Outrage Mounts Over TGI Friday's Coming To Union Square

Mayor Bloomy has gotten rid of all native New Yorkers

born before 1959,so tourists can go to known chain

store places to drink,shop and hopefully use a free

toilet and pay outrageous rents and false god mortgages.

The park was great in 1927 ,Gee it was a park not an

NYU campus.

What we needed in the Zen Palate location was

another CVS, I think the China Cottage on 16th is not

doing so well either,that too can become a healthclub

like the "Princeton Ski shops" on 22nd street has now become,

Wow! NYC's all a big mall now.Chinatown you are next.

Chelsea art galleries are a mall too! Wow!

if the tourists want to go there -- and they will in droves -- that's great. More room for the rest of us at the better non-chain restaurants in that area.

Developed nations like the US really have awful problems. I thought we had things bad in our shanty town. I think a fund should be started against this TGIF issue. It sounds truly life threatening.

Friday's opening in USq is better than what happened to Times Square and that pedestrian mall crap!

What are the mall hours at Union Sq.?

+ 1 for fish bowl size margaritas

- 1 for the crowds

geez dont know if I should hate it or love it...

but everyone know that next to children's place is becoming a dunkin doughnuts right?

It may be a low end Nordstrom spin off called "On The Rack" and that'll be too good for Union Square.

Frankly, I was never a big fan of Zen Palate. There are great things around the square, not counting the chains.

Good. Maybe they'll hire all the stumbling skateboarders, bumbling bmx bikers, and flailing frisbee throwers and get them the fuck out of the square for a few hours at least. I could live with that.

I miss that Zen Palate, too :-(

TGIF? Ugh.

I remember Union square as the low rent herald square.

US had S. Klein's and Mays, HS has Gimbels, Korvettes Macy's and further out had Ohrbach's and B. Altman's.

and Bloomingdale's was on it's own.

So:

Please NO to TFIG !!!(if people wouldnt eat there, they wouldnt open new restaurantes...and they wont open for the tourist..Union Sq is not Times Square (yet))

b=But please yes to:

Babies R Us, Fedex, Starbucks (2 actually), Au Bon Pair, Walgreens, Whole Foods, DSW, Shoemania, Cosi, Diesel, Staples, Puma, McDonalds.....All Mom and Pop stores!!!

Union Square should not be about the stores that surround it but at the people who is in it...

um nymichi i really hope you don't consider "Babies R Us, Fedex, Starbucks (2 actually), Au Bon Pair, Walgreens, Whole Foods, DSW, Shoemania, Cosi, Diesel, Staples, Puma, McDonalds" as mom and pop stores.

There's probably a handful of "mom and pop" stores, IF THAT, left in Manhattan.

Manhattan is going become one gigantic filthy shopping mall.

I'd rather go upstate. I"m so sick of the same stores everywhere.

"Because if a corporate chain opens across the street from Union Square, it will be ruined — just like it is every morning when Babies R Us, Staples, Starbucks, Petco, DSW. . . fling open their doors."

Ha ha, John, you are too funny.

This is a shame.

The recession meant that Union Square was finally approaching a critical mass of empty storefronts.

Maybe if we had just a few more, we could get back to the good old days of drug shootings and rampant prostitution.

After all, it is clearly more important to have hookers and heroin close to home than doughnuts and chicken wings.

Can't we have all four?

One Stop Shopping!

as long as they have the in-house drug dealer at the bar.

let them set up shop, don't think it will do well as TGIF seems like the lowest of these chain restaurants. your applebees, golden coral, lonestar steakhouse, outback steakhouse.

bring back a Fuddruckers. they seem reasonable.

And why shouldn't Manhattan get another TGI Fridays to go with the rest of the chain stores, drug stores, and banks that are proliferating the island? Everyone who lives in Manhattan is a transplant anyway. These stores make them feel at home. Real New Yorkers live in Brooklyn!

Well, I'm a "real New Yorker" - born in St Vincent's Hospital in 1968 - and I live in Manhattan, so what the hell are you talking about?

And Brooklyn is where the "real New Yorkers" live?

Ever heard of a place called Williamsburg?

I don't think there's a lot of "real New Yorkers" there!

