Healthier Hot Dogs Coming Soon to TribecaAstoria: Freeze Peach at 22-00 29th Street has introduced tea-based ice creams including butterfly sencha and black currant to its repertoire. Plus, a man with a real French-sounding name has installed a new crêperie in the old Lil Bistro 33 space. [Joey in Astoria]
Clinton Hill: Two new Italian restaurants slated to join the nabe, and one might have an outdoor space. [Clinton Hill Blog] Tough luck if you want to taste the source of those great bakery smells near Washington at Atlantic. The Hasidic bakers probably won’t let you in. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Flatiron: Otto investor Jason Denton, after stepping away from Otto, will open an “Otto-like restaurant.” [Eater]
Midtown West: A sly janitor at Penn Station will find a go-to solution if you spill your soda. [East Village Idiot]
Park Slope: Kara Zuaro will be signing her rocker cookbook tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes & Noble; live music from Maplewood is also in-store. [Brooklyn Record]
Times Square: The only view from Above restaurant at the Hilton is the back of a giant creepy hand. [NewYorkology]
Tribeca: The New York City Hot Dog Company on Church Street at Chambers that promises healthier options and myriad toppings looks closer to an opening now that a big picture of a hot dog is in place. [Grub Street]
neighborhood watch
Come and Listen to a Story ‘Bout WilliamsburgBrooklyn Heights: A Remsen Street building catches fire for the second time in six months, and word is an older third-floor tenant is responsible for both. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Clinton Hill: A new private school, Phyl’s Academy, appears to be going up on the empty lot at Classon and Quincy. [Brooklyn Record]
Park Slope: Times-reading neighbors want to know: Does “hipster” refer to all of Brooklyn, or just Williamsburg? [Brooklynian]
Times Square: The buttons to the elevator in Renzo Piano’s new Times building are actually … in the lobby! [Curbed]
Upper West Side: Trying to avoid rabies shots, a Central Park jogger wants to know the identity of the dog that bit him. [Curbed]
Williamsburg: Is there more black gold under Williamsburg? Monitoring wells at Roebling Street will find out. [Gowanus Lounge]
intel
New TKTS Now on Track for Fall
When the stalwart seventies-era TKTS booth in Father Duffy Square — it’s not Times Square, mind you, but the square just north of it — came down a year ago, we were promised a new version, complete with a shiny red staircase as a roof, a public space to rival Rome’s Spanish Steps, in time for last New Year’s Eve. No dice. What happened? An ownership change at the manufacturer originally slated to provide glass for that new hull derailed things, architect Nick Leahy of Perkins Eastman tells us. But the team is finalizing its choice for a new supplier, Leahy says, and expects the goods by late summer. “It was a hiccup that we managed,” Leahy says. “The ticket booth is in place and the geothermal heating [underground] is in place, and I would expect installation by early fall.” Which means it’ll be ready for next New Year’s or whatever autumn events — the World Series on the Jumbotron, the Macy’s parade, impeachment hearings — you might be looking forward to. —Alec Appelbaum
Openings
‘Special Buns,’ Besides J.Lo’s, to Be Served at Spotlight Live
Recently Daily Intel reported that Jennifer Lopez and her hubby did their thing in public (sang together, that is) at new Times Square venue Spotlight Live. Now, as UrbanDaddy has it, Times Square tourists and boozed-up cubicle dwellers will be able to follow suit when the venue opens with a karaoke stage, a recording studio, a green room complete with makeup artist, and a Jumbotron broadcasting performances onto Times Square. If it sounds very Vegas, you won’t be surprised to hear that the place has brought in Kerry Simon, who was a partner at Mercer Kitchen and also put in time at La Cote Basque and Lutece before opening restaurants in Miami, California, and Sin City. You know, the “Rock and Roll chef”?
