkova from the Limited shoot the other day. It’s not exactly newsworthy, but (a) there’s a fabulous absurdity about how she’s vamping along Franklin Street while life goes on around her; and (b) I love the funky warm-up stretch (:10–:15). Can someone please make me a gif of that, looped over and over?

Courtesy New York Observer

••• “We think we found the drunkest bartender in Manhattan,” Frank Mortagua at Nancy Whiskey Pub. —New York Observer

••• The New York Times looks at the (now gone) 1875 Tribune Building on Park Row: “The Tribune moved out in the 1920s, and in the 1950s the last of the newspapers left Park Row. Demolished in 1966 to expand the Pace College campus, Hunt’s building disappeared almost without comment, although Thomas S. Buechner, then director of the Brooklyn Museum, wrote to The Times that its loss was ‘heartbreaking,’ describing it as ‘a sumptuous Victorian conglomerate in glorious Ruskinian color.’”

••• The New York Post on various Tribeca real estate developments: “former New Jersey Net Richard Jefferson, now with the Golden State Warriors, has found a buyer for his full-floor, 3,584-square-foot condo” at 169 Hudson. 2) “Aliza Waksal, daughter of ImClone’s Sam Waksal, is also selling her unit” in 169 Hudson. “Aliza wasn’t charged for selling $2.5 million of stock after being tipped off by her father. Her defense? She was selling stock to purchase the 169 Hudson pad [...]. The 3,752-square-foot unit, now listed for $4.995 million, is in contract.” 3) “A Tribeca apartment [in 25 Leonard] that once belonged to “Sopranos” star Jamie-Lynn Sigler is changing hands once again.” An apartment that once belonged to Jamie-Lynn Sigler is newsworthy?

••• A big oopsie at Bouley. —Eater

••• “The Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center expects to maintain its current level of service, despite losing approximately two thirds of its staff in the last year, by changing its focus. Testimony last week at the joint hearing of the City Council’s Lower Manhattan Redevelopment and Transportation Committees indicated that the LMCCC plans to focus on managing construction schedules in Lower Manhattan at sites other than the World Trade Center.” —Broadsheet

••• Menswear brand Saturdays—which you know I like—is having a sample sale, starting today, at 19 Kenmare. —Racked

••• “The British Garden at Hanover Square was renamed for Queen Elizabeth II.” —DNAinfo

••• “Tourists standing in the middle of Whitehall Street to take pictures of the Wall Street bull will no longer have to worry about getting hit by cars. The Department of Transportation announced plans Wednesday night to create new pedestrian plazas around Bowling Green to accommodate the crowds of commuters, residents and tourists who are now often forced out into the street.” —DNAinfo

••• T Magazine details the brunches that restaurateur Matt Abramcyk (Smith & Mills, et al) and Nadine Ferber (Tenoverten) host. Abramcyk sure has been on a PR blitz lately. The photo appears to be by Anna Wolf. (via Eater)