Don't embarrass yourself, Mom.

Babies R Us, Staples, Starbucks, Petco, DSW, Best Buy and Barnes & Noble

Is the Project Mayhem kid still in jail?

@Tim: Your reasonable and and level discourse is unwelcome here. You should be more like @Think twice and mourn the loss of Washington Square's giant concrete mounds.

Whatever. I'm never too cool for beer and hot wings. Perhaps they can all "ironically" eat there just to pretend that they're not totally fucking in love with a place where the carbs runeth over.

I am a little confused as to what exactly makes Union Square so horrible before the chain restaurant and what exactly makes it so terrible after. I for one have enjoyed union square back when there was nothing there and now when it is full of stores and people. I take my dog to the dog run there, shop at the green market, peruse the artists, etc. I never ate at Zen Palate and will probably will not eat at TGIF. Take a chill pill guys.

Nicely said. Thank you.

Target will take over Virgin's spot.

Nordstrom Rack (the outlet-y version of Nordstrom Department Store) is already confirmed to be going into the old Virgin space.

"Hey Nordstrom...nice rack!"

No store or restaurant can make Union Square any worse. Wait till we see who gets the Virgin Store, we'll probably be happy with TGIF.

That's going to be a Nordstroms.

I miss Zen Palate and have wondered how long that building would remain vacant.

There's a Zen Palate on 9th and 46th.

Been to Dang-Lai Palace on 3rd? Pretty much the same thing...

With all the stores closing down in the area-- Circuit City and Virgin Records among them-- Union Square needs what tenants it can find. Instead of protesting TGI Fridays, they should see if Walmart is still interested.

it's more like best buy mobile, not a fully functional best buy. I wish they'd open a coffee bean and tea leaf here. They have really good teas.

Actually, the former Circuit City is going to become a full-fledged Best Buy before the end of the year. Consider yourself informed, Baby.

Another good reason to avoid Union Square. Plenty of better places to hang out than this Bernaysian zombie playground.

Don't they know Manhattan is long past saving.

But I do hope they should write a "death notice" for Union Square like they did with Washington Square.

And mail it to 1996?

Dear Unemployed People,

Drop dead.

Sincerely,

Hippies For the Preservation of Union Square

P.S.: Sorry we were too stoned to protest the last 100 national brands to open stores in the area.

like what another Urban Outfitters? f-in hipsters.

If you don't like the place, don't go there. It's a free country, at least for the moment.

Why don't all the self-righteous trendy people who are against TGIF and any other business they deem unhip, put their money where their mouths are, pool their $$$ and open up a business in Union Sq more to their liking.

Yes, it's a free country. So people are FREE to protest another shitty chain restaurant moving into a neighborhood that's already saturated with them.

It's really the last thing we need. The argument that the existence of countless other chain stores in the area is a GOOD reason for TGI Fridays to move in is inherently flawed. If the area had no restaurants at all, I could see someone making the point that TGI Fridays is providing a beneficial service. But they're not. There are plenty of other restaurants in the area, both affordable and pricey.

We don't need this.

You'd prefer an empty store front that employs no one and collects dirt?

I think TGIF has crummy food and I won't eat there, but they wouldn't open a restaurant there if there weren't a market for it. Who are these people to say those who do eat there are somehow inferior? Who are these people to say their fantasy vision of the neighborhood should look like is more important than the people who desperately need jobs that the restaurant will provide? If you want to be an activist, go protest something worthwhile. Or get a more productive hobby.

Qraymond, nobody is saying that TGI Fridays moving in is a good thing because there are already a bunch of other crappy chain stores in Union Square. What the article says is that protesting the Fridays is, as the saying goes, shutting the barn door after the horse has run away: if you believe that crappy chain businesses are going to ruin Union Square, then you're protesting way too late, because by that logic it was ruined years ago.

It's one thing if they exercise their freedom of speech to protest a store or restaurant opening. It's quite another thing if they start using the courts, community boards, or other governmental bodies to control what businesses are allowed. If they are selective in which businesses they will allow and which they will block it just makes them look like a bunch of elitists. Anyway, shouldn't they be busy picketing Whole Foods over their CEOs op-ed on healthcare?