This is our monthly recap of recent NYC news you might have missed during the last few weeks. As usual, our list is heavy on real estate and gentrification, restaurant news, plus other tidbits. We identify our sources, too.
No fake news, no white lies, no spins, no leak here on NYCOTC.
What’s in a Name – The Theater at Madison Square Garden is getting a new name. The 5,600-seat theater will now be known as The Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden as part of a marketing deal. The multipronged marketing agreement boosts the Hulu brand, with signage throughout the venue, including on Eighth Avenue, Hulu content displayed in the Theater’s lobby,sweepstakes, promotional rights and ticket presales to select events. (Adweek)
Show Me The Money – A six-apartment triplex in Trump Place owned by Saudi Prince Nawaf bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud has sold for $36 million to an anonymous LLC. While $36 mil is a whopping price, it’s half the original sale price, so maybe huge apartments with a six-person hot tub, a saltwater aquarium, several kitchens, including one with an extra sushi prep station, a ventilated cigar room, hair salon, fitness center, and three bullet-proof safe rooms, aren’t worth what they used to be. Several buildings in the Riverside Drive complex have removed the Trump name from their buildings, but not the Sheik’s. (The Real Deal)
Goodbye, Trump – Another building that has removed the Trump name is the Soho hotel formerly known as Trump Soho New York. The hotel is under new management, with a new name. Say hello to The Dominick. As the only Five-Diamond property in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood, the 46-story, 391-room hotel offers both luxury accommodations and sweeping views of Manhattan and the Hudson River, along with a world-class spa, outdoor pool, three food and beverage venues, and banquet and event space, The Dominick, at 246 Spring St., joins only two other premier hotels in New York City that have been accepted into membership of Preferred Hotels & Resorts’ prestigious Legend Collection.
Stuck in Traffic – NYC is the third most traffic congested city in the world, after Los Angeles and tying with Moscow, for the most amount of time spent going nowhere. According to the annual INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard, New Yorkers averaged 91 peak hours stuck in traffic in 2017.
What’s the worst of the worst? For the third consecutive year, the eastbound section of the Cross Bronx Expressway (I-95) tops the list. INRIX reports that the average driver wastes 118 hours per year in congestion on the 4.7 mile stretch— an increase of 37 percent from the previous year. The next three stretches for worst congestion are East 34th Street from FDR Drive to Fifth Avenue, Belt Parkway East from Exit 3 to Exit 17, and East 42nd Street from FDR Drive to Seventh Avenue.
Traffic congestion will cost the city $100 billion over the next five years after all. In the meantime, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Fix NYC panel is scheduled to reveal a congestion pricing plan that could result in a charge for vehicles driving below 60th Street in Manhattan during specified hours. (Curbed NY)
Fixer Upper – The Olmsted-Beil House in Staten Island, the one-time home of Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed Central Park with Calvert Vaux, is falling apart, with water sloshing in the basement and overgrown weeds in the yard. NYC bought the house about 12 years ago to turn it into a historic landmark museum, but it is now in disrepair. By contrast, it took the National Park Service only two years to turn another Olmsted house, in Brookline, Mass., into the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, after the National Park Service took control in 1979. So get with it NYC! (NY Times)
Show Me the Money – Tavern on the Green, the storied restaurant in Central Park, is accused of cheating its waiters and waitresses out of tips and wages. A class action lawsuit by staffers accuses the famed eatery “engaged in a policy and practice of unlawfully retaining employees’ gratuities” for special events such as weddings. According to the suit, TOG would charge customers a 7 percent fee for catered and banquet events — which customers mistakenly believed covered a gratuity — and pocketed it, instead of sharing it with the waitstaff as tips. The restaurant, where dinners range from a $22 vegetable plate to a $54 sirloin, also paid employees $7.50-per-hour rather than the $11-per-hour minimum wage required by law. (NY Daily News)
Imortant reminder for March and beyond –
Show Me the Money – Starting March 1, the Metropolitan Museum of Art began a mandatory $25 admission fee, replacing the 20+ year-old “pay what you wish” policy. Unfortunately, too may visitors wished to pay nothing, and you can’t run a world-class museum on wishes. The good news is that NYC and NY State residents and students are excluded from the new admission policy, which also applies to Met Breuer and The Cloisters. (NYC on the Cheap)
- See our list of FREE admission days at top NYC museums.
SEE ALSO News you may have missed in January.
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