325 BROADWAY: LIQUOR-LICENSE APPLICATION FOR SUSHEIN
A couple is planning to open a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant at 325 Broadway (at Worth), a building with several storefronts. Their beer/wine application was quickly approved 6–0, helped along by closing hours of 9 p.m. on weekdays, 11 p.m. on Saturdays, and 4 p.m. on Fridays (because the restaurant will be kosher). It’s unclear which storefront the restaurant will be in.

131 DUANE (CITY HALL RESTAURANT): RENEWAL FOR UNENCLOSED SIDEWALK CAFÉ
No one showed by the time I had left. Unless City Hall was asking for something dramatic, this seemed unlikely to face objections.

377 GREENWICH (LOCANDA VERDE): RENEWAL FOR UNENCLOSED SIDEWALK CAFÉ
Back in June, the folks from Locanda Verde requested a major expansion of their sidewalk seating and got shot down, forced to accept a compromise of adding nine more tables for a total of 19 total. They never actually added them, and the permit needed to be renewed; it passed quickly 6–0.

HUDSON STREET PROJECT—UPDATE
The city’s Department of Design and Construction has found a way to lop six months off the 5.5-year Hudson Street water main project, basically by doing the Franklin and Beach Street sections during phase 2 instead of phase 3. If they start soon, all work on Franklin and Beach could be done by the end of summer. There was no reason anyone could see why this would be bad, do it passed 8–0. And then it was on to the problem of the taper zone (which you may recall from last month’s minutes). In short, the folks who live on Hudson between N. Moore and Franklin are bothered by the noise of the work being done in the taper zone (pipe-cutting and other stuff). They’re getting five years’ worth of hassle, because at some point their section of Hudson will be under actual construction. So they were hoping to move the prep work elsewhere (presumably the taper itself would stay, because it’s how traffic on Hudson gets narrowed down). The idea of using Ericsson collapsed against police resistance, as expected. The other option—N. Moore between Varick and Hudson—would be suitable, but the committee couldn’t see any reason to drag N. Moore into this mess. I left after the chair did a straw vote to see if anyone wanted to move the prep work, because the direction of the discussion was to ask/beg the DDC to force the contractors to not make noise in the early morning, and at some point the DDC had made it clear that getting the job done as quickly and efficiently as possible would remain its main priority. (Also, when one committee member halted proceedings to complain about the dirty, untied tarps on the Chambers Street construction fencing, I lost what remained of my patience.)

TRIBECA TRANSPORTATION AND PARKING REGULATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
Alas, only this morning did I remember that before the meeting several members spoke about whether Beach Street (between Greenwich and Hudson) should be reversed direction, to run west-east instead of east-west, because of buses coming out of the Holland Tunnel. That would have first been discussed by the Tribeca Transportation and Parking Regulations Subcommittee, which met the evening before. Indeed, I just learned that it was brought before the Tribeca committee. (I really should have learned by now that the agendas aren’t 100% reliable.) According to a source, the motion to reverse Beach carried, but not the one to institute alternate-side parking on Watts, in favor of a larger study on the benefits of alternate-side parking.