A whole lot of new development coming soon from the once-mayor-hopeful, including up to 22 stories replacing the building at 56th&11th (with the Lexus dealership).
One of these days the mayor’s plan to ban carriage horses will go through, and when it does developers will waste no time pouncing on all the stables in the area.
Turns out that wasn’t the only one to get shut down. On W 57th St, the UPS Store between 8th&9th Aves was also shut down without warning, and as you’d expect people are not happy. People with mailboxes in the store have been unable to retrieve their mail, and from all reports nobody with anything to do with UPS has responded to inquiries or complaints.
So people are taking matters into their own hands.
Funnily enough, the comments section in our previous post has more-or-less become the unofficial forum for customers to share their progress with the store, Consumer Affairs, etc. We’re glad we can help!
Meanwhile, offline, people have also begun covering the windows of the store with all sorts of letters and notes about the closure:
If you’ve had any troubles or experiences with these UPS stores, head over to the other post to find out the community’s progress so far and to share your experiences with your fellow neighbors. I’m sure they’d appreciate it. We’re also going to be updating that page with any extra information we can on the situation.
One way or another, hopefully this all gets sorted out soon…
Broadway Joe, a long-time Restaurant Row establishment, has closed its doors after 65 years. The steakhouse opened way back in 1949, named after its owner Joe Moreno. In recent times, the place seemed to be having a hard time living up to its customers’ expectations, as its 2½ star rating on the-one-true-metric-for-success Yelp suggests. Broadway Joe had a lot of history though, and over the years a number of movies filmed scenes at the place. For example, you can see part of the scene in this trailer for the 1959 movie FBI Story.
Broadway Joe has been closed for a few weeks now, so we already have news of the new tenant. As reported by DNAinfo, an ex-NYPD officer is planning to open a police-themed bar at the location, complete with its own jail cell.
Retired police officer of 27 years Stephen Barounis missed his old job so much, he decided to open a police-themed bar in Midtown called The 46th Street Stationhouse — complete with a police car, a precinct desk, a jail cell and a commissioner’s room.
It sounds like they’re going all-out on the immersive experience:
“I can bring you in in handcuffs and you’ll actually think you’re in a precinct,” said Barounis, who served on the NYPD’s Bronx Task Force before he retired in 2011.
Head over to DNAinfo for more info about the new place, including how they plan to get an entire car inside the restaurant.
It’s been a rough few months for Restaurant Row. A few months ago, just across the road O’Flaherty’s closed down, and in December a fire at Barbetta caused them to close, however fortunately they recovered and reopened. Hopefully the planned “makeover” for the street doesn’t end up pricing any more long-time places out. We’d hate to end up with the street just being called “Row”…
A quick progress update on the incoming outpost of the Chelsea Vietnamese restaurant Co Ba, coming to W 53rd St (previously). Over the past week or so, they’ve pulled down the old tenant’s awning and lights, leaving a very different, bare storefront:
The place used to be Kiran Indian Cuisine, who disappeared back in October last year. For a long time, they had their colorful lights hanging from the awnings, which we were sort of hoping might make it through the transition, but I guess not…
After closing over the past few months at their former home on 10th Ave, Epstein’s Paint are up and running at their new home on W 52nd St, just around the corner from the old spot.
The new place is a big step up from their previous home, which has been cleared out and is sitting dormant…it’s being pitched for “medical/dental” or “salon spa” use, so we’ll see how that works out.
A few months ago, O’Flaherty’s, on Restaurant Row, closed its doors for good. Since then, the place has sat dormant, eventually being gutted. Now, the for-rent banners have come out, so it’s only a matter of time before the last traces of the place is gone.
The place was always a popular place for filming – they even proudly proclaimed “Frequently Featured on TV” on their signage. Fittingly, our last mention of the place was when Girls had taken the spot over to film back in September. Even though the place has closed, it will still “live on” in countless movies and shows.
With the planned “makeover” for Restaurant Row scheduled for some time this year, it’s not hard to imagine the street becoming more and more polished/“family friendly”/“Disney-fied”, so places like O’Flaherty’s would no doubt start to feel the pressure to move on (not to mention the parking lot across the road). The march of progress…
Tonight at John Jay College, senator Brad Hoylman will be holding a “Traffic and Pedestrian Safety Town Hall” with a representative from the Mayor’s office, discussing Vision Zero– “the Mayor’s plan to eliminate traffic fatalities within a decade”.
The short-lived Phở 66 on 9th Ave has sat dormant for several months now, with thick chains locking the doors. Over the past few days however they chains have come off, and someone has been moving around inside, seemingly clearing out some of the old Phở 66 gear.
As you can see, still a whole lot of Phở gear, but there was a man moving around in the dark with trash bags (who was very surprised to see a camera), so hopefully we’ll have something new to look forward to soon!
Now that Valentine’s Day has wrapped up, places all down 9th Ave aren’t wasting any time turning their attention to the next round of events. Some more reasonably than others.
First up we have signs up for a Mardi Gras party at Delta Grill. It’s in two weeks or so, so that makes sense…
