Williamsburg

North Williamsburg does not have any major grocery chains. What it does have, in increasing abundance, is health food stores and small, family-run markets that blend Whole Foods with your neighborhood deli. We’ll call them yuppie bodegas.

There are four such shops on Bedford Avenue between North Seventh and North Ninth streets, with another on the way, and they have much more in common then the organic, vegan fare and Ramen Noodles stocked on the shelves.

They are each owned by Palestinians, mainly from the town of al-Beireh in the West Bank region of Ramallah. Some of Williamsburg’s Palestinian grocers were strangers before they each opened shops on the same two-block stretch of Bedford Avenue. Others are related.  read more »

When the L train in Williamsburg stopped running mid-morning and the northern end of the neighborhood temporarily grinded to a halt, two things came to mind. First, Williamsburg residents are almost completely reliant on one subway line. Second, there really is a Williamsburg “type.”

At around 9:50--rush hour in the neighborhood populated by young professionals, artsy types, and those who appear to be perennially unemployed--an anonymous voice announced to passengers impatiently waiting inside a First Avenue-bound subway car parked at the Bedford Avenue stop that service to Manhattan would be suspended. Hapless, confused-looking 20- and 30-somethings spilled out onto Williamsburg’s main strip on their cell phones, trying to arrange transportation, myself included.  read more »

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What do Jasper Johns, Cindy Sherman, Annie Leibovitz and Keith Haring all have in common? Each artist has work up for sale at the 4th Annual Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM to us locals) Silent Auction.

BAM certainly plays an integral part in the Brooklyn art scene, and the auction, which raises money for BAM's various programs, raked in $237,500 last year. Artists from all over the borough have work for sale—which you can bid on on BAM's Web site—many from Williamsburg, Fort Greene and Prospect Heights. Bidding is open until April 13, when the closing reception will bring in the final bids.

Brooklyn has certainly always nurtured creative talent—nothing new there. The borough has increasingly become home to prominent names in the fine-arts community. While an afternoon spent in Manhattan's great museums or in Chelsea's galleries is certainly invigorating, poking around unconventional spaces that have sprung up all over Brooklyn can turn into quite the adventure. Brooklyn is an urban jungle peppered with art, inside and outside of the spaces that facilitate creativity.  read more »

The City Council approved the Grand Street downzoning yesterday, despite a last-minute opposition campaign mounted by a group of small-scale Williamsburg landowners.

The proposal to limit building heights to 4-6 stories was pushed through in less than a year to stop construction of two high-rise residential buildings designed by the neighborhood’s most ubiquitous architect, Karl Fischer.

While the downzoning will affect 250 properties in the neighborhood and cost $400 million, according to the new group calling themselves the Grand Home and Business Owners' Organization, not all Williamsburg developers are against the move.  read more »

As a teenager I spent a fair amount of time traversing New York City's urban terrain in search of live music. I was partial to punk. I spent a lot of time at Saturday punk matinees at ABC No Rio and the Dumbo art collective DUMBA. At 16, I marched down to the DMV to get a resident ID to prove to CBGB's Hilly Kristal that I was old enough to shove people to an orchestra of power chords.

I remember the devastation of Giuliani's ruling against dancing in bars and the death knell of advancing gentrification, the demise of the places I used to frequent (except for ABC No Rio, which managed to buy its squatted building from the city in the late 90's and is now planning a serious renovation). In a recent article for The Observer, Chris Shott described the debilitating regulatory environment that many music venues contend with now.  read more »

Though I spent three years living in Greenpoint, I often found myself shunning the local nightlife—aside from a few restaurants and my local watering hole the Pencil Factory—for cozy nights in on my quiet residential street. Especially during this time of year. But despite no longer residing there, I've recently found myself traveling north to Williamsburg and Greenpoint for a night out more often and apparently, I'm not alone!

On a recent Thursday, I headed to the Music Hall of Williamsburg to catch a few bands play. On my walk toward the venue, which stands just short of the East River, I bypassed the Thai restaurant Sea, now North 6th Street's bridge-and-tunnel capital. Patrons were falling out of the doors, the line for a table immense, while a DJ boomed hip hop to a crowd donning their Sunday (or Thursday) best. Similarly, up the street, Planet Thai was packed to the brim with people seeking a lounge, restaurant and bar feel all in one.  read more »

With a glut of condos on the market in Williamsburg and thousands more set to come online over the next few years, you would think the construction crews might have been given a day off for Monday's holiday, but alas work continued through the rain and into Monday evening on four of the latest residential projects overlooking McCarren Park.

