••• The Real Deal has a long article about Ponte Equities, the family-owned company that controls a huge swatch of northwest Tribeca. There isn’t really news, other than a hint that two recent deals (including the behemoth going up at 460 Washington) and the engagement of a real-estate attorney might mean Ponte the Elder is considering selling (or at least leasing) more of its holdings. Also: 460 Washington could be condos or rentals. Oh, and this was interesting: “But the Pontes have been victims, too, of a swindle by Raffaello Follieri, the Italian real estate entrepreneur who was romantically linked to actress Anne Hathaway and later imprisoned for fraud. Vincent Ponte invested $300,000 with Follieri in the early 2000s, according to the magazine Vanity Fair, and apparently later”—Euphemism alert?—”let Follieri drive his white Mercedes.” Above: Landmarked 502 Canal, which Ponte is letting fall apart.

••• “Last Sunday, January 6, the MTA restored the M9 bus service to and from Battery Park City.” —Broadsheet

••• “Verizon, whose copper wires under the streets of the financial district were ruined by the storm’s floodwaters, complained last week that ‘many building owners in Lower Manhattan’ had barred their doors. Some have simply refused to let the company in, but others have demanded exorbitant fees for access, the company said in a petition to state regulators.” —New York Times

••• “Hotel developer Sam Chang has sold a five-story, 22,600-square-foot mixed-use building in the Financial District for $19 million […]. Located at 98 Greenwich Street between Rector and Carlisle streets, the site sits behind a Holiday Inn property that Chang is reportedly developing at 99 Washington [….] The deed identifies the purchaser as Jiten Hotel Management, a Massachusetts-based hotel management company that runs locations of Comfort Suites, Fairfield Inn & Suites and Courtyard by Marriott [….] The site is slated for the development of a 24-story, 180-room boutique hotel.” —The Real Deal

••• “A commercial development site at 152-154 Leroy Street in the West Village was sold in an all-cash transaction to a first-time New York City buyer for $10.25 million, and the new owner plans to build a hotel on the property, The Commercial Observer has learned. Located between West and Washington Streets, the site currently functions as a parking lot, approximately 55 feet wide, with roughly 27,980 gross buildable square feet.”

••• Chef Michael White and fashion designer Erin Fetherston—his Butterfly bar-and-restaurant will be below her studio—got together for one of those fake dinner parties you see in food magazines, in this case Food & Wine. (No offense! It’s just true!) Anyway, Butterfly waiters will wear aprons designed by Fetherston. (via Eater)