Life in and around Hell’s Kitchen, NYC
The Times – who couldn’t resist the easy pun in the title – have more details on the third section of the High Line, scheduled to open next year.
Of note, the final section will have a completely different style to the two-thirds already completed, leaving the tracks overgrown with greenery:
Instead of modernistic benches and showy perennials, there will be rusted tracks overgrown with Queen Anne’s lace and goldenrod.
Get ready – another 7-Eleven is opening up, this one at 9th Ave just before 53rd St:
The shopfitting is already coming together:
The Slurpee chain is replacing half of the store previously occupied by the Italian restaraunt Caffe Cielo. Let’s hope they don’t start taking over the same way they are in the East Village
The Columbus Public Library branch on 10th Avenue temporarily closed last week, to begin upgrades to their HVAC system.
The branch doesn’t expect to be open again until September – 3 months. The nearest locations – for those so inclined – are the Riverside Library at 65th & Amsterdam, the Donnell Library on W 53rd St between 5th & 6th Ave, and the main branch at Bryant Park.
The Juan Alonso Community Garden on the corner of 51st & 11th is reopening soon. The garden, which opened in 1993, closed in 2000 due to construction nearby. The garden is looking for gardeners, volunteers and organisers to help get it back up and running:
The garden is already starting to come back to life:
Anyone interested in volunteering should contact the team at juanalonsogarden@gmail.com
Applications have been filed to convert three floors of a seemingly-abandoned building in the backwoods of W 47th St into an “adult eating and drinking establishment”. The building at the moment is nothing to look at:
We’ll keep an eye out for any more details of what the incoming restaraunt/club/bar looks like.
No word on the fate of the “gentlemens lounge and cabaret” on the ground floor:
Looks like 9th Ave is set to welcome another gay bar:
Ben Maisani, whose partner is CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, is set to open a third trendy New York City gay bar in Hell’s Kitchen, The Real Deal has learned.
The space used to be the wine bar Vintage, which closed down in April.
A bit more on the new bar, from The Real Deal:
The new space is comprised of 2,500 square feet of space on the street level and 2,500 feet on the lower level, according to a listing for the property on BuzzTarget.com. The term of Maisani’s lease is 15 years, sources said. Retail rents in the area range from $150 to $200 a square foot, they said.
A new Holiday Inn Express opened up in May on 48th St, adding to the pile of hotels that have opened up past 10th Ave in that area:
177 rooms, just down the road from the Intrepid, and of course “near” Times Square. It’ll probably be a hit. This is the second Holiday Inn to open in (roughly) the area this year alone, after the earlier outpost near Herald Square. The beginning of a trend?
Bareburger – the organic, ‘environmentally-sustainable’ burger chain that’s popping up all over the city – opened its Hell’s Kitchen outpost on the 15th of May.
Finally something to satisfy everyone’s ostrich burger craving.