The nine-story Ikon at 50 Bayard Street and Karl Fisher's condo tower at 20 Bayard (two of the three Fischer-designed condos on the block) looked almost ready for occupancy on Monday.  read more »

We reported in today's paper about the travails of the 200-plus tenants booted late last month from 475 Kent Avenue (and about how Williamsburg in general has become an inhospitable place for artists, so much so that many are migrating to Ridgewood, Queens).

Brownstoner reports today that the tenants--a collection of artists, some of whom had been living in the old commercial building for years--may not be able to return home for months.  read more »

A Williamsburg reader emails:

Voting this morning was a slightly more confusing and anticlimactic experience than I had expected. I stopped by the school on North 5th between Roebling and Driggs on my way into work, guided by a smattering of scotch-taped signs and several Obama canvassers (I didn't actually count 500 steps from them to the polling booth itself, but I was slightly suspicious).

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Once upon a time, before Williamsburg was a neighborhood of self-conscious hipsters and cookie-cutter condo conversions, it was a haven for the city’s artists.

As loft space in Manhattan became increasingly scarce and inexpensive throughout the 1990’s, artists flocked to commercial buildings in Williamsburg and DUMBO that were not certified for occupancy, but nonetheless provided ample space to live and work in.

One of the few de-facto artists’ colonies that had been able to resist the wave of condo conversion sweeping the neighborhood over the past few years was 475 Kent Avenue.  read more »

The Corcoran Group's Brooklyn regional vice president, Frank Percesepe, talked to The Observer about some of the trends that pushed the average price of an apartment up 8 percent in the borough in 2007, according to the firm's year-end market report.

"If you look at the numbers, there is nice, mature growth in all neighborhoods," he said.

The report covered the neighborhoods of Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, Park Slope, Williamsburg, and Bedford-Stuyvesant.

"If the price of a two-bedroom in Park Slope dropped a little," Mr. Percesepe said, "it's because inventory went down not because the market was performing badly."  read more »

The owner of one of Williamsburg's biggest brokerage firms, Aptsandlofts.com, said that the Corcoran Group's 2007 market report was "wrong" in estimating that the average price of a condo in the neighborhood had increased 8 percent since 2006.

David Maundrell told The Observer on Friday afternoon that "there was no way" that the average price of a condo in the Williamsburg market had risen from $817,000 in 2006 to $880,000 in 2007, as the Corcoran report concludes.

"Their data is wrong. We've seen the market come down 10 to 12 percent across the board since it peaked in the beggining of 2006," he said.  read more »

I didn't want to write this about the CW show Gossip Girl, but I feel I have to before it's too late.

As it stands now, Gossip Girl; is spreading throughout the United States a disjunctive, distorted, ultimately dangerous, view of what buys what in New York City right now, and the show's doing so mostly through its depiction of real estate. Like Friends in the 1990's and Sex and the City earlier this decade, Gossip Girl is giving the impression to Suzy in Nebraska and Mandy in Alabama (and Clay from Texas) that real estate in New York is as affordable as anywhere and that poor in New York means living in a $2 million Williamsburg loft.  read more »

In July of 2006, The Transom featured the story of a battle being waged in the halls of a luxurious Williamsburg condominium. Residing in the former Esquire Shoe Polish Factory, the building’s residents, most of whom occupy pricey large lofts and sprawling duplexes, were fighting over paint colors—the paint color to be applied on each apartment’s door and frame, to be exact. “I don’t like these New York stories,” resident Monroe Denton told The Transom at the time. “But they’re very New York.”

On one side were the color divide were proponents of painting the entrances dark charcoal. And on the other: something more colorful, a bit cheerier. “It’s like the Bloods and the Crips—except it’s the Teals and the Dark Charcoals,” resident Nancy Rielle is quoted as saying at the time.

Ms. Rielle, a member of the building’s Teal gang, e-mailed us today to herald a bit of good news. Last week, just shy of the dispute’s third anniversary, the building’s residents finally came to a chromatic consensus—and it’s called “Raisin Torte.” At least that’s what it’s called on Ms. Rielle’s floor, the Esquire’s third.

