••• “On Lafayette Street since 1985, The Noho Star still has an old-school vibe that attracts low-key neighborhood people along with New York luminaries like Chuck Close, Wallace Shawn, and Lauren Hutton. The restaurant’s sister spot, Temple Bar (above), opened in 1989. Now both are about to vanish.” Temple Bar was the first real cocktail bar I went to. —Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York

••• “Following a string of cyclist and pedestrian deaths on the West Side Highway last year, the state transportation officials agreed to study the traffic conditions on the five-mile span.” —DNAinfo

••• Yesterday’s rally at City Hall was about an effort to have Battery Park City Authority income be directed “for upgrades in the crumbling apartments blocks operated by the New York City Housing Authority for the poorest New Yorkers.” (There’s no way that a “thousand-plus” people were at the event. Maybe four hundred.) —Broadsheet

••• ESPN has leased space space at Pier 17 for TV and radio studios. The photo showing the building lit red is disturbing—colored light is in questionable taste—but “the display was expected to be for one night only.” —New York Post UPDATE: Luis from FiDi Fan Page emailed to correct that last impression: “They are set up to honor every holiday, flag and charitable event color in the Crayola box. I think it’s awesome, but I like shiny things. It also does basic white, but my guess is that they will follow a similar pattern to the WTC and the Empire State Building.” And he directed me to a video that he had posted of the lights changing garishly; a still from it is below.)