Life in and around Hell’s Kitchen, NYC
This week, a new outpost of Pie Face, the Australian pie store known for their excellent savory pies and great coffee, opened up at the corner of 35th & 9th Ave.
They’ve been running spin-the-wheel promotions all week, so if you grab a pie you can win a coffee or sweet pie to go with it:
Midtown Lunch have more details on the pies. Make sure you stop by this week for all the festivities, and to experience “authentic Aussie cuisine”. They’re open 24 hours, so they should make a popular 3am snack destination.
Pie Face is slowly taking over the area – they’ve also got a store around Penn Station just a few blocks east of the new location, and another just south of Bryant Park a few further, as well as one further north at 53rd & Broadway.
As spotted by Midtown Lunch, The Kati House, a month-old addition to W 36th St, was shut down last Thursday for alcohol violations:
The spot seemed to have been getting good reviews from customers who tried it out over the last few weeks, and is pretty cheap, so it’s disappointing to see them closed. We’ll keep an eye out for their reopening.
SpaceFest, at the Intrepid Museum, started today. The event runs through to the end of the weekend, and focuses on all things space, science, and technology. Astronauts are giving presentations and signing autographs throughout the event, they’re hosting an “astronomy night” on Saturday, and have a summer movies screening of Star Trek (the 1979 original) on Friday night.
This is the second year the event has been run, and the timing has worked out well with the reopening of the space shuttle pavilion two weeks ago.
You can see the full schedule for the event on their website.
NYC Parks are running a “Kids in Motion” Sports and Fitness day today at DeWitt Clinton Park. The weather has been pretty average, but even so hundreds of kids have turned up for it.
Apparently the New York Red Bulls will be there playing soccer with the kids, which is pretty great.
The parks department staff were also on hand, passing out flyers and free 1-day passes to the new rec center that opened last week on 60th St.
At the community board meeting two weeks ago, a number of residents showed up to voice their concerns about noise from Traffic at night, with one person apparently going as far as calling 311 to complain over 90 times.
Nobody from the bar attended the meeting to defend themselves, so because of the overwhelming amount of complains, and the allegations that the bar kept the doors and windows open much later than their license allowed, the board agreed to hold back on their pending license renewal.
With the construction and roadworks still going on right outside the bar, and now this, it hasn’t been a good month for the venue. Unless the bar can address the many complaints from the community, there’s a chance they might be getting shuttered in the near future.
CultivateHKNY are crowdsourcing funding for revitalizing the park on 39th St formerly known as Bird Park, and funding for the renovation closes tomorrow night. They’ve easily passed the low goal they set of $500, but need more to help turn the park into their vision.
DNAInfo have a piece from June on Mario Mattia, the son of Teresa who the park will be named in memory of, as well as more details on the plans for the park.
The park is currently extremely run down, and desperately in need of these renovations:
Head over to the Indiegogo campaign to donate.
Production crews were set up filming over at DeWitt Clinton Park today, taking over the whole seating and dog run areas.
The movie is Tracers, and sounds “interesting” (per IMDb):
Wanted by the mafia, a new York City bike messenger escapes into the world of parkour after meeting a beautiful stranger.
Can’t wait.
Very late, and the last one about the 4th of July, promise, but Animal NY recorded a mesmerising timelapse of the fireworks the other week from a rooftop in Hell’s Kitchen, which we’ll present without further comment:
They have a bunch of photos, too.
The Space Shuttle Pavilion on board the Intrepid reopened today, to much fanfare.
The Endeavour arrived at the Intrepid in July last year, but was forced to close at the end of October due to damage caused by Hurricane Sandy. It’s fantastic to see such a significant part of history back open to the public again.
Hell’s Kitchen welcomed a new farmer’s market to the area today. The market runs along the sidewalk on 42nd St between 11th & 12th Avenues, and will be running 8am-6pm every Wednesday through to the end of November.
Per the site, here’s the list of stalls that are participating so far:
They also had live music on in the middle of the day, as well as a free demonstration. With the dramas going on with the Big Apple Meat Market being bounced between locations, and the cancelled plans for a new supermarket on 45th St, it’ll hopefully help fill the void of fresh food in the area.
It’s been about 1000º every day lately, so any activity with anything to do with water is appealing. Over at Clinton Cove Park/Pier 96 (@ 55th St), the Downtown Boathouse have been running free kayaking since May. On a day like today, dozens of people were out on the river:
The kayaking is running from 9am – 6pm weekends (weather permitting) until the end of August, then 9am-5pm from September to mid-October. It’s also on weekday afternoons 5pm-7pm until the end of August.
Crispin’s, a new restaurant on 10th Ave, opened last week:
They’ve been incoming for a while now – the sign out the front has been up for months, and a liquor license application for the location was filed back in February, so it’s good to see them finally up and running!
The reviews so far seem pretty positive – it looks like it’ll be a great addition to the area.
Bringing an end to Independence Day, the Macy’s fireworks show was tonight on the Hudson River, and as expected, it was big:
Everyone got in the spirit:
All in all it’s been a good day.
America!
The 4th of July fireworks show starts tonight at 9pm. A lot of the hotel rooftop bars around the area have sold out already, but there’s still a few places left to see it from.
Along the river will obviously be a good place for it, assuming you don’t mind crowds. You can get to the viewing areas at 33rd-34th, 40th, 42nd, 44th, 50th, 52nd, 54th, and 56th-57th Streets, as well as a few places further south.
Otherwise, if you are looking for something a bit more private, there’s a few places that still look like there’s seats available. Be prepared to pay for that privilege though.
Gaonnuri looks like it’s still available. It’s $100, which gets you 5 courses. You’ll need to call ahead though to reserve a seat (if they haven’t sold out by that stage).
The Press Lounge at Ink48 had seats available as of this morning. The catch: it’s $266 per person. Call or email ahead.
Your safest bet is to brave the crowds and try for the riverside.
The fireworks have been on the Hudson River for the past five years, but tonight could be the last change to see them on this side for a while – a number of officials are pushing to move them to the East River next year.