Results tagged “meatpackingdistrict”

The Post reports that a proposed Meatpacking District high-rise got the go-ahead from the city's Board of Standards and Appeals: "Five zoning variances [were approved] for the project, but the OK only came after the developer agreed to reduce the building from 12 to 10 stories and to lop off part of the tower that would have jutted out over the High Line. The glass tower, intended for commercial and retail tenants, would rise on the site of a shuttered meatpacking plant at 860 Washington St., at 13th Street. The project is being developed by the Romanoff family, which has been in the meatpacking business for three generations." Previously, the family had claimed hardship if they weren't able to maximize their space.

More than two dozen Park Slope restaurants and cafes owe at least $910,000 in unpaid wages to more than 200 workers, the State Labor Department announced yesterday. Inspections during the spring revealed that some workers made as little as $2.75 an hour; the minimum wage for food service workers is $4.65 per hour. (Today the Daily News revealed that the restaurants include Aunt Suzie’s, Baluchi's, Sotto Voce, Olive Vine Café, and Sweet Melissa Patisserie.) Getting chiseled out of already laughably low wages is rough, but at least they didn't have the misfortune to be employed by Paradou owner Vadim Ponorovsky, who's earned some notoriety today for an incredibly nasty email he sent to staffers at his Meatpacking district restaurant. His gloriously profane and hateful missive, which makes Hunter S. Thompson's letters seem like Get Well Soon cards, is published below in its entirety:

An Australian businessman was arrested at The Standard Hotel Saturday after allegedly trying to rape a chambermaid. The unidentified 28-year-old woman claims the assault occurred after she began cleaning Matthew Moorhouse's $400-a-night room at 4:25 p.m. "He just asked me, 'Where are you from? How long have you been here?'" Then Moorhouse, 42, allegedly asked her if she had a boyfriend. When she said no, "He asked me, 'Do you think I'm handsome?' He went to hug me. And then he pushed me onto the bed."

   

Click on the images for details on Scarpetta's new five course tasting menu, The JakeWalk's new fall food and cocktail menu, and Dokebi's Korean tacos and weekend brunch.

After two entertaining yet vicious slams on Hotel Griffou and Gus & Gabriel, interim Times dining heavy Pete Wells throws a one-star bone to The Standard Grill, which has been winning over critics despite the grotesquely exclusive velvet rope scene at the door. Wells declares that "it is not the place I would send friends who want to study the latest contortions of the yoga masters of haute cuisine. But it is exactly where I would direct anybody who needs to recharge by plugging straight into the abundant, renewable energy source that is downtown Manhattan." And yet! "The tiled, barrel-vaulted ceiling makes for treacherous acoustics. At times conversations across the room are beamed directly to your table. Sitting by the open kitchen one night, we heard an expediter shouting out orders as if he were communicating with cooks in Jersey City." Still, "with 100 seats in this room, another 100 in an even noisier antechamber, and 85 more on the sidewalk, it is a marvel that the kitchen reliably bangs out solid, flavorful food."

When you've got a restraining order against your estranged husband, and he "helpfully" calls to say your car is parked too close to a fire hydrant and you should check on it, that's a red flag. Paul Greenwald was arrested last week for violating a restraining order against his wife Michelle Greenwald, who is an assistant adjunct professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, and wrote The Magic Melting Pot cookbook. Police say Greenwald lured his wife with the warning about her car, and when she arrived, an irate Greenwald allegedly grabbed her "with force and refused to let go." After a witness intervened, Greenwald jumped into a cab, still screaming obscenities at his wife.

Environmental groups are saying that the recently reopened High Line Park has gone too far in bringing nature to the heart of the city's meatpacking district, claiming that wood used for the park's bleachers, benches and decking is coming directly from the rainforests. We had heard similar complaints about wood at the nearby Standard, but now Rainforest Relief and New York Climate Action Group have unveiled a banner blocking the view of 10th Avenue from the bleachers calling out the raw state of the park. The groups say that that Forest Stewardship Council, the organization accrediting wood used by Friends of the High Line, is violating their own principles in approving wood from "ancient primary forests, including the Amazon" for use at the High Line. The entire press release from Rainforests of New York is after the jump.

