••• “Two and a half years ago I stood inside the beginnings of the Oculus,” tweeted Albert C. Lee. “We’ve come a long way.”

••• From Claude Arpels:

I am a parent at PS 234 and a member of the Community Education Council for District 2 (CEC D2). I have been advocating for several years that downtown schools on the West Side need a better zoned middle school option that Baruch. Baruch is a great school but a long commute for many of us. I pushed hard to get 75 Morton Street to be a zoned school, which looks like what will happen.

However, I was shocked to see that the original zoning proposal for this school excluded all schools below Canal Street. A second proposal was added before the meeting that does include PS 234, 89, and 276 in the zone. The meetings tonight [6:30 p.m. at P.S. 51, 520 W. 45th St.] and Thursday [6:30 p.m. at P.S. 340, 590 Sixth Ave.] will welcome parents who want to express views about the zoning proposals. Turnout by downtown parents might make the difference between which plan is approved. On March 15, the CEC will hold its monthly calendar meeting at PS 234. Parents can also come to this meeting, where the vote on these proposals will likely take place.

75 Morton will be a 10-15 minute walk or a straight shot on the ACE train for many in our community. There is no reason why we should not be included in this zone. Some members of the zoning committee seem to want downtown schools to be zoned to PS 131 on Hester St., whose population is almost entirely Chinese. While I would support an effort to desegregate PS 131 and integrate it more into the community, I believe that this is a very complicated issue and that zoning is the wrong tool to accomplish this.

••• From a reader: “The old Sun Cafe at 67 Reade, which had its liquor license expire over a year ago on 2/28/15, started operating a night club with loud music out of the space after covering up the windows.” Because who wouldn’t want to party there?

••• You know those tour vendors who hang out at Chambers and W. Broadway on weekends, trying to sell tickets to the tourists waiting for the shuttle bus to South Ferry? Another reader ran a little investigation…. “There is a group of around eight people from ‘All Tours’ selling boat rides to the Statue of Liberty. They have an ID but I don’t think that it is valid and they don’t have a permit. They are charging double the regular fee for the tours and when I called the official statue tour people they had never heard of this group. I posed as a tourist to get some info but they were on to me pretty quickly. They were aggressive.”

••• While in L.A. this past weekend, Adam and I couldn’t resist checking out Spartina, newly opened there. (The restaurant was in the Maison Kayser space before the Harrison.) The food was very good! Although I don’t remember the Tribeca version having the same attitude.