STRANGELY, BLESSEDLY, HEARTBREAKINGLY…
…close to normal. The New York Times has the novelist and art critic Will Heinrich take a tour of what’s up now in the Tribeca Gallery District, noting “Lower Manhattan is ablaze with art.”

AND THE FLIP SIDE…
For anyone who remembers Art in General at 79 Walker on Cortlandt Alley (now Au Cheval), the Brooklyn-based art blog Hyperallergic reports that it has decided to close its doors permanently. “Although we have taken critical measures to adjust to the new normal, the financial constriction due to COVID-19 has proved formidable, severely affecting our ability to fulfill our mission,” the leadership team wrote in a letter. Art in General was here from 1981 to 2015, when it moved to DUMBO.

UNION BUSTING AT 15 BEEKMAN
Crain’s reports that the developer SL Green, which is building at (disputed) tower for Pace University on Beekman and Nassau, has refused to hire union labor, so Local 79 has resorted to a “campaign of torment and terror” to pressure the company, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. “Since mid-September, a group of men has stood outside SL Green’s corporate headquarters at 420 Lexington Ave. every weekday between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m., blowing “saliva-spewing ear-piercing whistles,” the complaint said. The men set up a giant inflatable rat, known as Scabby, with a sign that tells passersby to call the company’s chief executive, Marc Holliday, to demand a living wage for construction workers.”