With the opening of Fiterman Hall, will the classroom trailers along West Street finally go away? They were brought in as a temporary measure after 9/11 and have been there for over ten years. —C.

“That’s the plan,” said Barry Rosen, BMCC’s executive director of public and external affairs. Fiterman Hall, for those of you who aren’t aware, is the building going up between Greenwich and W. Broadway, Park and Barclay—that’s it pictured at right—and it’s due to open in time for the fall 2012 semester. As for the trailers, as much as I don’t think they look great, I kind of enjoy walking on the wooden boardwalk.

Got a question? Email it to tribecacitizen@gmail.com.

Previous “Nosy Neighbor” posts:
• Do you know anything about 20-24 Varick?
• What’s happening to my parking lot?
• Is Pier 26 being worked on again?
• What’s up with Jin Market?
• What are those black pellets on Pier 25?
• What do the characters on 47 Vestry mean?
• When is T.J. Maxx opening?
• Where is the Special Forces monument going?
• Who’s moving into 151 Hudson?
• What’s going on at 172 Duane?
• Where is Compose’s pastry chef cooking now?
• What’s up with those Verizon carts?
• Where was the original Blues Bar?
• Who are the guys in the geeky pants?
• Why are the windows above Ponte’s boarded up?
• Can we walk on the West Street medians?
• What’s going on in 157 Hudson?
• What’s the new painting at 153 Hudson?
• What’s up with 55 Warren/55 Murray?
• What is this P.C. Richard & Son Theater I keep hearing about?
• What’s the story behind the lights at 289 Church?
• What’s the Dream House at 275 Church?
• How come every every film and TV shoot seems to have a trailer with doors marked “Lucy” and “Desi”?

••• “With nearly half of Pier 40′s rooftop deck in deteriorated condition, threatening the loss of parking revenue and the pier’s eventual shutdown, the Hudson River Park Trust’s board of directors has voted to authorize a partial renovation job for the aging, concrete-and-steel structure. Meanwhile, a new idea for the pier’s redevelopment could emerge in about a year, following completion of a ‘holistic’ study that would consider potential impacts on the pier’s various user groups.” —The Villager

••• Even so, the park has serious problems. —New York Times

••• “Butter and egg loft at 176 Duane Street sells at $1,889/ft.” Of course, Manhattan Loft Guy has a lot more to say about it than that.

••• “The South Street Seaport bar where television host Greg Kelly wooed the woman who accused him of rape is hardly the place for a romantic rendezvous. Jeremy’s Ale House, a fixture on the East Side waterfront, is a place where cops, construction workers and Wall Street wizards wander in off the cobblestone streets to knock back some brews. The Front St. tavern—where sources told the Daily News Kelly and his accuser hung out before heading to her lower Manhattan law office on Oct. 8—offers 21 beers on tap and blares classic rock. It’s a hard-drinking crowd: Beers are served in 32-ounce styrofoam cups, and the empties are stacked on the tables.” There’s an unpleasant whiff of insinuation in this article. —New York Daily News

••• “The city has nixed a parade honoring 9/11 first responders.” —DNAinfo

••• “Power couple Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber’s extensive downtown home hunt has ended with the purchase of a full-floor loft on Washington Street in Tribeca. The acting duo have closed on the 4,315-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bathroom co-op for $3.95 million. The dramatic loft, which has 14-foot ceilings, oversized windows, river views and keyed elevator access, was listed for $4.5 million.” —New York Post

••• How to make Macao Trading Co.‘s chicken-and-pork-belly dumplings. —Refinery29

••• “When the South Street Seaport Museum reopens on Thursday, after nearly a year of being closed, its new leaders will have tried to address some of the problems that had left it in peril. Visitors will find two floors of expanded gallery space, cleaned, updated and re-envisioned by a new team of experts. Perhaps more important, the museum has an interim plan to pay bills as it works to attract more visitors.” —New York Times

••• J.C. Chandor, the director and Oscar-nominated writer of Margin Call, got the idea for the film when “he was working as a real estate broker and developer in Manhattan. While renovating a building in Tribeca, he received an early tip from a financial insider that he should sell it, before the market crashed in 2008. ‘I started to think back on what was it like for that guy to be the first person’ with knowledge of the coming crisis, Mr. Chandor said. ‘Do you intervene? Who do you tell?’” —The New York Times (which calls the film a thriller, which makes me think they didn’t see it)

••• “P.S. 234 will hold a lottery for kindergarten seats once again this year, after far more students applied than the school can hold.” —DNAinfo

••• Broke-Ass Stuart’s Goddamn Website chooses Souths as “Where to dump your girlfriend. And have fries!” There’s more along these lines: “On your way out,  smug, absolved and single, hit the irresistibly boisterous front bar. Just make sure, out of decency, you’re at least 3 stools down from your new ex if they made a pit stop to drown their rejection in Glenlivet before getting on the C train.”

••• “The NYPD violated city landmarks law by knocking out part of a brick wall at the 1st Precinct’s historic stable building, a city official said. [...] The NYPD did not even notify the Landmarks Commission last summer before cutting a hole in the back of the 100-year-old building and installing a staircase leading up to a new entrance on the second floor [...]. At the LPC’s instruction, the NYPD recently submitted an application to legalize the changes. The LPC plans to hold a public hearing soon, tentatively scheduled for Feb. 7 [...].” —DNAinfo

••• Director M. Night Shyamalan sold his apartment at 45 Walker for $9.5 million. —Curbed

••• “Just one week into kindergarten admissions season, Tribeca’s popular P.S. 234 has already filled almost half of its available seats—with siblings of current students. Siblings of current P.S. 234 students, who are guaranteed a spot in next fall’s kindergarten class, have snapped up 52 of the school’s 125 seats, parent coordinator Magda Lenski said.” —DNAinfo

Courtesy Curbed

••• “A Goldman Sachs wheeler dealer has nabbed a 5-story production studio at 449 Washington Street and plans to turn it totally residential and build an expansive triplex on top. The buyer is financier Gizman Abbas, who last year bought a capacious unit a few blocks south at the Fairchild on Vestry.” —Curbed

••• The elevator at the Chambers Street pedestrian bridge was broken, and now it’s fixed. —Broadsheet

••• Tonight is Biddy Early’s last night before it goes under the knife, to re-emerge as Woodrow’s, an affordable steakhouse. —Eater

••• Tenants at New York by Gehry are being kept awake by the work on the Brooklyn Bridge. —Curbed

••• From the Downtown Alliance: “[We] will host a MulchFest and Electronic Waste Recycling Event to help New Yorkers avoid a post-holiday headache by collecting holiday trees and unwanted electronic goods on Saturday, January 7, 2012. The event [...] will take place at the south end of Bowling Green Park starting at 10 a.m.” There’s also a special Downtown Connection bus that’ll pick up your tree that day. Here are the stops (every half hour): Wall and William, John and Gold, Pearl between Fulton and Beekman, W. Thames between Battery Place and South End, South and and Albany. What, no Tribeca?

••• You may recall that the New York Law School is taking over more of the ground floor 40 Worth—specifically the southeast corner of Worth and W. Broadway, which used to be government offices. I should be happy the space isn’t vacant, but now that the windows are uncovered, I have to wonder if this really needed to be at street level.

By Julie Shapiro (courtesy DNAinfo)

••• DNAinfo got a tour of the under-construction Fulton Street Transit Center*: “The $1.4 billion subway hub won’t open until 2014, but one of its most distinctive features is already in place: a yawning skylight, measuring 53 feet in diameter, which funnels natural light down into the station, brightening the darkest corners, even during the ongoing construction. Directly beneath the skylight, called an ‘oculus,’ a spiral staircase curves around the steel supports for a yet-to-be-installed elevator. The elevator will be made of glass, as will the staircase’s railing.” *Let’s come up with a new name. The FiDi Eye? The De Niro Oculus?

••• “If some members of Community Board 1 have their way, the building now housing the Syms store at 42 Trinity Pl. will one day help solve school overcrowding in Lower Manhattan.” —Tribeca Trib

••• Manhattan Loft Guy on 19 Beach (and apartments that “overlook St. John’s Park” in general).

