In the News: So Mehta

••• That new restaurant coming to the Duane Street Hotel (right) won’t be called Graffiti after all. It’ll be called—are you sitting down?—Mehtaphor, after chef Jehangir Mehta. (Grub Street)

••• “Con Edison said Monday that it cannot stop the planned 13-story mosque and community center from rising near Ground Zero, despite earlier reports to the contrary. Although Con Edison owns 49-51 Park Place, one of the buildings that would be torn down to build the Ground Zero mosque, the utility does not have legal authority over what happens to the site, Con Edison said in a statement. The New York Post reported Sunday that Con Ed’s ownership of 49-51 Park Place could be an obstacle for the Islamic center.” (DNAinfo)

••• “The DOT’s newest pop-up park on Pearl Street, north of Broad, is now open!” (NYC the Blog)

••• “Millennium High School is already so overcrowded the school has started holding classes in the hallway in order to avoid increasing class sizes—and this year the enrollment will be even higher, thanks to city budget cuts. The school, which was founded after 9/11 in former office space at 75 Broad St., expects 630 students to attend this fall, up from 620 last year and 573 the year before. The enrollment has ballooned well above the school’s maximum capacity of 525, said the school’s principal, Robert Rhodes.” (DNAinfo)

••• Well, at least we have Bodies: “The Drawing Center has abandoned its plan to build a costly new home in Lower Manhattan. Instead it will settle on a more modest space in its longtime Soho neighborhood. The 33-year-old art institution was one of the original candidates for the cultural center that had been planned for the World Trade Center redevelopment after Sept. 11. But that plan fell apart after controversy over the nonprofit’s programming. After that, it embarked on an extensive search for another home in the area, announcing four years ago a plan to build a $60 million building in the South Street Seaport. Now that plan has been scrapped as well.” (Crain’s)

••• Stay away from the Trump Soho forever tonight: Its new bar, Bar d’Eau, is opening. Hmm… Rooftop bocce with cocktails. Who insures that? (Grub Street)

 

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