Gansevoort 69: Last summer, when Florent ended its decades-long run as a 24/7 Meatpacking District oasis, the building's owner Joanne Lucas saw her hopes of finding an upscale boutique tenant evaporate. Then Lucas's attempt at running a restaurant (under the original name R&L) came off like a depressing ghost of its former self, and the space closed again. The new venture, Gansevoort 69, looks a lot better than the previous effort, with a design that keeps some of the old (the original bar and terrazzo flooring) while creating something new.

This week the Times's interim chief dining critic Pete Wells takes a hammer to deservedly acclaimed chef Michael Psilakis, whose latest venture, Gus & Gabriel, is inspired by the culinary tastes of his son, TGI Friday's, and whiskey. Wells's review is disastrous, which means it's a fun read: "When three children under age 10 leave their milkshakes almost untouched, you know there’s trouble." The restaurant's "colossal misfires are almost impossible to believe and harder still to explain." Specifically: "Almost every chef in town is experimenting with techniques for building a better burger. Mr. Psilakis may be the only one to have perfected a new technology that magically strips out all the taste. The skin on what is advertised as 'crispy chicken' was as crisp as a balloon, and the biscuits on the plate were wet and doughy, as if the cook had decided halfway through that he would rather make dumplings."

Things got a little crazy at the opening party for the Boom Boom Room, a new club on the top of The Standard Hotel Saturday night—Jesse Camp straight-up urinated off the roof! Wait, who's Jesse Camp? Apparently, he was an MTV personality at the end of the last century. And he still gets invited to things! But just because Camp accepts an invitation doesn't mean he's agreeing to play by society's uptight rules. Here's how he breaks it down for New York's Shira Levine: "I'm not going to lie, man; I peed off the roof. But honestly what’s that in the name of a good time? I mean, I keep it real... I didn't break a city law. No one can say that." Levine points out that Camp sure did break the law, but he's ready with an airtight defense: "I didn't know I was going to do that, so can you even blame me? So, like, fine — come and arrest me." But before anyone gets too worked up about the ethics of urinating off a roof onto a crowded city, lets all step back and remember that Camp was relieving himself onto the Meatpacking District.

Times dining critic Frank Bruni has finally left the building in a fusillade of publicity, and his replacement Sam Sifton didn't file this week. But in the "Dining Briefs" section, Betsy Andrews reviews the Brooklyn Star, a cozy Southern comfort restaurant in Williamsburg run by Joaquin Baca, a former partner in the Momofuku empire. She says Baca "excels at making veggies fattening, and good. His casseroles ($8) — garlicky summer squash and mushroom-rich green bean with slivered almonds — are toasted to gooey goodness in his open kitchen’s 100-year-old brick oven. Creamed corn with smoked trout ($4) and earthy black-eyed peas and rice ($4) are spoonful-by-spoonful delicious. Surprisingly for the former Momofuku partner, meats are a mixed bag."

              

We haven't tried the food yet, but The Standard Grill—the new restaurant that officially opened last week on the ground floor of The Standard Hotel—seems to have a lot going for it. Besides being really ridiculously good looking, the joint's timing and location are prime indeed, coinciding with the first section of the High Line park to open to the public. The restaurant, designed by Roman and Williams, is comprised of three distinct spaces: an outdoor dining section, a sun-soaked bistro with tiled floor and a full bar, and a white-tablecloth, fine dining room with red banquettes and orange leather armchairs.

              

If you haven't explored the newly-opened section of the High Line park yet, then let Katie Sokoler's stunning photographs take you there. She stopped by last night and tells us they started "shooing everyone away" at 9:45 p.m., so keep that in mind. The first section runs from Gansevoort Street, in the Meatpacking District, to West 20th Street, in Chelsea, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues; here are details about the access points.

