All the action seems to be happening up around 51st-53rd between 11th&12th, with three new parks aiming to be finished there by 2015. All these gardens will be keyed, so you’ll need to apply for one (which will work across all the parks). Usually there’s only a one-time $10 fee or so for it, and it seems to do a good job of making sure the only people in the parks actually look after them, outside the public open hours.
Tomorrow afternoon the newest park in the neighborhood officially opens. Teresa’s Park fills a neglected patch of greenery on W 39th St west of 9th Ave, formerly known as Bird Park. Earlier this year Cultivate HKNY ran a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for the park, bringing in $1400 for the project. DNAinfo had a piece back in June about the son of the woman the park is being named after, with details on the project too.
The ribbon cutting ceremony begins tomorrow at 2:30pm. Given that the park in on W 39th St, it should prove popular on weekends with the flea market visitors.
The NYPD have released an interactive crime map recently, letting you see all the crimes within any date range. Just October alone is overwhelming enough, with countless “spots” covering the area (bigger dot = more incidents):
There’s a few notable areas. The 24-hour Megabus, etc, bus stop opposite the Javits Center on W 34th St has a fair few thefts, which isn’t too surprising if you imagine a handful of people standing in poor lighting at 2am on an unpopulated street. Also, outside Port Authority looks like a pretty popular spot for thefts. And there’s your expected Times Square and surrounding areas crime. This is all just October’s stats – if you switch it to the whole year things really get crazy.
When you look at it on a per-precinct level, you can get a more-general sense of the trends. Unsurprisingly, all around Times Square is the worst rated, which seems to have rippled into the two precincts that cover our neighborhood:
We’re just as puzzled as you, but apparently there’s “Drunken Shakespeare” happening tomorrow night at Bar 9. The event’s being run by The Night Shift, and it’s the third one they’ve held this year. Best of all, it’s completely free.
It’s free, bawdy, brash, bold, and back! On December 9 at Bar 9, The Night Shift is proud to present the return of the Time Out New York Critic’s Pick, Drunken Shakespeare! Back by popular demand, this Bardian-karaōke lovechild invites you to strut your Shakespearean swagger, grab a beer, try your luck in a raffle with great prizes, and hang with fellow fools & misfits. Have a speech or sonnet you’ve been dying to share? Don’t have a piece memorized? You can read from one of the Complete Works provided! Get there early, grab a free seat, and be ready to give all your fame for a pot of ale with The Night Shift!
Sounds like an interesting night. The poetry starts around 8pm, so you’ll probably want to get there a bit before that. We’ll spare you from a Shakespeare quote pun, too.
It seems like all we ever hear about is new restaurants and bars, each more pricey than the last, and always on 9th and 10th Aves, so it’s a refreshing change that a new hardware store is coming, and on 11th Ave. United Hardware are preparing to open at 51st&11th, just south of The Daily Show studio.
A big look at the history of The Deuce– what the stretch of W 42nd St between 6th and 8th Aves used to be known as before the “Disneyfication of Times Square”, etc – as well as a little bit about Restaurant Row. Some nice photos from the 80s throughout it.
You might not have noticed, but lots of development is going on all over the neighborhood. Here’s everything you could possibly want to know about the current state.
This one slipped by us, but Bea – a new restaurant/cocktail bar at 43rd&9th– opened last month, as noticed by Gothamist. The place seems very high end, and looks pretty nice (if it’s in your price range).
The place was formerly the French restaurant La Madeleine, which was in that location for 29 years until its closure in 2008. Bea have retained several parts from the old setup, including most notably the back all-weather garden room complete with a tree planted there in 1976.
Bea seems to be pretty popular, and is getting good reviews on Yelp. Looks like it’ll be a nice addition to 43rd St.
Brace yourself: controversy ahead. Gay bar Fairtail Lounge, on W 48th St near 10th Ave, has had its liquor license up for renewal recently, and that’s brought together a significant group of nearby residents trying to get it denied. Among the reasons they’re opposed to the place: they (allegedly) crank their music at night, have loud, obnoxious patrons out on the street all night, and most significantly, have “adult movies” playing on TVs inside visible to passerbyers from the street.
DNAinfo ran an article about it yesterday, and while they took a pretty neutral tone, the comments had to be closed after they filled up with “pretty negative” messages attacking the gay community as a whole – because obviously this situation is applicable to everyone in that demographic…some people… – so that’s disappointing. Meanwhile, Gothamist had their piece, taking somewhat of a “you-should-get-over-it” tone (the title calls the complainants “Hell’s Kitchen NIMBYs”, so that should give you an idea of what to expect).
While going after the liquor license for this might seem inappropriate and unrelated, apparently many of the complaining residents have gone to the management several times and been ignored, so it sounds like it’s more of a last resort. I’ve never been past the place at night, so can’t really comment on how good or bad it is, but there’s a whole lot of complaints for it to be nothing.
Apparently certain residents in Hell’s Kitchen have been living under a rock since the middle ages. They are JUSTNOW realizing that there are *gasp* GOGOBOYS and PORN in Gay Bars. OHMY!!!!!
Mind you, these residents are the ones that are PEEKINGTHEIRBUSY-BODYNOSES in the windows to catch a look for their perverted selves, not walking by like any normal sexually-active citizen would. Poor sad depraved people.
Well I’m proud to say that FairyTail Lounge already has it’s liquor license renewed, and we WILLBESHOWINGPORN and have GOGOBOYSINUNDIES!
LONGLIVENYCGAYNIGHTLIFE! Oh and thanks for the free press Gothamist!
No surprise the neighbors dislike them from that attitude.
We were meant to publish this yesterday, but it didn’t end up going live. Computers… Anyway, better late than never:
Workers today were removing the signage from the former home of Chanpen’s on 9th Ave (previously), and as they pulled the panels down, the signage of a long-forgotten store was revealed:
One part of the Chelsea/Hell’s Kitchen Traffic Study (we covered last month) is getting closer to completion. The pedestrian plaza on W 36th St – dubbed the “Canoe Project” – is nearly finished, clearing out what used to be disorganized parking spaces, and the neighboring crossing is ready to go.
There’s already a relatively-new pedestrian plaza further west along W 36th St, but it’s at Dyer Ave, so surrounded by all the wide, busy roads coming in and out of the tunnel, so there’s really been nothing drawing people to it. The new canoe plaza goes down to the crossing to the other plaza, so hopefully might help bring it some foot traffic.
The new crossing will be extremely helpful to anyone who’s ever made the mistake of trying to walk down the west side of 9th Ave there and come across the dead-end. It’s all set up, just waiting on the lights to be activated.
To recap from last time, here’s the concept that they’re working towards:
