While the local restaurant scene is taking two steps forward, dining at the World Trade Center has taken a huge step back: The New York Post reports that the 7,000-square-foot restaurant planned by the Eleven Madison Park team has been abandoned due to “scheduling conflicts,” and the British steakhouse Hawksmoor, which “was supposed to open a 14,000-square-foot jumbo at Three World Trade last year, is ‘now looking at a different location uptown.'” That leaves Eataly and the One World Observatory as the only sit-down dining options in the entire complex for the foreseeable future. (I don’t consider Épicerie Boulud a real restaurant, although I had a tasty palmier there the other day.)

The Post followed this up with a second negative article about 3 World Trade Center, and how the building’s retail spaces appear to be far from ready to welcome tenants, including Tiffany & Co. and Ladurée. Post writer Steve Cuozzo has long been very close to Silverstein Properties; could this two-pronged attack on Westfield, which owns the World Trade Center retail, be at Silverstein’s behest? Surely it would be easier to get office tenants if the mall was livelier.