••• “If the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation has its way, parts of Little Italy, Soho, Noho, Tribeca and the Lower East Side would become subjects of the Middle Kingdom. The group wants to create a Chinatown Business Improvement District that would affect all sides of busy Canal Street. But the proposed BID boundaries have neighboring civic associations seeing red. The BID map originally wanted to take over the last two Italian blocks on Mulberry Street—all that remains of once-sprawling Little Italy—but it was met with resistance from longtime residents. […] Neighboring pockets of Soho and Tribeca, however, are still included—over protests from residents, as well. ‘Traditionally, Chinatown has always been considered to end at Centre Street, and Lafayette Street is part of Soho,’ said Sean Sweeney, a member of the Soho Alliance. ‘Yet if you look at the latest BID map from the Chinatown Partnership, they claim west of Centre Street as Chinatown, and it’s not.’ One intersection the Partnership wants to annex, Broadway and Walker, actually bears signs declaring the streets part of Tribeca East’s Historic District, Sweeney points out. Property owners who live in the proposed BID area—in Soho, Tribeca and along Canal Street—will have to fund the organization through a new tax on the assessed value of their buildings.” (New York Post)

Plein Sud

••• “Insatiable Critic” Gael Greene reviews Plein Sud, gives it one-and-a-half hats (out of three). (Crain’s)

••• Doug Liman, who directed The Bourne Identity and a new TV show called Covert Affairs, has an office in Tribeca. (New York Times)