••• “Across the street from the New York Stock Exchange in Lower Manhattan, the British artist Simon Birch sat in a cavernous room with fireproofed girders, a rickety table and three wobbly office chairs for company. For most of the 20th century, 23 Wall Street was a temple of profit, the sumptuous headquarters of J. P. Morgan & Company. […] He is the driving force behind ‘The 14th Factory,’ a $3 million exhibition that will feature his work and that of about 30 other artists and creative types, including architects and filmmakers, who will fill almost 150,000 square feet, over seven floors, with paintings, sculptures, videos and interior landscapes. The project revolves around vague, sprawling themes like the expansion and collapse of empires.” It opens April 14. (Above: Two renderings from The 14th Factory on Instagram.) —New York Times

••• Speaking of 23 Wall, it “is kept vacant by a shadowy Chinese billionaire who goes by as many as seven different aliases.” —New York Post

••• “The white-marble main concourse at the Santiago Calatrava-designed, $4 billion World Trade Center Transportation Hub has been slated to open in early March, according to two knowledgeable sources.” (I think this means the building but not the stores and restaurants.) —Capital New York

••• “Homeless families enjoy free upscale lunch at Lower Manhattan’s City Hall restaurant, just days before it closes for good.” —New York Daily News

••• More on City Hall’s closing. —New York Times

••• “Before 1904, Trinity Church was New York’s gathering point for crowds to ring in the New Year. But then The New York Times opened its building in the recently renamed Times Square and began throwing the city’s new flagship celebration.” The rest of the New York Times article is about New Year’s Eve activities.

••• “Kirk Wilcox and Angela (no last name given) are a homeless couple who have been roaming the city since Sept. 30, when they were evicted from a Parkchester apartment in the Bronx, according to Wilcox. Their companions are 10 cats that live in two wooden travel boxes constructed by Wilcox, a former carpenter. On the morning of Dec. 21, the couple stopped briefly in Tribeca Park.” —Tribeca Trib

••• “An employee of restaurant Sabor de Mexico [on Nassau] allegedly stole $1,500 from a cash register and safe.” —DNAinfo