neighborhood watch
Park Slopers Indignant Over Hypothetical CrimesBedford-Stuyvesant: Does a yoga studio on “murderous Myrtle” portend for still-gritty Bed-Stuy an increase in serenity, gentrification, or both? [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Coney Island: Those with a primal need to purge societal misfits can rest easy. Coney’s much-loved “Shoot the Freak” attraction will survive another year, despite surrounding demolition by dervish developer Thor. [Gowanus Lounge]
Elmhurst: Built in 1906 with funds from Andrew Carnegie, the charming local library is slated for demolition to make room for a bigger facility. [Queens Chronicle via
neighborhood watch
Jim McGreevey Exercises Gay American Right to Protest
Chelsea: More glassy façades are replacing the old tenements of Eighth Avenue north of 14th Street, creating more reflective surfaces for area pretty boys to admire themselves in. [Blog Chelsea]
Clinton Hill: Trap-neuter-return. Those three magic words can help humanely manage the area’s feral cat population. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Cobble Hill: Is that boarded-up old building on Warren St. really a former Christmas-ornament factory? And whatever is to become of it? [Lost City]
Gowanus: Faster than you can smuggle out towels in your suitcase, it looks like another hotel is coming to the area. [Gowanus Lounge]
Greenpoint: The most awesome house ever is on Beadel Street and has a leopard-print door. [New York Shitty]
Times Square: As he promised yesterday, ex-Jersey guv Jim McGreevey turned out at the military recruitment center today (above) with about 60 other gays to protest a top general’s calling la vida homo “immoral.” [Towleroad]
NewsFeed
7Square Closing This Very Minute7Square, a “modern chophouse” we’re fond of, has suddenly and unexpectedly gone under. The restaurant will close after lunch today, we’re told by a source from within the restaurant, owing more to financial complications than the restaurant’s ability to lure customers. The close might be billed as temporary, but our source insists the doors will be shut for good. If only we hadn’t made plans to scarf lunch at our desk.
Earlier:
A Modern Chophouse’s Roman Excess [Grub Street]
Adam Platt’s review [NYM]
intel
Orlando Boosters, PETA Protesters All Disappoint UsSo how was the big Florida–in–Times Square event the Orlando tourism people planned for this morning? And how was the big how-dare-you-bring-tropical-animals- to-this-frigid-climate protest PETA promised? As it turned out, really, really disappointing. On all counts.
neighborhood watch
Times Square Streets Don’t Like to ShareDumbo: Vinegar Hill’s new Vista condo seems nearly ready for prime time … and it looks a helluva lot like fellow VH condo newbie the Nexus. [Dumbo NYC]
Fort Greene: Uh, is that soon-to-open business in the old Blimpie’s spot on Lafayette and South Elliott a chain bakery or a … what? [Clinton Hill Blog]
Harlem: The Upper West Side’s Animal General hospital wants to bring its pet-care services into Harlem … but it needs to find 1,700 square feet there to do it. Plus, a new BBQ place comes to 145th Street! [Harlem Fur and Uptown Flavor]
Maspeth: Did the city and state deny St. Saviour’s Church landmark status even when they knew there might be human remains on the site? So claims the hoppin’-mad Juniper Park Civic Association. [Queens Crap]
Times Square: Less than three months after they first appeared, the shared-bike-lane markers (or “sharrows,” as they’re called) on Seventh Avenue are fading away. Bikers, beware! [Streetsblog]
Tribeca: Bikini basketball and naked dudes with puppies are just some of the lifestyle perks you can expect if you move (for $800,000 a studio) into André Balazs’ forthcoming Kubla-condo Beaver House. [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
Times Square Dirty Like the Old DaysBrooklyn Heights: Local resident and restaurant owner Gianluca Martorelli launches mag and Website compiling area’s eateries. [Ready to Order Guide via Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Chelsea: Della Valle Bernheimer’s futuristically fabulous High Line–snuggling 245 Tenth Avenue development is ready for takers, complete with snazzy Website. [245 Tenth Avenue via Curbed]
Coney Island: New mailers going out to residents talk up the “future of Coney Island” but neglect to mention high rises or Thor Equities. [Gowanus Lounge]
