••• The swimming pool at BMCC—which has been closed since spring of 2013—is apparently about to reopen! (The work was supposed to take three months.) The school’s fitness schedule says “early September,” but efforts to find out exactly when have proved fruitless. Traditionally, people unaffiliated with BMCC have been able to use the pool by signing up through the continuing education program, but I couldn’t find anything online about it.

••• The NYC Department of Transportation has something new in the works for the half-assed pedestrian plaza on Franklin between Varick and W. Broadway. Why is the DOT even in the art business? Couldn’t these resources go toward, say, the recobblestoning of our streets?

••• The padding at the ball fields is being replaced. Photos courtesy the Battery Park City Authority.

••• Press release from city council candidate Aaron Foldenauer: “Aaron Foldenauer filed a formal complaint against Lower Manhattan City Council Member Margaret Chin and her Chief of Staff Paul Leonard, alleging that they have committed several criminal offenses by using City resources to gain an unfair advantage in Chin’s reelection campaign. […] The criminal acts allegedly committed by Chin and Leonard include: using City resources to recruit City Council interns to work for Chin’s reelection campaign; improperly using official City Council interns as campaign staff, and directing them to do things such as hand out Chin campaign literature and hold Chin campaign signs; and Leonard’s use of his workdays to manage Chin’s reelection campaign and send out press releases issued on Chin’s campaign website instead of performing his official duties as a paid employee of the City.”

••• I hear that 53 Beach (where Montessori of Manhattan was) will also be home to a school (as well as WeWork offices).

••• Opening today at Bortolami: “Parti Pris, Barbara Kasten’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Endlessly experimental and now in her eighth decade, Kasten will show three recent bodies of work: an extension of her colorful, large scale photographs, Collisions, and new sculptural, photographic hybrids entitled Progressions. She will also present Parallels—her first freestanding sculpture since the early 1970s.” Below: “Progression Six.”

••• Katia Pryce of DanceBody sent out an email to clients explaining why the studio at 51 Warren didn’t happen. Here’s hoping a new space works out.

The day we started construction on our beautiful ground-floor space in January 2017, the Condo Board in charge of our building abruptly placed a Stop Work Order on our build-out, without explanation. Despite our adherence to every possible rule and regulation pre-construction—and after repeated, creative efforts and appeals to the board over the past 7 months, they have rebuffed our ideas and unreasonably refused to allow us to proceed. To this day, we still do not have answers as to “why” the board would not grant us permission to use the space. Rarely have I ever run into people quite as cruel for no specific reason. […] And my little startup, my company that I have built from the ground up, will have to wait just a little while longer to find a real home.

••• Newly revealed 80 White is looking good. Artists Space will be on two floors (the ground floor and either the one above or the one below).

••• Meanwhile, something is happening down the street at 88 White. Do I smell a gallery?

••• Friends of Washington Market Park is screening Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone tomorrow (Sept. 9) and, more important, La La Land on Sept. 16. Watching the trailer makes me want to see the movie again, and I’ve already seen it four times.