••• “The sale of the iconic downtown skyscraper at 70 Pine St. closed yesterday for $205 million to Metro Loft Management. The company intends to convert the 1.1 million-square-foot landmark into luxury rentals and is negotiating to install [yet another FiDi] hotel in the lower portion.” —New York Post

••• New York Magazine critic Adam Platt’s list of the 101 best restaurants in New York City includes Corton (7), SHO Shaun Hergatt (36), Soto (up on Sixth Ave. in the Village but I’m including it because if you like Japanese food you really should go, and Platt’s right—the non-sushi dishes are what’s special), Locanda Verde (44),Brushstroke (59), Sushi Azabu (87). Dropped from the 2005 list because they closed: Bouley Upstairs, Chanterelle. Dropped because Platt no longer likes the cooking: Landmarc.

••• The Daily Mail wrote about Ninja as if it the restaurant were new. The photos are hilarious.

••• Also in the New York Times: Earls Court in FiDi is open. “Robert Earl of Planet Hollywood”—so you know he’s a foodie—”has assembled a collection of places for this food court, including his own Earl of Sandwich, the Original Soupman, Sushi Express, Billy’s Bakery, Libations 101 for cocktails, Greens for salad and ShakeBar with milkshakes and smoothies: 90 John Street (Nassau Street), (212) 227-6899.” UPDATE: A reader pointed out that it opened in November. I knew it sounded familiar; trying to do too many things at once. The question is why the NYT decided to run an opening announcement now….

••• I don’t post it every time Curbed runs a listing of a fancy Tribeca apartment, but this $19.5 loft at 142 Duane is worth checking out.

••• “The coming school semester will see more school kids enjoying the wide open spaces as P.S. 89 continues a program (begun in recent weeks) of using the nearby Battery Park City ball fields for recess.” —Broadsheet Daily

••• More on P.S. 150 principal Maggie Siena moving to the Peck Slip School. —DNAinfo

••• I also saw that something called Wilderness of Wish has set up shop—or at least a pop-up presence—inside Bowne & Co. stationers. From its Facebook page: “We stock things of use and delight. Sparklers. Hand tooled wooden spatulas. Paring knives. Ladles. Leather satchels & coin pouches. Snaps & safety pins. Confections. Crisps. Spices. Old-loom Coverlets. Umbrellas. Reading material and writing supplies. Music. Marionettes. You get the idea.” I tweeted them to find out what the sign in Bowne & Co. was all about (their website says they’re only at Bowne on Fridays and Saturdays), but I haven’t heard back. I also want to know if the owl in the window is for sale.

••• I saw somewhere on Twitter that P.S. 150′s principal, Maggie Siena, is going to be principal at the Peck Slip School, but I can’t remember who tweeted it. Anyway, a parent just emailed about it “to provide ample warning to the families in the Financial District in case they want to get an early start on a petition to fight the decision.”

••• Looking at Christmas, a romantic comedy by Steven Banks that played (debuted?) at the Flea last year, was filmed during the run, and Channel 13 will air it on Dec. 21 at 10 p.m., Dec. 23 at 3:30 a.m., and December 25 at 11 p.m.

by Ozier Muhammad (courtesy the New York Times)

••• “The city has increased the size of Downtown’s much-anticipated Peck Slip School for the second time in as many months, the Department of Education announced Friday. Peck Slip [...] will now offer 712 elementary seats—56 more than had been announced in November—and some 200 more than the 476 that the school had originally expected.” —DNAinfo

••• Occupy Wall Street protesters got arrested for trespassing on Trinity Wall Street’s property at Canal and Sixth Ave. —New York Times

••• “A Starbucks at Varick & Spring had a brick thrown through a window around 5pm – sources said. OWS was marching up Varick at the same time” —a Downtown Express tweet

••• The recipe for Kutsher’s latkes, including four variations: pastrami Reuben, wild mushroom and herbed ricotta, melted leeks and hen of the woods mushrooms, and pastrami salmon and spicy brown honey mustard. —New York Daily News