Midtown: Are Mickey and pals staging an offensive old-time minstrel show atop the Disney Store entrance … or do they just need a scrubbing? [Englishman in New York]
Park Slope: Let there be light! Half a mil earmarked so that everything is (better) illuminated at Grand Army Plaza. [Dope on the Slope]
Times Square: Hotel Carter and New York Inn, two of the cheapest stays in the city, also among Top 10 Dirtiest Hotels in the country. Old Times Square lives! [Trip Advisor via NewYorkology]
neighborhood watch
Brooklyn Streets Unsafe for ArtClinton Hill: Attention all potential butchers, bakers, and, um, ice-cream makers: Some folks want to help you open the Myrtle Avenue shop of your (and their) dreams. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Dumbo: Sounds like there’s some improper asbestos removal going on amid the demolition of a nineteenth-century warehouse at 205 Water Street. Councilman Yassky, are you listening? [DumboNYC]
Greenpoint: Mm-mm-mm! Who’ll be the lucky new owner of this old gem (complete with mucho parking space) at 155 Freeman Street? [Brownstoner]
Park Slope: Willie lives! Dearly departed black lab of longtime Slope couple becomes namesake for their soon-to-open Fifth Avenue hot-doggery. [Brooklyn Record]
Times Square: You’ll never again have to go to this tourist-infested zone to ogle the semiotics of the latter-day free market. This blogger shot every ad in Times Square! [Ironic Sans via Gridskipper]
Upper East Side: Yearning for nights at the sorority house? Move up here. [Upper East Side Informer]
Williamsburg: A price may soon be put on the head of “The Splasher,” who leaves behind pseudo-intellectual manifestos to explain his (her?) destruction of street art. [Gothamist]
neighborhood watch
Bad Tourism Idea Moves South From BostonBrooklyn Heights: The Heights Players are doing Gemini, sadly without Danny Aiello and Kathleen Turner. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Dumbo: ModernTots furniture store is that latest example of family infestation. Is no part of Brooklyn safe? [Dumbo NYC]
East Village: Liz Christy Garden, the city’s oldest community plot, has reopened to the public with a new lush look. [Curbed]
Park Slope: Don’t worry, Blue Apron Foods will reopen in a couple of weeks as Grab. [Brooklyn Record]
Red Hook: The Revere Sugar Plant might come down but not without a fight from the rats. [Gowanus Lounge]
Times Square: Come spring, our tour buses will no longer feel inferior to Boston’s duck boats. Thanks, New York Splash Tours! [NewYorkology]
Williamsburg: Spelling bee tonight at Pete’s Candy Store made more palatable by being a benefit for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Barely. [NYCStories]
intel
Charmin Squeezes One Last News Item Out of Us
We are heartbroken to report that our favorite object of defecatory dreams — the neat-and-clean-and-always- stocked-with-toilet-paper Charmin public toilets at Times Square — closed on New Year’s Eve. Lest they be forgotten forever, however, the friendly flacks pushing the paper — and, yes, we know we’re currently giving them exactly the PR hit they wanted — inform us that one couple had perhaps the most important night of their young lives in the giant public bathroom. Neal and Jalista, of Easton, Pennsylvania, were engaged on the evening of December 30 in the Charmin space, which apparently they deemed even more romantic than becoming betrothed in the restroom of the ESPN Zone next door. May your lives together remain squeezably soft, you crazy kids!
Earlier: Daily Intel’s coverage of the Charmin toilets.
in other news
Roll Tape
Despite our odd obsession with the Charmin Times Square toilets, we confess this hadn’t previously occurred to us. But thanks to the latest installment in the Times’ ongoing coverage of the recent invention of the Internet — today we learn about YouTube videos of Times Square marketing — we decided to check YouTube for some videos of Times Square marketing. Oh, the mother lode! Feast your eyes on an oddly hypnotic, entirely unnarrated four-minute travelogue of a visit to our favorite public bathrooms. (There are plenty of other, related videos available, too, if this one doesn’t quite do it for you.) It’s almost like being there — but you won’t need to wash your hands when you’re done.
