Hi there—love, love, love your newsletter and if anyone knows the lowdown, you would! What’s that orange awning on southwest corner of Vesey and North End Ave.? To the right of the Conrad’s main entrance, there appears to be a restaurant of some kind getting ready to open but I can’t find work permits to give me a clue. —D.

The awnings don’t seem to be of any particular significance since they include Blue Smoke. But I sense your real question is whether we know what’s going on in the empty storefronts. I wandered over and tried chatting up workers at nearby businesses. One said that a gallery is coming, as well as a jewelry store. (I was also told it was supposed to be a Spanish restaurant, but that fell through. Could that have been the Mercat that was in the works?) The jewelry store will have to remain unconfirmed, but the gallery is indeed happening, in the southwestern corner. It’s not a gallery so much as an exhibition space, however, with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council at the helm. I know this because the door was open and I walked in and introduced myself. The first exhibit opens on Friday (“probably Friday evening”), and that the space—I didn’t get the name, and the LMCC has yet to return my call—will be on an exhibit-to-exhibit basis, presumably until Goldman finds a long-term tenant.

That still leaves at least one big storefront along Vesey, and possibly more—it can be hard to tell. As always, if you know anything, I want to know it, too.

Got a question? Email it to tribecacitizen@gmail.com.

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• What’s happening to my parking lot?
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