“We tried some other earth tones, because that seemed to be the compromise—that the Dark Charcoal people were opposed to color period. And the color people wanted color,” she told The Daily Transom today. “We tried some russet colors, but they were too orange; that was the feedback from the Dark Charcoal people.” So Ms. Rielle and her neighbor continued to visit the paint store, using their own doorframes as color labs. She went on, “Our friend Brian, down the hall, who was really a Dark Charcoal, would come over and look at the new colors and say, ‘nah.’”

So Raisin Torte was the consensus. And it left everyone feeling fairly content, Ms. Rielle said—if a bit silly, too. After all, Raisin Torte was the color of the doors and frames when the battle began almost three years ago.  read more »

“She’s paying her respect, which I think is a very good characteristic.”  read more »

“You used to have career video-store clerks,” said Leah Giblin, a diminutive 29-year-old  read more »

“I just threw my whole spring line in a bag, and I can mix anything with whatever—it&rsq  read more »

• The boringly-named U.S. General Services Administration gives out annual prizes for public projects, and this year there was only one winner in New York among the 18 prizes. Jacob K. Javits Federal Building Entry Pavilion, rejoice! Also: We need cooler public architecture. [Arch. Record News]
• At long last, Williamsburg finally becomes cool, getting a new "Asian-fusion" restaurant (appropriately named Scene). Tellingly, it's close to American Apparel. [Brooklyn Record]
• Bad-haired Bon Jovi is a good guy. He's helping finish renovations on "an energy-efficient, three-story condo complex on Halsey Street" in Bedford-Stuy, where apartments will be rented to low-income locals. Viva Brooklyn-based 80's hair metal philanthropy. [Page Six]
• Co-ops are so cruel these days, and doormen are so victimized: No more dog food treats; no more food-delivery work; no more watching rich people's babies! [NY Mag, D.I.] - Max Abelson
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Bill Scott is a radical artist, but not in the sense to which we’ve become accustomed.  read more »

Xeniz Viray, 23, lives near Jackson Street and Graham Avenue in Williamsburg. Ms.  read more »

Brownstoner Revealed! "Jonathan Butler, a 37-year-old Upper East Side native and Princeton graduate, has been blogging about Brooklyn real estate under the moniker Brownstoner for more than two years. He has, until now, kept his identity a secret, except to a tiny handful, including his wife Kira." Go to story by Tom Acitelli. Mayor Has 1,000 Days and So Much To Do "Mayor Michael Bloomberg's aides these days start their spiel about the long-range plan for the city by talking about the electronic clock in the corner of the City Hall bullpen counting down the days until the Mayor's term ends." Go to story by Matthew Schuerman. The Great Downshift Shtick "Xeniz Viray, 23, lives near Jackson Street and Graham Avenue in Williamsburg. Ms. Viray, smoking a cigarette outside of Phoebe's Cafe on Graham Street, where she waits tables, said that her Williamsburg friends will sometimes tell people they live in Bushwick." Go to story by Gillian Reagan and David Foxley. Commercial Market Spawns Crazy Soho Building Sale "A building at the corner of Broadway and Houston, 600 Broadway, is in contract for more than $1,000 per foot at $71 million, a source said." Michael Shvo teams with Joseph Moinian "The mad marketing genius Michael Shvo is partnering with developer Joseph Moinian to market a planned W Hotel at 123 Washington Street, a source said." Go to Commercial Breaks by John Koblin. Will Stripper-Plex Take It All Off? "The government may have stripped him of his title as CEO of Manhattan's most protuberant topless-bar franchise, but recently demoted Scores boss Richard Goldring isn't giving up his main money-maker so easily." Go to Counter Espionage by Chris Shott. 'It's Inspectors Gone Wild' "Chuck Hunt, the New York State Restaurant Association's man in the city, talks rats and Frank Bruni." Go to The Sit-Down by Chris Shott. Jazz Sanctuary Sells for $4.7 M. "The octogenarian jazz impresario George Wein, who founded the indispensable Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals, has sold the five-floor townhouse that served as his offices for over three decades." Buyer Spies K.T. McFarland's 770 Park Duplex "Recent U.S. Senate candidate KT McFarland's 13-room duplex at 770 Park Avenue, a source of droll tabloid scandal during her campaign, has gone to contract. The apartment was listed by Brown Harris Stevens in January for $20 million, and cut to $18,400,000 earlier this month." Go to Manhattan Transfers by Max Abelson. Foreclosure Doomsday? Not in Manhattan "If you've been reading the real-estate pages in the newspapers lately, you could be forgiven for drawing the conclusion that a national wave of foreclosures looms as the bills come due on subprime mortgages inked during the housing boom. But things aren't that grim, especially in Manhattan, where a subprime borrower's about as common as sobriety on St. Patrick's Day." Go to The Lab by Tom Acitelli. Have a Seat, Morticia! "The hard-core collectors of American Gothic are a closed and inbred society. David Scott Parker, an architect, estimated that there are perhaps 10, including him." Go to Interiors by Toni Schlesinger. Deeds and Deals A Week in New York Real Estate

