••• “Dialog in the Dark,” an exhibit about what’s like to be blind, opened at the South Street Seaport: “It isn’t that you get some idea of what it’s like to be blind, or that you approximate the condition of blindness, or that you are metaphorically blind. No. For most of your visit here, you can see absolutely nothing—not your hand in front of your face, not the legs of the person you keep bumping into, not the fountain of water you hear, not the unhusked corn on the supermarket shelves you handle, not the stairs that drop you into the cacophonous roar of what seems to be the New York City subway system.” I’m normally up for trying anything once, but the few times I’ve been in zero-light situations I’ve gotten pretty panicky, so if anyone wants to report back on how it is, please do. (The New York Times; photo of canes by Sara Krulwich for the NYT)

••• “Manhattan Media is shutting down the New York Press and reviving Our Town Downtown, starting September 1. The weekly publication—a magazine/community newspaper hybrid, according to the press release—will focus on news, politics, real estate and the arts in lower Manhattan. A 20,000 copy run will be circulated below 14th Street.” (New York Observer)

••• Gwyneth Paltrow reportedly “had a brief run-in on 9/11 that may just have saved a fan from almost-certain death”—and she wasn’t even trying. (E!)

••• “The twin Tribute in Light beams that illuminate New York’s skyline on the anniversary of 9/11 are in danger of fading forever. The Municipal Arts Society, which runs the annual display, only has enough grant money left to put the show on one more time, for the 10th anniversary of the attacks, Vice President Christine Krische said. To keep Tribute in Light going, the Municipal Art Society just launched a fundraising drive to make the tribute permanent. The nonprofit arts group hopes to raise an endowment of $15 million over the next couple of years.” Losing it would be such a shame. (DNAinfo)

••• Remember last month’s Slate article that called Chambers Street Wines the greatest wine store in America? At the time, I actually didn’t read more than the headline, but when I was in the store the other day, I saw it on the wall by the door. It said that the owners are considering opening a wine bar in the area.

••• The mechanics of the 9/11 memorial’s plaza. (Architect’s Newspaper via Curbed)

••• The New York Times‘s travel section has a “36 Hours” piece on Lower Manhattan: “Tribeca is bursting with new restaurants, bars and hotels.” Er, OK.

••• This was on Curbed, about an article on Architzer, but I have no idea what it means: “The Guggenheim‘s latest installment of stillspotting nyc—a two-year initiative to bring capital-A Architecture to the city’s streets—will pair Norwegian architects Snohetta and composer Arvo Pärt for a sound-and-space tour of Lower Manhattan. To a Great City is a rather mystical scavenger hunt of the dissonant sounds in a major urban area, highlighted in five spaces modified by Snohetta, including ‘a green labyrinth created by The Battery Conservancy, an underground chamber at Governors Island National Monument, and otherwise inaccessible spaces in landmark skyscrapers.'”

••• “Phillip Riback, a former doctor accused of molesting several young male patients, plans to leave the Battery Park City building he moved to earlier this year, according to his lawyer.” (Tribeca Trib)