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In the News: Pickleball for Bed Bath & Beyond?
PICKLEBALL TAKING OVER BED BATH & BEYONDS?
G. caught sight of this one: Curbed reports that a former Saks Off Fifth in Stamford, a Burlington in Pleasantville, a former Old Navy in a New Hampshire mall — and a Bed Bath & Beyond in Lake Saint Louis — are all turning into pickleball courts. Could it happen here? Seems like a very low density use of square footage, but we will see how Court 16 makes it down in Fidi…
WHITMAN’S TRIBECA
This is old, but I wanted to put it here for the record while I try to dig up more on Taylor’s Saloon: The Times had a feature called “Retracing Walt Whitman’s Steps Through Brooklyn and Manhattan” that included Taylor’s Saloon, which sat at the corner of Broadway and Franklin Street, and “was called by one magazine ‘the largest and most elegant restaurant in the world,’ but Whitman might not have appreciated the venue or his dinner company when he went there with the reformist educator and Transcendentalist Bronson Alcott (father of Louisa May) in December 1856…From one of the most rarefied settings in New York, Whitman denounced the political elite. It seems likely, then, that the gilded environs could have made him uneasy.”
DEVELOPER DEFAULTS ON 61 BROADWAY
The Real Deal reports that the developer RXR has defaulted on its 33-story office tower at 61 Broadway. “RXR triggered a default when it stopped making payments on the $240 million loan in December, Real Estate Alert reported…The move was not a surprise. CEO Scott Rechler earlier this year said he was willing to hand the keys back to lenders on outdated properties that RXR can’t make competitive by further investment. Rechler told The Real Deal that he had already made back his equity on the property.”
THE BEES OF BATTERY PARK CITY
I knew that Brookfield had a couple of hives, but The Broadsheet reports that there are even more bee hives around downtown, maintained by beekeepers from Alveole, including those on the rooftops at Five Hanover Square, 101 Greenwich, 85 Broad and 32 Old Slip. Brookfield now has eight hives with two more coming this summer. If you ever have a chance to hear the presentation from the beekeepers, take it.
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“Seriously, How Bad is This Historic Broadway Building’s Makeover?”
Curbed.com
October 5, 2010
“The mystery of what’s hidden behind the curtain covering the facade of 365 Broadway has been revealed, and it’s basically a bunch of bricks. Gone are the arched windows, scroll work and big cornice that once topped this building that sits just outside the Tribeca East Historic District.”
https://grolierclub.omeka.net/exhibits/show/dining-out/item/828
“Taylor’s Saloon
À la carte
New York City
ca. 1861-62
“Taylor’s Saloon was the foremost women’s restaurant in mid-century New York. It was richly furnished in the way that retail businesses then established themselves as respectable public spaces for women. This 56-page menu has a black leather spine with gilt rules, black gutta percha covers, ornamental gilt borders, inlaid mother of pearl, and navy-blue embossed endpapers. Printed advertisements are on the versos, such as this one shown here for Barnum’s Museum. Some of the advertisements for wine and spirits incorporate actual bottle labels. The two menus that will be in the exhibition (the other dated ca. 1862-63) are the only known copies from the early location in the International Hotel on Broadway at Franklin Street. In 1866, Taylor’s moved uptown to the St. Denis Hotel on Broadway at East 11th Street, where it was situated in the fashionable shopping district known as the Ladies’ Mile.”
At the link below:
“The letterhead provides a detailed view of [Taylor’s Saloon’s] opulent interior, whose marble floors and vaulted ceilings housed a hundred tables, as well as rich displays of fruit, candy, and flowers, all multiplied by the many gold-framed mirrors.”
https://www.jamesarsenault.com/pages/books/7664/gold-rush-era-letter-on-saloon-of-international-hotel-letterhead?soldItem=true
HOW WE DINE.
By the Strong-Minded Reporter of the Times. [sic]
The New York Times
January 1, 1859
“[…] THE MINOR SALOON ON THE STETSONIAN PLAN
is a very nice place to take & meal at, even though its [sic] not up to the first-class grade. The only objectionable features of such establishments are, that while they are fully as expensive as the genuine and origiinal article, they arc not quite as good. At certain hours of the day you are informed that the waiter is
very sorry, but the dish which you have ordered s- [sic]
“just out, Sir.” Then you can never get a French roll after 4 o’clock ; they bring you, instead, that kind of stuff of the granulated crumb of which I have already spoken. Of course, the rolls are ” just out, Sir.” Then the waiters are usually undrilled, not to say slightly savage in their demeanor. They hum tunes as they put down your plate, and sometimes they wear slippers. They are attentive enough, but it is with an officious haste which expresses to you that they are doing their very utmost to be attentive-a demonstration which, being obtrusive, is not agreeable.
“Places of this character are more numerous than strictly first-class establishments. They are to be met with “up-town” on Broadway, and one or two are in Nassau-street. Taylor’s, in Broadway, is an average specimen of the class.
“TAYLOR’S SALOON
is a palace of plaster, white paint, gold-leaf, and mirrors. You are fairly dazzled with light when you go in; you sit on velvet cushions with a mirror behind you and another one directly opposite, in which you see a million perspective copies of yourself. (I found it a most agreeable subject of contemplation.) A fountain bubbles up in the centre of the great hall; angels in plaster support innumerable lights, which illuminate hundreds of angels in hoops. Every party has a separate compartment, whereof the dividing lines are the arms of the couches, terminating in griffins’ heads, which glare on the attendant as he brings up the tray. You eat off an elegant little marble table, and the terms are not, on the whole, extravagant. The front part of the establishment is occupied with the singular mélange of confectionery, (first-rate confectionery, too,) and cigars of excellent quality, which, however, you are not “licensed to smoke on the premises,” for they don’t permit smoking in that classic fane. You can have an excellent dinner at Taylor’s, and it is well served, too ; but I do object to the waiters. I do not like to be served by a person in dirty-white habiliments; I prefer that the man who is so good as to bring me what I am to eat should not appear in soiled garments. I do object specially to the man who, from his walking up and down incessantly, and from his asking me three times, in the course of five minutes, if I have “orthered, Sir-r-r,” I take to be the head-waiter– 1 do object to his wearing a threadbare blue coat with light gray seams and tarnished gilt buttons; because,when I glance around me and see the mirrors, and the fountains, and the gaslights, and the massive Taylorian–the order of architecture would be otherwise nondescript–the massive Taylorian columns, I naturally solace myself with the reflection that I am in strictly aristocratic quarters. Why, then, must a waiter, clad like a nightmare, come in and disturb my illusion. TAYLOR evidently commits an error in judgment; –the fixings and the men are not in keeping. […]”
How about a Basketball City-like complex for Bed, Bath & Beyond? Better access to public transportation than the spot on the FDR.
Good idea!
Finally