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In the News: Robert De Niro’s Wife Is Planning a Tribeca Café
••• “Grace Hightower De Niro, actress, Tribeca socialite [?] and the wife of actor Robert De Niro, has added coffee entrepreneur to her resume. Ms. De Niro this year launched Grace Hightower & Coffees of Rwanda, a line of coffees farmed in Rwanda and roasted in Connecticut, that are now being sold at stores like Whole Foods, Union Market and Brooklyn Fare, as well as online. She said she plans to open up a Tribeca storefront for her coffee within the year.” —Wall Street Journal
••• The New York Times ran an astoundingly dippy article about how Upper East Siders are moving downtown. “You can go out to dinner and you don’t have to be dressed,” Laight Street resident Linda Lambert is quotes as saying. “You don’t have to wear jewelry.”
••• The Landmarks Preservation Commission shot down part of 60-66 White’s rooftop addition: “Three elevator bulkheads, housing the mechanicals for elevators going to the second floor of the duplex penthouse, would rise 10 feet above the roof. Two cooling towers, each 18 feet tall, would also be added.” (Two of the three buildings are going residential.) —Tribeca Trib
••• “The owners of the newly opened Trading Post restaurant at 170 John St. near the South Street Seaport want to add outdoor tables to their amenities. Despite a heated exchange with two building residents at the July 1st meeting of Community Board 1’s Financial District Committee, the eatery’s co-owner Sam O’Connor says he is hopeful for an agreement.” —Downtown Express
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Erik, can you please please start a separate commentary post for the NYT piece?! I expected some amusing editorializing. Among the more minor details: Did the broker quoted really use “warehouse” as I read it (verb: to accumulate and store for future use, as in to warehouse apartments for children)?
I don’t know that anything more should be uttered about that article. A lot of people have been talking about it. You called it “dippy”, Erik, which is monumentally generous. It seared eyeballs across the city. The general consensus among my friends has been that there had to have been something more to it. Like it was some kind of farcical performance art piece in print, dreamed up by The Onion or something.
The proposed penthouse addition to 60-66 White St meant that the elevator bulkheads and cooling towers (in lieu of the typical 3 ft tall compressor units) would actually have risen *20* and *28* feet, respectively, above the present roofline.
Can somebody explain to me why the Landmarks Preservation Commission for Tribeca exists? The existing buildings are not historical, but rather old factories that were a slum until the building boom of the 90’s. The history of old NYC was bulldozed 200 years ago.
Sadly I feel this neighborhood is slowly morphing into (eek) the Upper East side.
Missing some of the old art and grit in the neighborhood.
Robin: “slowly morphing into the upper east side?!” I moved to TriBeCa in 1978, because it was the only place I could find that was cheap enough to afford. This morphing occurred in about 1985. The old art and grit hasn’t been seen hereabouts in nearly thirty years.
AW – as a 1979er, I agree – but now we’re talking about UES socialites, which is far worse than investment bankers and trust fund babies. But in the middle of a housing bubble, who can move?
You know what’s worse? Huh, do ya? People that always have to tell you when they moved to Tribeca…cough…cough…Washington Market. Still trying to understand how the year in which someone moved into a neighborhood maaaaatters? Do you pay more/less taxes? Did you have a the oringinal grand master plan to develop the area/real estate? Or were you just looking for a cheap place to live or trying to keep it a cheap place to live? And now, are you looking for a “trailblazer” medal, a daily pat on the back from every resident that you pass on the sidewalks engulfed by overgrown outdoor cafe seating? Or do you want your name etched on a newly-placed cobblestone? Please give it a lasting rest because no one cares other than you and your pre-Tribeca-Tribeca cabal.
Amen Jim!!