WASN’T THIS A DONE DEAL?
The Hugh L. Carey Battery Park City Authority has officially chosen Asphalt Green “to operate its new state-of-the-art, 52,000 square-foot community center, which will be located in the base of Liberty Green and Liberty Luxe, two residential towers located on North End Avenue between Murray and Warren Streets. The center is slated to open in January of 2012.” Also in the release: “The community center will include a 25-yard pool, warm-water teaching/exercise pool, fitness center, gym, studios, classrooms, culinary center, theater, and other multi-use spaces.”

IN THE NEWS
••• The plaza outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Office Building—home to those curved green benches—is being redesigned: “Twenty-five-foot magnolia trees, marble backless seating, low-lying evergreen plantings and a fountain will provide the new landscape […]. The new design is courtesy of the federal government’s planned 12- to 18-month reconstruction of the plaza decking that its engineers say is settling, leaking and affecting the 41-story building at 26 Federal Plaza. The faulty plaza forms the roof of a parking garage below.” (Tribeca Trib) Kind of a shame…. The classic 2003 Vincent Laforet photo at left might become a collector’s item. It’s $199–$1,059 at the New York Times Store.

AROUND THE WEB
••• Serious Eats stops by Blaue Gans for its kaiserscharrn pancake (right). Also, on his Facebook page, Blaue Gans’s Kurt Gutenbrunner reminds you to “Make your Valentine’s Day reservations: 3 Courses for $65 per person, Option Wine Pairing $40 For reservations, please call 212-571-8880 or visit opentable.com.”
••• Chef Sebastian Zijp of Bar Blanc in the West Village dishes on what it was like to work for Tribeca chefs David Bouley and Corton‘s Paul Liebrandt: “In my first week I laughed at one of [Liebrandt’s] jokes and he said, ‘You don’t know me well enough to laugh at one of my jokes.’” (Grub Street)

KUDOS
…to Broadsheet Daily editor Terese Loeb Kreuzer for her letter in today’s New York Times: “[NYT editorial columnist Gail] Collins calls those opposed to holding terrorism trials in Lower Manhattan selfish. Recently, Lower Manhattan residents packed Community Board 1 meetings pleading that the trials be held elsewhere. They were worried, even terrified. Many still have health problems and post-traumatic stress syndrome from the destruction of the World Trade Center. Some lost friends, family, homes and businesses because of 9/11. If the trials were going to last a few weeks or even a few months, I think that these residents would have put up with them, but they were told that the trials would probably go on for years. Most of the people who spoke at the community board meetings favored civilian trials in a federal court—not military trials—but the prospect of not having free access to their homes, of snipers on the rooftops, of having to send their children to school past a security cordon and other ‘inconveniences’ was too much for them to accept. It would be incorrect to dismiss these fears as selfish.”