Posts tagged as Union Square
Tribute To Consumerism Marks Arrival Of Yearly Festival Of Dread
In an unwelcome reminder that we have made our entrance into the arena of the worst part of the year, they have started to assemble the tents down in Union Square for the annual Holiday Market, which opens this Friday. There is no longer any way to pretend that it's not happening; we are now within the Holiday Zone. There are no prayers or entreaties that can forestall this grim acknowledgment. The best one can do is accelerate one's Holiday Drinking regimen and hope that one emerges bleary-eyed after New Year's with as incomplete a memory of this horrible span as possible. May God have mercy on our souls.
Union Square Is Lousy With Skirt Peepers
"Very little happens in Union Square that escapes the notice of a man known as Normal Bob Smith, a longtime park fixture who chronicles its characters on the 'Amazing Strangers' portion of his Web site. One of his main genres of park characters is the peeper. Normal Bob, whose given name is Bob Hain, says peepers are a constant presence in the south section of the park, where they prey on women wearing skirts who sit on the sets of steps along 14th Street."
The Union Square Holiday Market Is Almost Open!
You know what makes New York great? There's always something to complain about. Within minutes of this New York Post notice concerning tomorrow's opening of the Christmas shops in Union Square, a reader had already rendered a verdict.
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Union Square: The Final Chapter
You know what? The dude that quit his blog was totally right. We knew it was coming, but there's something about seeing those stripes up there that just makes it so real. Pass the Crispy Green Bean Fries, will ya?
The Neighborhood Is Changing
Union Square's sad transformation into Times Square proceeds apace: Construction to turn the former Zen Palate space into a TGI Friday's is in full swing, while uptown barbecue chain Brother Jimmy's has already opened and is happy offering sustenance to suit-wearing douchebags for whom the cuisine of Heartland Brewery is a bit too "ethnic" or "challenging." If you stand on the corner of 16th and Union Square East, you will find yourself victimized by the cruel tyranny of choice: Which of the two equidistant glazed dough providers wares will pad your colon, Tim Horton's or Dunkin Donuts? Don't worry about the calories: A brisk trot across the park to Starbucks will give you some much needed exercise, and should there be a line you can return to the east side, where another Starbucks helpfully awaits. (Those of you working on advanced fitness routines will want to go the extra avenue to the Starbucks on 3rd.) Not all of the changes are for the worse, though: This weekend marks the resumption of Daylight Saving Time, when the clocks are set one hour ahead. This is excellent news for the giant monstrosity which hovers above the former Virgin Records: Having been off by an hour for the entire winter, it will finally display the correct time, give or take a couple of minutes, once more. It's the little things!
The Further Decline of Union Square: The W Hotel Foreclosure Auction
Beyond the drama of the big numbers, here's a helpful explanation of what happened to the W Union Square Hotel, which had a fun and dramatic foreclosure auction yesterday. (Union Square! Such carnage, all around!) "Basically, Dubai World (or its investment arm, Istithmar) paid $282 million in total for the hotel, and took out a $115 million mortgage. Istithmar put down $50 million of its own money, and borrowed the rest in what's known as a 'mezzanine' transaction: $117 million of high-yielding debt which isn't secured against the property.... Lots of people are extremely worried about commercial real estate at the moment, saying that it's the next shoe to drop. But a $240 million valuation still works out at almost $800,000 per room, which is still a lot of money for a hotel which no one likes very much." Amen to that.
Safety Feature Inspires Disgust
Apparently this is some kind of program that has been in the test stage for years, but because nothing registers until it happens to me personally, I am only now waking up to the outrage that is the new "pedestrian countdown signal" on our city's traffic lights, some of which just appeared on 14th Street around Union Square this weekend. You're probably familiar with the signals, which count down the number of seconds remaining before the light changes, from trips to Europe or such backwater American burgs as Philadelphia, but it is gravely disappointing to see them here in my New York. I mean, it was bad enough when we got rid of "Walk/Don't Walk" as a gesture of solidarity for the colorblind illiterate, but this is a step too far. I mean, if you can't figure out when to dash across the street by timing the yellow light, shouldn't you be somewhere a little more sedate? We are making it TOO EASY FOR EVERYONE in this town.
Heartland Brewery Soon To Be Classiest Restaurant On Union Square
It's rare that one looks at an empty building in one's neighborhood and expresses the fervent desire that it become a bank, but news that the Riese Organization plans to turn the vacant shell that was Union Square's Zen Palate into a TGI Friday's engenders exactly that kind of yearning deep in the collective breast of everyone who resides on that sceptered intersection. It's not bad enough that we're about to be inundated with Nordstrom's cut-rate shmattes; we should also suffer from the mutated abomination that is BBQ Pork Ravioli Bites? It makes one nostalgic for the inducement to suicide that was Bradlee's.