Charmin’s Times Square Bathrooms [YouTube]
Times Sq. Ads Spread Via Tourists’ Cameras [NYT]
the morning line
Lurid, Infected, Leering
• A gruesome murder-suicide in Brooklyn left four dead and almost redefines “lurid.” Investigators believe an ex-con bludgeoned to death his girlfriend (who was also his half-sister), killed her two children, then overdosed on the scene. [WNBC]
• A former NY1 reporter says she was sexually harassed at work and fired for complaining about it. Among other things, a colleague Photoshopped giant breasts on her photo, which apparently passes for a joke at NY1. [NYP]
• E. coli is here! The first registered NYC patient (who has already recovered) is a Staten Islander who got the bug, like the other 60 victims, by eating at a local Taco Bell. [amNY]
• The Daily News is shocked to learn that about 70 percent of recent subway graffiti has been made by European kids looking for an “authentic” NYC experience. Next they’ll tell us those guys on Astor Place are not real punks. [NYDN]
• And the Times ponders the rise of “experiential marketing” in Times Square, wherein companies do something moderately freaky and hope tourists will photograph it and/or blog about it. Here at Daily Intel, we would never fall for such gimmicks. [NYT]
neighborhood watch
Park Slopers Denied Self-Righteous Place in American HistoryEast Village: If real-estate agents can make up neighborhood names like BoCoCa, how about Manwood? [East Village Idiot]
Park Slope: The Atlantic listed the 100 most influential Americans, and not one of them represented the Greater Park Slope Community. Outrageous. [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
Prospect Heights: Residents get antsy about the type of people who will move into Richard Meier’s One Prospect Park Tower now that it’s listed with Corcoran. [Daily Heights]
Red Hook: People stuck in the past want to preserve Civil War history instead of letting Ikea pave a parking lot over it. [The Real Estate/NYO]
Staten Island: Happy 42nd Birthday, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge! You make getting off this island so much easier. [Sunset Parker]
Times Square: There are only a few shopping days left to taunt David Blaine. Hurry. [Gothamist]
intel
Daily Intel Exclusive: Charmin Restroom, Perfect for Partying
We’ve been as excited about Charmin’s free-public-toilet-in–Times Square publicity stunt as the next rag. (Okay, fine, more so.) So of course we went to pay a reportorial visit. And what we didn’t expect was to find the place a completely tripped-out, Clockwork Orange–y disco candyland filled with twirling mirror balls, blue neon, deranged reggae-calypso reworkings of the brand’s jingles, white pleather, and spasmodically dancing employees.
It’s as if Charmin, while doing its New York research, discovered people were going to be doing coke in the stalls anyway, and just, um, rolled with it.
neighborhood watch
A World of Wonder Outside BrooklynCarroll Gardens: Take your lactose intolerance to Giardini’s. [Eating for Brooklyn]
East Village: Unless you borrow shorts, the Russian & Turkish Baths aren’t sketchy at all. [My Brooklyn Year]
Park Slope: Everywhere else has rats, but the Slope gets raccoons. [Brooklynian via Brooklyn Record]
Staten Island: Brooklynites do field-study research, report back to the rest of us. [Brooklyn Ramblings]
Times Square: Will the stairway to TKTS heaven be finished in time to ditch our relatives there? [Curbed]
Williamsburg: Condos at McCarren Park Mews are affordable if you don’t mind the oily film. [Gowanus Lounge]
in other news
Finally, You May Squeeze the CharminIt’s not in our typical habit to report on ad-campaign gimmicks, much less “seasonal” ones. This seems worthy of exception, however: Starting next week, Charmin, the toilet-paper maker, will cut out the advertising middlemen and directly ensure that New York City feels the soft touch of Charmin Ultra directly upon its collective ass.
Yes, Charmin is going to open a free public restroom in Times Square, which will function from Monday through the end of the year. It will feature twenty stalls (!), a seating lounge (!!), and a cast of attendants cleaning each stall after each use (!!!). To quote the Times, which even provides a mockup façade of the place (though, thankfully, not the interior), “Charmin representatives will be roaming the streets dressed as toilets.” Hey, just like the old Times Square!
The restroom, incidentally, will take the place formerly occupied by a different kind of shithouse: the departed Bar Code.
Charmin to New York: ‘Go in Style’ [NYT]
neighborhood watch
Columbia B-School Explores Northern FrontierDumbo: In our version of The Straight Story, the old man on the tractor is a Jehovah’s Witness. [Brooklyn Papers]
Lower East Side: Queens of the Stone Age will break in a new, giant restaurant-theater, the Box, tonight. [Brooklyn Vegan]
Morningside Heights: Columbia Business School will move to Manhattanville campus and take 25 to 30 years to complete. [Curbed]
Park Slope: New FAO Schwartz may be within Bugaboo-pushing distance. [Crain’s New York via NY1]
Times Square: Photographic proof why New York is a city of singles. [Bagel in Harlem]
NewsFeed
Restaurant Chain to Culturally Cheapen NYC, Finally
If you’re like us, you’ve long awaited the 10,000 square feet of pure, unadulterated Ruby Tuesday slated to land in Times Square come April 2007. But you’re probably not like us. Since the restaurant will be an outpost of the kind of generic, corporate family chain to which New Yorkers are said to be most averse, the place is bound to take its lumps next year. But there’s a good reason we’re soft on these cheery mega-eateries.
