••• The 9/11 Memorial will have “Community Evenings […] for downtown residents on the first Sunday of every month [to] acknowledge the special history that Lower Manhattan has with the World Trade Center site.” Darn, that’s my bowling night. (Tribeca Trib)

Courtesy Eater

••• Soul Daddy, the winner of the “America’s Next Great Restaurant” TV show, has closed its Seaport location (and its L.A. one) after just one month. Makes my “six months” prediction look optimistic. But really, can we all stop acting like any of these shows matter in the real world?

••• “A former Whole Foods cashier says getting pregnant put her on the express line to unemployment. Zackya Gordon, of Brooklyn, filed suit yesterday over claims she was harassed, then fired, from the supermarket’s Tribeca outlet after telling her boss she was expecting.” (New York Post)

••• “The city does not plan to make any changes to the bike path through City Hall Park, despite residents’ complaints that cyclists whizzing through the park endanger the safety of pedestrians, the Department of Transportation said this week.The city studied the bike path at the community’s request this spring and found no accidents and very few aggressive riders, said Josh Kraus, a senior project manager at DOT. ‘We think it’s actually working rather well,’ [said] Kraus. ‘The cyclists are generally well-behaved.’ However, the DOT did find that only 56 percent of cyclists on weekdays and 58 percent on weekends are dismounting and walking their bikes […].” Even worse, cyclists will no longer have to dismount once the construction is done. (DNAinfo) Argh! Has the DOT ever not loved one of its initiatives? I walk my dog in there three to four times a day, and bicyclists are always riding through, often at high speeds. And in the evening, when it’s most dangerous because visibility is low, they positively fly. Why must the DOT see actual accidents before changing something? Have I been in an accident yet? No. Even if I had, would I have complained to the city? I don’t know. But I’m complaining now, and as soon as I can figure out whom to complain to, I’ll let you know.

••• “The city is looking for new moneymaking ideas for Pier 15, after rejecting previous proposals for not generating enough of a profit. The city released a new request for proposals for the pier on Tuesday, expanding the scope of what the future operator will be able to do to make money.” (DNAinfo)

••• The Real Deal attended a symposium about Lower Manhattan: “This morning, when some of the most important architects of this turnaround convened to celebrate ‘The New Downtown,’ alongside the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate and Silverstein Properties, there was a natural, and deserved, optimism in their voices. But there was also an unmistakable air of exasperation, as if to say, what else can we possibly do to get major retailers and restaurateurs to take notice?” The interesting stuff from the article:
—”New York by Gehry [is] now 25 percent leased, according to panelist MaryAnne Gilmartin, of Forest City Ratner.”
—”Carl Weisbrod, the former Trinity Real Estate president who founded the Alliance for Downtown New York and now holds a professorship at Schack, pinpointed the ‘trailing of retail’ as one of the two major failings of the area’s redevelopment thus far. (The other, he said, was the missed opportunity to ‘knit Battery Park City with the rest of Manhattan in a better way.’ Battery Park City Authority CEO Gayle Horwitz said that’s fixable, so stayed tuned.)”
—Julie Menin, the outspoken chairperson of Community Board 1, said she might support changing the criteria for recipients of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation’s funds in order to attract more retailers to the area.
—”Stone Street has certainly become an established foodie draw.” If you say so.

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••• “The Fulton Street Transit Center is now progressing so rapidly the MTA is willing to show off the construction site [on its] Flickr.” (Curbed)

••• “Developer Yair Levy recently lost a lawsuit over the reserve funds at Battery Park City’s Rector Square, and as if that weren’t enough trouble for the guy, it turns out Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is still planning to seek a $7.4 million judgment against Levy. There’s no timeline yet, but any money the AG office gets would go straight to the Battery Park City Hell Building’s condo board.” (Curbed, summarizing Broadsheet Daily)