James Murphy is portly and uncombed, 37 years old, and drives a 1991 Volvo station wagon.  read more »

Pity popular New York City.  read more »

Gumshoes have it hard, what with all their warm beer and cold women, felonious friends and faceless  read more »

• New York tops big cities in taxes.
[NY Times]
• Subprime lenders face higher default rates.
[NY Times]
• Jersey City emerging as buyer alternative for New Yorkers.
[NY Post]
• Trump property buyer "a very smart person," Trump says.
[NY Post]
• Rent hike at Williamsburg complex draws protests.
[Daily News]
• Some Forest Hills residents wary of 7-Eleven.
[Daily News]
• More protest over Meatpacking District billboards.
[NY Sun]
• Lawyers benefiting from city's real-estate boom.
[NY Sun]
• Trump, Barnett eye western Soho for development.
[NY Sun]
• Newsflash!: Columbus Circle successful and popular.
[NY Sun]

Did we miss any New York City real estate news this morning? Please send along tips and links.

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• Seven reasons for Queens' impending triumph: Long Island City; more bang-for-buck; it's not Jersey; the "tipping point"; Trader Joe's; community blogs; and, most importantly, Ugly Betty. [OuterB]
• Why should NYC ban traffic on Williamsburg's main stretch? Because hipsters deserve their own esplanade, and because "preserving the small town quality of Williamsburg and allowing for a more vital street life" sounds like a dandy idea. [Carefree Bedford, via Curbed]
• It's about 18 months too late to notice that "the cobblestone streets, the deep history, the architecture, and the harbor views" have made Wall Street a hip place to live. But if you like Armani-branded condos, this weekend is full of thrilling financial district open houses. [NY Mag/D.I.]
• Map of the Day: Where do NYU kids go after freshman year? Invariably, from Washington Square to Alphabet City, from "East" Williamsburg to Yorkville, from the West Village to Westchester. [L Mag]
- Max Abelson
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• The popular Zillow Web site is often right when it entertainingly estimates home values. "But when Zillow is bad, it can be terrible -- off the mark by more than 25% on one in 10 homes." But really, how much does $2 million matter in Manhattan real estate? [WSJ via Luxist]
• Can Williamsburg hipsters afford the high-end luxury condos that have covered the neighborhood? (No, because long-banged haircuts take up so much cash these days.) So "renting may be the new buying." [Real Deal]
• Curmudgeon Philip Nobel writes architectural Valentines to Robert A.M. Stern/Yale and Renzo Piano. He writes, no kidding around: "(OMG, this is totally embarrassing!) I have a little critic crush on him. Don't tell." [Metropolis]
- Max Abelson
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On the evening of Monday, Feb.  read more »

"Love Williamsburg so much now," Luna Lounge co-owner Rob Sacher said of the long-shuttered indie rock/comedy club's new nabe.

On Friday night, the former Ludlow Street venue that first brought you Interpol and The Strokes is reopening in 5,000-plus square feet at 361 Metropolitan Avenue at Havemeyer Street. (The lounge lost its previous lease in 2005.)

And the first band to commemorate the club's reawakening after its year-and-a-half-long hibernation? The Comas.

Doors open at 8 p.m.