                     

Here are some of our readers lovely photographs of the new openly High Line park in the Meatpacking District. And it looks like the public aren't the only ones enjoying it—here are a handful of reviews that note the gorgeous views from 30 feet above ground, the lovely plantings, and the vision and determination of the designers.

After a few false starts, the former space of legendary Meatpacking District restaurant Florent is set to reopen with a new menu combining diner and bistro elements sometime in July, according to the Times. Partners David Graziano and Corey Lane, who operate West 13th Street club RDV, say that the as-yet-unnamed restaurant will be open 24 hours on Thursdays through Saturdays. Some reports last month suggested that one applicant for liquor license renewal at the space was connected to Chelsea restaurants Il Bastardo and Barbaresco. The restaurant's previous operator and namesake Florent Morellet called it quits last year, thanks to a rent hike from $6,180/month to $35,000/month. He had opened Florent in 1985 when the Meatpacking District was still a business center for butchers; by keeping his restaurant open 24/7, Morellet quickly became the Emma Lazarus to masses of prostitutes, junkies, trannies, artists, runaways, and pretty much any other marginalized group you could imagine. The Times adds that new operators Graziano and Lane will at least keep some of the old Florent interior, including its quilted stainless steel paneling.

Earlier last month, Meatpacking District meat purveyor Pat LaFrieda & Son put their 45,000-square foot space up for sale. Now the Post reports that with another company, M&W Meatpacking, leaving (its owner is retiring; gourmet grocer Dean & DeLuca may move in), there's only one location—a city-owned co-op—"in the Meatpacking District that actually houses meatpackers." LaFrieda, whose business is moving to NJ, said, "A lot of people would like to see us out of here. We don't fit no more." LaFrieda's son explains that their new, upscale neighbors, such as Eva Mendes and one of the Olsen twins, have complained about their Washington Street business and that they received nearly $85,000 in tickets during loading/unloading. Well, we guess MePa just wants the folks who were partying in Chelsea. Last fall, Serious Eats visited Pat LaFrieda Wholesale Meats, which supplies meat to a number of city establishments, including Shake Shack and Spotted Pig. .

The NY Times reports that a developer claims it "would face hardship if it could not get special permission to build a bigger office tower on its site next to the High Line, the long-awaited elevated park that has helped drive up real estate values in the meatpacking district." The Romanoffs have been trying to maximize their space at 437 West 13th Street and say that the High Line's structure has either prohibited them from doing so or that it's making building much pricier. Their lawyer explained, "We’re not saying we wish the High Line wasn’t there. But it makes it more expensive to build." However, office real estate isn't on fire these days. Community Board 2 chairman Brad Hoylman summed up the skepticism a few months ago, "The fact that the applicant is claiming hardship because of the High Line rankled some folks in the community. For many people, it seems that the High Line is a windfall."

          

The first NYC location of The Standard Hotel opened recently after more than two years of construction; located literally above the High Line, this is the sort of ominous looking structure that Curbed once likened to the AT-AT All-Terrain Walker from Star Wars. (Or for the more adult-minded, a "perpetual lap dancer" on the High Line, because of the way it evocatively straddles that old elevated railway.)

         

Fans of SpongeBob SquarePants and anyone who attended Phish shows circa 1993 are in for some serious flashbacks upon entering The John Dory, the new seafood-centric restaurant that's wildly decorated with an aquatic theme and murkily lit in submarine hues of dark turquoise and sea green. An illuminated fish-in-water inlay in the floor runs the entire length of the space, echoing a similar inlay in the bar, where a massive fish tank bubbles.

The Daily News suggests that when it comes to drugs, drunks, and overall debauchery, it's all happening in the Meatpacking District. With the NYPD's crackdown of West Chelsea ever since notable, violent crimes, apparently the action has moved south. From the News: "One reporter was solicited by three dealers within two hours on a Saturday night. Reporters watched a pair of twentysomething club girls vomit in tandem; a man urinate as he weaved along Washington St.; another man so blitzed he appeared paralyzed on W. 13th St." One resident complained, "It's gotten cool, and not in a good way." (Of course, the decline of MePa has been going on for years now.) Still, it doesn't mean Club Land is totally rehabilitated.

