Crown Shy, the first solo project of James Kent, a chef from Danny Meyer’s Eleven Madison Park, and Jeff Katz, a managing director of Del Posto, is open for dinner as of this week at 70 Pine, between Pearl and William. Kent was also the executive chef at the NoMad Restaurant and scored a James Beard Award nomination for Best Chef: New York City. Katz was at Del Posto for 13 years and also got a James Beard Award for outstanding service. The name has a really nerdy root: it’s the science term for when tree canopies grow close to each other but don’t touch and instead create channels between them (see photo below). This from the restaurant: “The name Crown Shy is a reminder to aspire to the highest heights but stay humble, play nicely, and make room for your peers. Visually, the forest canopy is similar to the lower Manhattan skyline: dozens of distinct towers separated by the street grid. And because the restaurant is located on the ground floor of 70 Pine Street, it felt appropriate to borrow an effect naturally occurring in trees.”

NEW MAX OPEN FOR BUSINESS
Max, at its new location on West Broadway, got its liquor license today and is back in business. More on their new setup TK.

IDEA FOR THE GOLDEN YEARS…
Heard: a retired couple planning their walk back from Kaffe to the UWS. Every Sunday they take a train to a spot near coffee: Brooklyn Roasters, Common Good Harlem near the Macombs Dam Bridge, Mott Haven Bagel & Barista – then walk back to their apartment. That last one they do by crossing onto Randall’s from the 103rd Street pedestrian bridge and leaving on the Bronx side. Squad goals.

LILAC GETS SOME TLC
Members of the crew of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Sturgeon Bay, a local icebreaker, donated a day of service to the museum ship Lilac, a retired Coast Guard cutter that once tended buoys and lighthouses and is now in residence at Pier 25. They removed rust, painted bulwarks, installed anodes to help protect the hull and rigged a new deck awning. They will be supervised by Lilac crewmembers, who are volunteers themselves. “It’s so appropriate that these active-duty Coast Guardsmen are contributing their time to a vessel that is part of their own proud legacy,” said museum director Mary Habstritt. Originally built for the U.S. Lighthouse Service and launched in 1933, the Lilac became a U.S. Coast Guard Cutter in 1939, supplying lighthouses and maintaining buoys until she was retired in 1972. The ship is on the National Register of Historic Places, is open to the public as a free museum offering programs in the arts and maritime history. More info at www.lilacpreservationproject.org.

FIGHTING FOR FIELD SPACE + DESIGN CHARETTE
All the local kids sports leagues are encouraging their members to petition for a full-sized field at the Gansevoort Peninsula, the five-acre parcel in Hudson River Park at the end of, well, Gansevoort Street. Since that part of the park is in CB2, most meetings will take place there, but the Hudson River Park Trust will host a community design charette on Tuesday, March 26, 6:45p at MS 297, 75 Morton Street in the 1st Floor Auditorium.

PHONE’S FOR YOU
Robert Janz added an update to his work on Chambers and Greenwich.