More on Mr. Sacher's new "world class music venue" after the jump.  read more »

- Chris Shott

• Sotheby's contemporary art whiz Tobias Meyer has bought 54 acres in New Milford, which cost him $1.2 million. The neighborhood gossips will be happy to know that Mr. Meyer's rival at Christie's moved to the area last year. Who owns more land? And will they have an artsy neighborhood turf war? [WSJ]
• Elsewhere in America, November new home sales picked back up after a steep October fall. (And yet the glut of unsold new homes is still much higher than it was last year.) [NY Times]
• What does Joe Blog Reader think will happen in New York's near future? Curbed's comment board has some wonderful prophesies for next year's successes: Long Island City, Williamsburg, Philadelphia, Upper West Side, SoHa and CeHa, Flushing, Flatiron, Financial District, Chinatown, Astoria. And yet two out of four Observer writers agree: Williamsburg is still super uncool. [Curbed]
• CNN is reporting that Trump Mortgage CEO E.J. Ridings badly inflated his resume. Apparently, he wasn't "a top executive at one of Wall Street's most prestigious investment banks," or an "established leader" in mortgages, or a 15-year veteran of the financial industry. Oops. [CNN/Money]
- Max Abelson
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Every gentrifier that has packed his or her bags to move to Williamsburg, Greenpoint or Bushwick is met with some degree of dread on weekends. That's because everyone's favorite portal to Manhattan, the L train, seems to be disrupted with all sorts of service work or shut down all together.

Well, hipsters, rejoice! The MTA Advisory that previews upcoming damage to its train lines every weekend has delivered inexplicably good news this Friday afternoon

from: Advisory@mtanyct.info 2:14 pm to: jkoblin@gmail.com date: Dec 15, 2006 2:14 PM subject: MTA NYCT Weekend Advisories

L No diversions scheduled.

Not to suggest that anyone would actually want to leave Brooklyn. But, yeah, you get the point.

- John Koblin

The National Realty Club announced its luncheon line-up next month, featuring Upper West Side broker Barak Dunayer. The topic of the day sounds like a winner:

Join us at the National Realty Club Luncheon at Noon on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 at the Williams Club, 24 East 39th Street [between Park and Madison Avenues] to hear:

Speaker: BARAK DUNAYER Founder/CEO Barak Realty Topic: "Where the Action Is: Inside Look at Williamsburg, Inwood, Clinton and other Emerging Neighborhoods".

If he's doing "other Emerging Neighborhoods," we hope Barak will include Exotic Wonders like Carroll Gardens or Chelsea.

- John Koblin

Plans afoot to supplant Madison Square Garden "Four architectural firms presented plans to developers in closed-door meetings late last month for a redesigned Penn Station - with Madison Square Garden chopped off the top and moved one block west." Go to story by Matthew Schuerman Presenting the priciest downtown single-family sell "A 55-foot-wide townhouse at 11 West 10th Street has gone into contract. The asking price was $37.5 million. If it closed near there, this 1847 mansion would be the most expensive single-family residence downtown." Go to story by Max Abelson Brooklyn building booming - is that a good thing? "There's a building boom underway across the East River, in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. This is a good thing. Or so you'd think." Go to editorial  read more »

By 1 p.m. on Oct.  read more »

The construction workers and volunteers who just put up a Williamsburg synagogue in time for the Jewish New Year worked 18-hour days, six days a week, stopping only for the Sabbath. They did not even break for a stop-work order that the Buildings Department imposed after a worker fell from a scaffolding, The New York Sun reports today. Hey, how else are going to put up a giant synagogue, large enough to hold "thousands," in a mere 14 days? -Matthew Schuerman

After noticing that the long-sock-loving American Apparel is moving into The Observer's Flatiron neighborhood--142 Fifth Avenue, to be precise--we decided to give the lascivious company a call.

"If you stand on the street at Fifth Avenue, there are lot of people who look like American Apparel customers," said Miguel McKelvey, a location scout and store designer for American Apparel (he works at Jordan Parnass Digital Architecture.*)

Take note: the new 2000-square-foot store, opening in mid-to-late October, is landing at Fifth and 19th.

Why the Flatiron District? "Every space that was previously something else seems to be turning into high profile retail," Mr. McKelvey said. "There's Espirit down the street, J. Crew and Anthropologie. Any of those stores attract a lot of women. My girlfriend goes to Club Monaco all the time."

But while the rapidly expanding store is looking to attract mainstream women customers, it also has a hipster chic to live up to. "Like over in Park Slope on Flatbush Avenue we're in an old movie theater, or in Williamsburg we went into an old auto garage on North 6th... And we balance that with Beverly Hills and Newbury Street in Boston."

