••• “When Dianne Talan looks at the massive water main project that is tearing up her block of Chambers Street, she doesn’t see dirt and inconvenience. She sees art. Talan, a painter who has lived on Chambers Street for more than 30 years, has spent the past 10 months covering the mesh construction fence with bright, whimsical portraits of the workers and their heavy machinery. She started doing it without permission, but more recently she’s received the city’s blessing.” She may go back and redo the initial ones (pictured at top), although I kind of prefer those. Anyway, neat story. (DNAinfo)

••• From New York magazine‘s fall preview issue: Jung Sik, the haute Korean coming to the old Chanterelle space will have a “$125 create-your-own five-course menu” (not sure if that’s the only option) and it’ll open in September. Also: The Death & Co. spin-off coming to 90 Broad will be called Demi Monde (which we knew, but not that it’d two words! just like a drag name!) and it’ll soft-open in November.

••• “A Tribeca building superintendent who was hired to protect an acclaimed artist’s career work in paintings and drawings turned out to be a super thief who swiped them all, authorities said. ‘I was devastated when I found out that her paintings were gone—it was like she died all over again,’ said Roxane West, the niece of late abstract painter and sculptor ShirleyWest [sic?]. Roxane West told The Post that her nightmare saga began after her beloved, talented aunt died June 8, 2010. The niece said she asked Mihaly Kovacsevics, the 61yearold handyman in the dead woman’s building at 427 Washington St., to keep an eye on ShirleyWest’s sizeable art collection—497 paintings and thousands of drawings produced over the span of 60 years—in West’s firstfloor studio.”

••• “The tenth-annual Battery Park City Block Party, which will be held on September 17 (from 11:30 am to 5:00 pm) on the Esplanade, near the foot of Liberty Street (by the volleyball courts, overlooking North Cove Marina), will include several returning traditions, three brand-new features, and—the organizers hope—the next generation of volunteers to guide the event into its second decade.” (Broadsheet Daily)

••• More on the shiny new cross at St. Peter’s Church (subject to much discussion on my post of over a week ago): “A 14-foot-high twisted sculptural cross atop a 13-foot-tall base now stands tall above above Church Street. At its ‘heart’ is a slab of Trade Center rubble that “bleeds” rust in the rain, and a metal book at the center of the base with pages containing the names of victims.” It was designed by “California-based artist Jon Krawczyk.” (Tribeca Trib)