Seen & Heard: The Flea Is Starting on Its New Theater

This is another one of those Seen & Heard posts where most of the items have images, so don’t stop scrolling until you hit the comments.

••• Yana Tara tweeted two photos of a hallway at 310 Greenwich, where the fire the other night was.

courtesy Yana Tara @yanatara310 Greenwich courtesy Yana Tara••• The World Trade Center Transportation Hub now has a lot of quills in its quiver. The New York Post’s Steve Cuozzo recently ranted about how much he hates it, and the cost overruns are certainly hard to justify, but you can’t live on glass boxes alone. I bet it’ll be a huge hit with locals and especially tourists—it’s far more of a visual landmark than 1 World Trade Center.

WTC transportation hub••• The Flea has started demolition on its new home at 20 Thomas. As for the rendering posted on the wall—now that’s what I call a black box theater…. They’re aiming to have it ready by September 2015.

The Flea 20 ThomasThe Flea rendering••• I got around to visiting Spin Ceramics, the new shop on lower Crosby. Really spectacular stuff! These leaf dishes are just $40 a pop.

Spin leaf dishesand sons••• From Pen Parentis: “The twelfth Pen Parentis Literary Salon season will launch with a fantastic evening of readings by three critically acclaimed authors: Julia Fierro, author of Cutting Teeth, David Gilbert, author of the nationally bestselling novel & Sons, and Mira Jacob, author of The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing. The reading takes place on Tuesday, September 9th at the elegant Hotel Andaz at 75 Wall Street, which graciously provides happy hour specials on beer on wine. The night kicks off at 7:00 pm, and admission is free. RSVP is recommended, but not required.” I loved the writing in & Sons!

••• The guy inside European Wax Center (on Chambers) and I had a pantomimed conversation yesterday and all I could lip-read was “Tuesday.” So it either opens today or next Tuesday. And there will be no “First Impressions” article.

••• Corner Gourmet (is that the deli’s name?) at W. Broadway and Murray is getting serious work done…. From what I can tell, the façade looks like it might end up being rather Nish-Nushy. The note posted outside had said it’d reopen in 2-3 weeks, but that strikes me as rather unlikely.

Corner Gourmet••• The former Sunshine Suites space at 12 Desbrosses has been taken over by Post Factory NY: “Alex Halpern founded Post Factory NY in 1996 with one Avid in a friend’s borrowed apartment. By day, he rented the Avid to other filmmakers, and by night, he edited his documentary Nine Good Teeth. The response was overwhelming, and Alex realized that New York’s film community needed a new kind of post-production company—one with the flexibility and technology to serve the needs of all filmmakers, from the smallest indies, to TV, to commercials, to the biggest studio movies. In the years since, Post Factory NY has expanded to include color correction, conform, mixing, digital delivery, and a state-of-the-art screening room.”

Post Factory NY

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4 Comments

  1. I LOVE the new Calatrava designed WTC Transportation Center and Cuozzo’s criticism was way off the mark. Yes it is expensive. So what. Grand Central was expensive. Central Park was expensive. The original Penn Station was expensive. You know what wasn’t expensive? The NEW Penn Station! Great cities build great public works and this site required something bold and dynamic and that is what we have. It will be a huge success.

    • Luis,
      I agree fully with your comments Re: Calatrava terminal

      it will undoubtedly be beautiful. The cost overruns are unfortunately typical of any unique city managed project, and have more to do with cronyism and lack of oversight (wink wink) than anything else. Everyone will get a piece of the action.

      The architecture itself will be great and certainly a very unique and necessary addition to and otherwise boring assortment of glass boxes.

      • Personally, I don’t know a single person who doesn’t love this structure, but there is no shortage of people who just like to complain about everything. :-) Another great addition to the site will be the Performing Arts Center which will rise just west of 1 WTC where the temporary PATH entrance now stands.

  2. Is no one else appalled by the Flea Theater plans to demolish that charming, window-fronted building at 20 Thomas for a characterless brick box? That block has more than its share of austere architecture with the brutalist telecom tower…