And, starting next month, Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

- Max Abelson (*Dov Trivia: Touchy-feely American Apparel founder Dov Charney and Jordan Parnass have been "friends since birth," according to Mr. McKelvey)  read more »

Robert Elmes spent the month of August in Berlin.  read more »

May 28, 200612:35 a.m.

7 pounds, 11 ounces  read more »

Mountain Side Hospital, Montclair, N.J.

Robert Elmes spent the month of August in Berlin.  read more »

May 28, 2006 12:35 a.m. 7 pounds, 11 ounces Mountain Side Hospital, Montclair, N.J.    read more »

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Early in August, the Housing Works Thrift Shops flagship at 143 West 17th Street reopened after a sad two-month absence.

Why? "What we did was open it up, took everything out, ripped up the carpet" said H.W.T.S. President Matthew Bernardo. "We found the original floor," which is gorgeous hardwood.

Now it's an open 4,000-square-foot space for antique furniture, hip clothing and hipper shoes. "The old space had so many log jams," Mr. Bernardo admitted.

In one week--on September 7 at 5 p.m. sharp--the space will be filled with a new fall collection (the press release is after the jump). And come January 2007, H.W. is opening its seventh shop. "We're looking at the Heights and Cobble Hill," said Mr. Bernardo.

What about Williamsburg or Greenpoint? "You need shoppers, but you also need donors for high value stuff." Of course.

Until then, New Yorkers who can't make it to Chelsea can shop online at an auction.

On the other hand, shoppers closer to 17th Street know it's become a thrift shop mecca: there's Angel Street steps away from the renovated flagship, and 17@17 down the block. But: "We consider ourselves the father!" Mr. Bernardo said.

It's true. This year the stores will gross $11m, the highest number yet. Where does the money go? The shops bring in a third of the revenue for Housing Works, which is the largest American "community-based AIDS service organization."  read more »

Update: The store was closed for 2 months, not 12. - Max Abelson

After countless excrutiating decades in which young men in tight black jeans and ironically un-ironic neck scarves were deprived of aquatic transport, the Water Taxi has finally headed to the Brooklyn waterfront.

Red Hook? Check. Williamsburg? Double check.

But, of course, it's hard to force trends upon the trendy. Therefore NYWT is specifically imploring "hipsters" to enter Flickr photographs of the special yellow boat.  read more »

What's at stake? $9,140 worth of prizes. And Brooklyn's dignity.

- Max Abelson

“If a girl puts down that her favorite book is The Fountainhead, there’s no way I’m going to c  read more »

We've been down for the last two hours because of -- ready? -- a fire in the building that contains our server machinery. Or so I'm told.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming, brought to you by Nicole Brydson:

(Listings after the jump.)  read more »

• Forget Lebanon. The really significant battles are being fought in "an all out war for the soul" of Brooklyn. Time Out New York generously breaks the violence down by battleground: Prospect Heights, Williamsburg, Gowanus, Red Hook, and four more. Better yet: a guide to the bloggy Brooklyn blogs. (TONY premium)
• Canarsie, on the other hand, is a peaceful "suburban oasis" at the end of the L line. (Though a local official mourns: "there's been a population explosion"). (NY Daily News)
• The Port Authority board approves $2 billion for a "massive" train tunnel beneath the Hudson. ($2 billion down, $4 billion to go.) Authority chairman Anthony Coscia calls the project "our generation's George Washington Bridge," referring to the A/X Generation of badly tanned, oily haired rascals who still listen to Z100 and hit up The Shore for Spring Break. (AP via Crain's)
• The Department of Homeland Security looks out for New York, and so its tearing down the Intrepid's Peir 86, wasting $31 million on building "a staging area for federal authorities [to use] in the event of another terrorist attack." For surveillance? A military armory? A "hidden room"? Maybe. (Newsday)
• The top-secret $16 million renovation of Washington Square Park has been halted--because the city "didn't adequately inform the public" about it. The Parks Department argues that it's been seeking out Greenwich Village's input for two years, which explains those plans to move the park fountain 20 feet, and to add a "45-foot water spray." (NY1)
• Who knew Jordache Jeans could buy you a full floor on Park Avenue? It helps if that floor was once owned by Cem Uzane (a businessman who happened to default on some multibillion-dollar loans) and then sold on-the-cheap by Uncle Sam. (NY Post)
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