Seen & Heard: New Chinese Restaurant in Battery Park City

••• Lloyd Cole will perform songs from his 1983-to-1996 catalog at City Winery on July 9. Below: “Tell Your Sister” from 1991’s Don’t Get Weird on Me Babe.

••• There’s an ad in the Broadsheet for the grand opening of Ningbo Cafe, “the only authentic Chinese food in Lower Manhattan,” at 21 South End Ave. today from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. It’s evidently owned by Wellman Wu of Peking Duck House. If there’s anything online about it, I can’t find it (possibly because Ningbo is a city in China, which floods the results). Anyone who goes, please do report back!

••• “I am a fan of Best Market and hope they are doing well,” says K. “Except for these signs…. Wondering if you are hearing anything (complaints) about them? Any idea if they are legal? They sure are an eyesore especially how they are spread out across the sidewalk.” I know the city has strict regulations about signs like this (no clue about the carts), but that’s a pretty wide (and possibly private?) sidewalk. The Department of Sanitation oversees usage, for some reason, and we all know it’s not shy about handing out tickets.

Best Market signsBest Market carts••• Battery Dance performs May 11 and 12 at Pace’s Schimmel Center: “The Durga Project—a world premiere directed by Jonathan Hollander, weaves together the movement vocabularies, sonorities and aesthetics of the U.S. and India. The concept of Durga, or Shakti, the power and energy and magnificence of womanhood, underlies and informs the piece. Inter/Ago by Tadej Brdnik, Observatory by Theo Ndindwa and an invocation by Unnath H.R. complete the program.” Tickets.

••• Opening May 12 at Patrick Parrish: “A group exhibition of Danish design by Kasper Kjeldgaard, Pettersen & Hein, and Maria Bruun & Anne Dorthe Vester, curated by Henriette Noermark. With an emphasis on materials and form, the works on view will intervene with and transform the space in various ways. Refining materials such as concrete, oak, brass, and steel into vibrant elements resulting in a bench, a stool, a mirror, or a mobile, the works are poetic, sensuous, and fragile despite the masculinity of the materials.”

Patrick Parrish

 

6 Comments

  1. Sidewalk signs need to be within 6 feet of building facade otherwise they risk a ticket. They come around once in a while to check and we’ve been ticketed before.

    • No. These signs are not legal anywhere on a public sidewalk, i.e., beyond a demarcated property line or the building line where it abuts the public sidewalk.

      NYC Administrative Code § 16-118 (2.) (a) Every owner, lessee, tenant, occupant or person in charge of any building or premises shall keep and cause to be kept the sidewalk, flagging and curbstone abutting said building or premises free from obstruction and nuisances of every kind […]

      The NYC Environmental Control Board has upheld this interpretation. For example, in Appeal No. 1100399 NYC v. Liberty Tax Service September 22, 2011, ECB held, “The placement of an A-frame sign anywhere on the sidewalk, even against the building line, is unlawful unless otherwise permitted by law [such as within the boundaries of a legal sidewalk cafe] (See, for example, NYC v. Café Brama {ECB Appeal No. 47859, June 25, 2009}) and constitutes a sidewalk obstruction within the meaning of 16-118 (2). See NYC v. Times Square Mini Mall (ECB Appeal No. 3674, Jan. 11, 1989; NYC v. Spoonbread Inc. (ECB Appeal No. 1000169, July 22, 2010).”

  2. If several calls are placed to 311, the signs will be removed in short order.

  3. First we couldn’t wait for Best Market to come to the neighborhood….now we are calling 311 on them. How about letting the manager know that the signs are a violation and maybe they can take action without “reporting” them to 311.

  4. We ate at the “new” restaurant yesterday and the waiter(same) told us it was the same owner,staff, etc….from Liberty View and then the Malaysian named restaurant . They are just back to a predominantly Chinese menu again

Comment: