The Pedestrian Zoning Of Manhattan*

Congestion pricing as guiding principle and universal concept for Manhattan below 86th Street:

Renowned chef and restaurateur David Bouley’s plans to open a new high-end restaurant have hit a speed bump that could add him to a growing list of entrepreneurs walking away from restaurant and bar projects in Manhattan.

The committee that represents TriBeca for Community Board 1 last night voted 6–4 to oppose the New York State Liquor Authority providing Mr. Bouley with a liquor license for the Japanese eatery he wants to open at 111 West Broadway, Brushstrokes.

One board member, Julie Nadel, read aloud from several newspaper articles chronicling Mr. Bouley’s run-ins with the health department, a lawsuit involving his insurance company, and two dangerous carbon monoxide leaks discovered within a month at one of his celebrated TriBeCa restaurants. Later, supporters of Mr. Bouley painted a different picture, describing a man of high character with a penchant for charity, who cooked for workers at ground zero after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and continues to attract dollars to the neighborhood. Before the vote, board member Laura Braddock spoke on Mr. Bouley’s behalf, saying she felt as if some of the board members had a personal agenda.

. . .

The number of liquor license applications that have been shot down across Manhattan has significantly dropped since 2002, statistics show, a downward trend that several lawyers said is misleading. They argue that while the numbers suggest the authority has become more lenient, they actually illustrate that fewer are attempting to obtain licenses due the cumbersome and risky process.

*Speaking of which . . .

O No! I Can’t Stop Looking!

I don’t know what it means, but I don’t like it:

On Sunday, March 2, the Russian & Turkish Baths on East 10th Street in the East Village was living up to its history of hosting damp celebrities such as Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Jennifer Lopez and John Belushi. . . .

. . .

. . . Sean Lennon, two topless young women and Mr. Lennon’s mother, Yoko Ono, stole the show. They were in the Russian Room, sweating it up.

“Sean was pouring water over Yoko’s head,” reported a witness, who was sitting among the packed crowd in the room, which is essentially a giant oven. “She recoiled momentarily when he poured the ice cold water, but soon began enjoying it. She was sitting down with a towel around her head. She was wearing one of the bath-issue togas.”

Mr. Lennon and his two female friends were standing in the middle of the room.

“They were massaging each other’s boobs suggestively,” the source said of the young ladies. “Sean was sweating like crazy. The two girls he was with were like 19, pretty hot, and he was making out with one of them.” Mama Ono did not seem to notice.

This As The Declining Number Of African-Americans In Major League Baseball Reaches A Crisis Point . . .

Ah, how I’ve missed hearing the mellifluous combination of “Uncle Tom” and “sellout”:

Amid shouts of “Uncle Tom” and “sellout,” the City Planning Commission yesterday approved a controversial rezoning plan for 125th Street that would create condos, more performing-arts space and a 21-story office tower with such tony tenants as Major League Baseball.

The plan was approved 11-2 and now goes to the City Council.

When the vote was over, opponents booed and Michael Henry Adams, an architectural historian and author of “Harlem Lost & Found,” began a diatribe against the commission’s chairwoman, Amanda Burden.

“You’re a rich, rich, rich horrible person. You’re destroying our communities. You’re a rich, rich socialite. You’re a rich, rich socialite. How dare you! You’re destroying Harlem. You’re getting rid of all the black people,” he screamed.

He was ejected.

Earlier: All Bloomberg Needs Now Is To Give Kanye An Opportunity To Say That He Doesn’t Care About Black People.

Is The Bush Administration Ready To Attack Iran Or Something?

Go ahead and psychoanalyze America’s state of mind:

Prewar used to refer to sturdily built apartment houses with high ceilings, walls so thick you couldn’t hear your neighbors and perhaps black and white tiled floors in the bathroom.

It also used to mean stately edifices built before World War II.

Such fine points apparently have not stopped developers who are building a 20-story luxury condominium at 535 West End Avenue at 86th Street, with apartments of up to 14,000 square feet and prices from $8.5 million to more than $25 million. The developers are describing the building as prewar, both in advertisements that have appeared in recent weeks in anticipation of the building’s opening in summer 2009 and on a large sign wrapped around the scaffolding at the construction site.

. . .

. . . The label, [Gary Barnett, president of Extell Development Company] said, is intended to refer to the grand foyers, high ceilings, elegant moldings and spacious living and dining rooms, as well as to a brick exterior and limestone base that echo that of the building’s elegant older neighbors.

“It’s meant to evoke the style of prewar, right smack in prewar country on the Upper West Side,” Mr. Barnett added. “Of course, somebody called us and said, ‘What war are you planning in the 21st century?'”

Welcome To Another Episode Of When Dogs Get Owned By City Dwellers Who Shouldn’t Really Coop Them Up All Day In Too-Small Apartments . . .

. . . and then attack:

Tyrus, a 7-year-old, 60-pound female pit bull who lives in Apartment 708 in the former Olcott Hotel at 27 W. 72nd St., has run up a $90,000 tab, the building’s residents charges.

The condo is suing her owner for the amount, accusing Tyrus of chasing tenants, defecating in the halls, nearly killing a Pomeranian, and mauling several other pets.

Neighbors call the dog a “lunatic” who stalks the halls, leaving residents and management of the Upper West Side condo terrified.

They claim the owner never walks her but instead lets her out alone in the hall, where she goes to the bathroom and roams free.

“Every time I enter or exit my apartment, I am fearful that the dog in Unit 708 will be loose . . . or will attack,” wrote a neighbor as part of the suit filed late last month in Manhattan Supreme Court.

The owners of Pumpkin, a 4-pound Pomeranian, said they were walking in the seventh-floor hallway on Jan. 31, when Tyrus leapt through of an ajar apartment door and lunged at them.

“She knocked me to the ground and started eating my dogs,” said Elisa Schindler, who along with her boyfriend, Larry Frankel, was with Pumpkin and two other Pomeranians, Sugarplum and Marshmallow.

Frankel threw his jacket over Tyrus. But, he said, the attack stopped only after a visitor came out of Apartment 708, grabbed the pit bull and went back inside without a word.

Blood and fur coated the corridor after the attack, Schindler said. It took three surgeries and about 100 sutures to save the nearly eviscerated Pumpkin.

“I would have been mauled, except my boyfriend pulled me into my apartment and wouldn’t let me save my dog,” Schindler said.

The couple called 911, and responding cops hauled the visitor out in handcuffs. He was charged with possession of cocaine, a police report said.