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In the News: The Smile Is Opening a Café in Shinola
••• Remember how the Shinola store at 177 Franklin has always planned on having a café in the front? It’ll be call the Smile Newsstand, and it’s run by the owners of the Smile on Bond (and the Smile to Go on Howard). Opens Friday. P.S. I wish it was selling lunch stuff, but it sounds like we’re just getting baked goods. —The New York Times
••• New York Yimby (as in Yes in My Backyard) says the 10-story building currently being demolished at 22 Thames will be replaced by a very tall one: “The development does have nearly 400,000 square feet of air rights, which is enough for a significant skyscraper. […] No permits relating to actual construction have been approved. 22 Thames’ most recent denial from the Department of Buildings came last July, and that proposal, by Vinoly, would have risen 70 stories and 841 feet. […] The shift from Goldstein Hill & West to Vinoly is definitely an indicator that the project will be high-end.” We had a Twitter exchange about it, and Yimby said this: “Plan has not yet been OK’d, but going through the review process again after earlier permits were indeed disapproved.”
••• Renderings of the Leonard (101 Leonard, at the northeastern corner of Broadway), which launches sales today. —The Real Deal
••• Clinton Hall is opening Monday at 90 Washington, says the New York Times: “This new beer garden in the financial district serves 20 draft beers and ciders, stored and dispensed to the brewer’s precise specifications. A full bar, wines and a menu of sausages, burgers and mussels round out the choices at this 200-seat indoor-outdoor space.” So much beer, so many burgers…. I still think Terroir could make a killing in FiDi. (Related: The Times also confirms that Bill’s Bar & Burger and the 10,500-square-foot Morton’s are indeed open.)
••• The New York Observer takes a long look at the South Street Seaport. I only skimmed it, but I did enjoy this line: “During a bar conversation that ricocheted between Obamacare, the NSA surveillance scandal, the Trail of Tears and the student debt crisis, Kevin Murphy, a six-year neighborhood resident, accused Howard Hughes of ‘taking advantage of a catastrophe’ by steamrolling the Seaport overhaul through a still-reeling neighborhood.”
••• “Ed Diamond, who has lived on Rector Place for 23 years, is step-father to approximately 100,000 honeybees, nestled in a secluded spot in Battery Park.” —Broadsheet
••• Police blotter. —Tribeca Trib
••• “At Ripley’s, a World Trade Center of Matchsticks.” I actually visited Matchstick Marvels in Gladbrook, Iowa…. —Wall Street Journal
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The Observer article was a hatchet job with sloppy reporting. They stated that Superdry and Abercrombie were still closed. They are OPEN and thriving. They also criticize See/Change as if it was supposed to make the seaport instantly as popular as before. It is not. It is a placeholder for now. They have done a great job with a terrible situation. There was lots of damage that still needs repair; hence the shops in containers. Pier 17 will be a big success. Why not wait until they announce the retailers before determining that it is a failure? Other changes are in the works that I am not at liberty to say, but they will be great for the seaport AND the community. p.s. I walk my dog frequently and there are usually lots of tourists; though you would never know that from reading the article.
Agree that the article was badly written and didn’t make a lot of sense. But I walked down Front Street last night on my way back from dinner (Cowgirl Seahorse: live music and a full house of people enjoyin’) and was getting all nostalgic about how really lovely it is in the evening, with the old buildings and the cobblestones and the lighting and everything just working together to make it feel special and private (kind of like TriBeCa in the “old days,” but let’s not get started on that). There were still a few people around, and it was sad that so many of the businesses are closed, but 10 years from now we’ll be remembering what it was like now, so go down there for a few evenings and support the places that are open.
Luis is right about the tourists. I’ve been walking over that way occasionally during the day and was surprised how many there are, and this was before A&F and Superdry reopened. The construction between the Governor’s Island Ferry and the Seaport is mostly finished and it’s a nice walk along the water to Pier 15, which is one of the best spots to happen recently (seems to be mostly locals hanging out; the tourists are at Pier 17).