Seen & Heard: The Jeff Koons Sculpture Is Gone

••• T. reports that Jeff Koons’s “Balloon Flower (Red)” sculpture has indeed been removed from Silverstein Family Park, as the plaza in front of 7 World Trade Center is called. No word yet from Silverstein Properties whether it’s coming back or not. (Maybe it’s getting refurbished? Maybe the ground underneath needs work? Or maybe the sculpture was always on loan?) UPDATE 10/16: “My husband talked to a guy who was working on the fountain where the Koons sculpture was, and he was told the sculpture would be coming back,” says Jennifer. “Apparently there was damage to the piping underneath that needed fixing.”

••• Bogardus Plaza’s third Great Tribeca Scavenger Hunt (now simply The Hunt) is the afternoon of Sunday, October 28. It’s “a friendly competition where teams race around Tribeca finding clues, completing missions and answering trivia to win one of nine prizes totaling over $1,200! All proceeds benefit Bogardus Plaza, a 100% donation and volunteer-supported public plaza in Tribeca. Halloween costumes are encouraged!” Click here for more info on how to enter, the rules, the prizes, etc.

••• Horn from the Heart: The Paul Butterfield Story, a documentary produced by Tribecan Sandra Warren, premieres at the Roxy Cinema on October 17.

A white, teen-age harmonica player from Chicago’s south side, Paul learned the blues from the original black masters performing nightly in his own back yard. Muddy Waters was Paul’s mentor and lifelong friend, happy to share his wisdom and expertise with such a gifted young acolyte. […] The only artist to perform at The Newport Folk Festival in 1965, The Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and Woodstock in 1969, Paul would continue to break new ground in the blues and to stand up for racial equality until his death at age 44 in 1987 of a drug overdose. Through his music and words, along with first-hand accounts of his family, his bandmates and those closest to him, Horn from the Heart: The Paul Butterfield Story tells the complex story of a man many call the greatest harmonica player of all time. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.

••• Nova Fitness Innovation‘s Madison Avenue studio opened last week. The 5,500-square-foot Tribeca one (downstairs at the northeast corner of Church and Leonard) is due to be ready in the first quarter of 2019.

••• “Something is (finally) up at Sola Lab on Beekman,” notes a reader. GrubHub has a menu (below) for the restaurant.

 

8 Comments

  1. Is the scavenger hunt for children or can a group of adults participate and have fun too?

    • Hi Christina,

      Great question! We make the game family friendly – its clean and sometimes silly, but it is designed (trivia/missions/creatives) to be fun for all ages. You would probably do well as an adult only team because you can move quickly and may know more Tribeca lore! Also, half of the prizes are really geared for adults. I hope that you try it out!

  2. Those of us who live on and near the corner of Church and Leonard are pretty fed up with the obtrusive shed built around the fitness center construction there. With a row of Citibikes just ahead of it, the sidewalk is really unpleasant to navigate and usually filthy. I’m not especially freaked by rats, but they seem to have quite an empire in there (gym rats, I guess). I honestly thought the project had run out of funding, as I haven’t seen a minute’s work done there since the shed went up, early this year.

    • I concur. I cringed as I watched a couple try to navigate that corner with a stroller…

      Is there a process by which we could request for it to be modified (or removed if indeed no work is being done)?

  3. My husband talked to a guy who was working on the fountain where the Koon’s sculpture was, and he was told the sculpture would be coming back. Apparently there was damage to the piping underneath that needed fixing.

  4. Sola Pasta Lab is opening on Monday, October 24th!

  5. Anyone have any updates on Red Balloom Flower? It’s been gone for months. 7 WTC plaza looks lonely without it:/

  6. Sure looks like it’s gone with the fountains now running.

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