“You could be a transgendered elephant walking in here and as long as you pay your check, you’re fine,” diner Lars Hoel told the Times yesterday during his last breakfast at Florent, the 24-hour French bistro that’s been a Meatpacking District institution for 23 years. The transgendered elephant refuge closed last night after the gay pride parade and a private party for staff and friends of owner Florent Morellet.

When we spoke with Florent Morellet on Monday, he assured us that his 23-year-old Meatpacking District bistro – scheduled to close this Sunday at 10 p.m. – would not be occupied by a Bank of America or some similar abomination. But the Parisian restaurateur stopped short of divulging the space’s fate – the landlord had been seeking $35,000 in monthly rent and it was naturally assumed that only the most crass retailers could manage a profit at that rate.

Julia Moskin has replaced Peter Meehan on the Times’s $25-and-under beat and starts with a baptism by fire at Greenwich Village Thai restaurant Rhong-Tiam. Or is “rhong-tiam” just Thai for sadomasochism? Moskin says their "Pork on Fire" is “not so much a dish as a session: an hour spent suspended exquisitely between pleasure and pain, craving and fear.”

Back in 1985, when the meatpacking district nightlife was all about gay clubs like the Manhole and, as John Waters puts it, not getting mugged after a night of “watching men pay good money to get pissed on,” Frenchman Florent Morellet opened a bistro in an old greasy spoon called the R&L. Open 24/7, the place soon became a magnet for all sorts of soulful misfits drawn by the open-minded spirit cultivated by Florent himself. As the neighborhood grew increasingly obnoxious over the past decade, Florent became even more treasured as a sanctuary amidst what restaurant critic Frank Bruni called the “soul-crushing urban theme park” that is the meatpacking district. With the landlord now seeking $35,000 in monthly rent (up from the current $6,180), Florent will close Sunday, and one imagines the perimeter will be surrounded at once by velvet ropes. Or will it? When we spoke with Morellet earlier in the week he seemed guardedly optimistic.

The beloved 24-hour French diner Florent will be closing on Saturday with a big send-off, and lines have often been out the door as the end approaches. Today is no exception, as Eater reports, with the restaurant still packed despite the fact that the gas has been shut off. Reached today (his birthday) by phone at his lake house in New Jersey, owner Florent Morellet tells us that the gas was shut off over a week ago so his plumber could do some work, but attempts to get Con Ed to turn it back on have been fruitless. And he's unsure whether there will be gas before Saturday's closing, telling us that "Con Ed is a little bit like old Russia."

Just in time for Sex and the City's big screen release: BED is back. The club was one of the many featured in the HBO series, and is housed, of course, in the Meatpacking District. Last year when a man died there, it was put under a dark spotlight and ended up shutting its doors.

In March it was announced that The Whitney received a generous donation from Leonard A. Lauder (to the tune of $131 million). The donation came with a caveat -- they wouldn't be able to sell their Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue; however, it looks like they received the funding they needed to move forward with a satellite museum in the Meatpacking District.

On the heels of Florent's closure comes news that another one of the Meatpacking District’s pre-millennial hang-outs will walk the plank: The Hog Pit, a Southern dive bar and BBQ joint that opened in the late '90s, is the latest casualty of the neighborhood’s astronomical rent increases. Co-owner Felisa Dell sent an email to Eater today confirming the closure, which was brought on by a triple rent increase to 40K per month.

Florent, the beloved Meatpacking District hangout set to close this summer after almost twenty three years in business, will at least be going out in style, according to Frank Bruni, who spoke with owner Florent Morellet yesterday. The bistro's long goodbye will last five weeks, with each week dedicated to one of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief. Week One, starting Monday, May 26, will be Denial, with the remaining four weeks themed as Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.

Since you already know about the $5 soda, the $26 pancakes, the $99 a pound ham, and the $25,000 dessert, you probably don’t have much derision left to spare on a measly $81 burger. In fact, depending on your appetite and income level, it could be that this latest addition to the list of New York culinary obscenities isn’t so outrageous after all.