••• The Broadsheet reports on a CB1 Battery Park City Committee meeting that happened back on Oct. 2. (Something must’ve come up.) “The October 2 meeting of the Battery Park City committee of Community Board 1 (CB1) included a discussion of the long-delayed community center on North End Avenue that considered, for the first time in public, the possibility of the facility opening with an operator other than Asphalt Green.” They seem to think that it’s more important that the facility open soon than it involve Asphalt Green, which is dispiriting, disheartening, discouraging, demoralizing, depressing….

By Hiroko Masuike for the New York Times

••• The New York Times: “On Wednesday, a business improvement district in Lower Manhattan will unveil a proposal to create a pedestrian haven out of the area known to real estate agents as Hudson Square, and known to most other residents as the smattering of blocks—south of the West Village, west of SoHo—one must traverse to reach the tunnel.” If one is coming from the north. “Long-term plans from the group, called the Hudson Square Connection, include refashioning the rock-strewed lot just outside the tunnel, known as Freeman Plaza,”—by no one—”into a tree-lined space with tables and chairs; reducing the width of roadway lanes on Hudson Street and widening the adjacent sidewalk; and repurposing a little-used offshoot of Avenue of the Americas into a street for cars and pedestrians.” REDUCING THE LANES ON HUDSON?! DOES NO ONE UNDERSTAND HOW HARD IT IS TO GET DOWNTOWN? BROADWAY IS DOWN TO ONE LANE (THANKS TO BUS LANES) AND TUNNEL TRAFFIC JAMS UP VARICK. SORRY FOR THE CAPS BUT WHAT THE FUHECK?! Oh, it says reducing the width of roadway lanes on Hudson. Well, I don’t know about that. Update: Hudson goes north, doesn’t it? I need to slowly step away from the keyboard.

••• “Hudson Square Connection’s redevelopment proposal also calls for expanding and renovating SoHo Square, the half-acre of green space at Spring Street and Sixth Avenue at the neighborhood’s eastern edge; installing public art along Varick Street; and setting up tables and chairs for pedestrians along Spring Street, the area’s main east-west thoroughfare.” —Crain’s

••• The New York Times reports on how the closure of St. Vincent’s Hospital has affected health care downtown: “The immediate fight is to win market share, the loyalty and business of the area’s many affluent and well-insured residents. But the demise of St. Vincent’s has also turned Lower Manhattan into a laboratory for health care reform. The new clinics and the maneuvering by large chains are anticipating an expansion of the number of people with insurance and changes in the way that health care is delivered and paid for.” Wait, did they say ‘reform’? Gee, that sprained ankle looks like it could use a CAT scan….

••• There are people around here who like morris dancing—”English folk dancing in which dancers, usually six at a time, prance aerobically around each other—sometimes waving handkerchiefs, at other times clashing long sticks, but always wearing bells.” Sounds like my usual Saturday night. —Broadsheet

••• The New York Times review of Yunnan Kitchen—where I have been trying to go!—sideswipes Tribeca’s “Yunnan-inspired” Lotus Blue.

••• “The Tribeca Grand Hotel has already pulled the plug on Travis Bass’s pop-up nightclub Bottoms Up after just a few nights of operation. The reason? Everyone is being quiet on the explanations, but according to Bass, Bottom’s Up was “epic.” He notes that “it got crazier than we all could have expected.” —Eater

••• The New York Times has an article questioning the proliferation of tasting menus, but I didn’t read it. The slideshow taking you through a meal at Atera is great though.