Seen & Heard: Development Drill Spotted Above Canal Street

••• Joe & the Juice has opened on Greenwich.

••• On August 1, Racines will host “world-famous cheese specialists, Bronwen and Francis Percival for a special dinner composed by Chef Paul Liebrandt around unique cheeses. During the dinner, Bronwen & Francis will take you on a journey through the history, science and taste of real dairy farming, exploring raw-milk, single-farm cheeses from Vermont, Lancashire and Nottinghamshire, and the Swiss Alps. Tasting menu with pairing is $160 per person before tax & gratuity.”

••• The storefront at 72 Warren, which Church Street School for Music and Art has been subletting to the Brooklyn Robot Foundry, is available for rent for up to two years (at which point the German School Manhattan will presumably be using it, as it expands).

••• T. spotted the Dreaded Drill of Development on Thompson, just above Canal. This could mean that someone has plans for the small vacant lot next to the Soho Grand; it could also mean that some or all of the small buildings at the corner of Canal (second and third photos below) are getting developed. Then again—and this is the most likely scenario—it could also have something to do with the Soho Grand. While I was looking for info on the Department of Buildings website, I found a filing from June for 4 Thompson (one of the Soho Grand’s addresses) to “convert ground floor salon to restaurant with full kitchen. Create wall openings to extend dining service to side yard.” This would be the “24-hour diner” that the hotel applied for a liquor license for back in April. The question is, why would they need to drill first?

••• Meanwhile, outside Café Altro Paradiso, I was surprised to see that the Ducati dealership on that block has commandeered the street parking on the west side of Spring Street Park. The sign clearly says “no parking,” so I wondered if maybe the company had a variance or something—but then I saw that the bikes are even parked in front of a fire hydrant. The 1st Precinct must be looking the other way for some reason.

 

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