Category: Linked

G Train Rally

Once Haberman gets over making fun of the train that Manhattanites have never heard of, he has a decent summary of last week’s G train rally. (And its not just Haberman – even David Yassky gets in on the schtick: “You can’t spell ‘neglected’ without G, you can’t spell ‘ignored’ without G”.

(Slightly dated.)

84% of Self-certified Plans Flawed

Between September, 2007 and January, 2008, the Department of Buildings audited 662 self-certified plans and found zoning-related objections to 556 of those plans. During the same period, another division of DOB that targets repeat offenders found a similar rate of objections: 171 of 207 plans filed, or 83%. With almost half of all plans that are filed being self-certified, that means that as many as 27,000 of the 61,000 plans filed so far this year could be flawed.

Given the convoluted nature of the City’s zoning and building laws, and the fact that so much of zoning can be open to interpretation and reconsideration, it probably should not come as a surprise that the “experts” get it wrong so often. In all likelihood, the vast majority of the errors are probably not of the nefarious variety, though a good many of them probably do result from an aggressive interpretation of the codes.

Still, the rate of “failure” has always been high under the self-certification program, and is only going up, not down: in a 2001 audit, 59% of the plans reviewed had objections.

Check Your Bag?

When I lived in Ecuador in the 1970s, they had these wonderful buses that basically amounted to a crude wood cabin on an old truck chassis. I imagine that would be a step up from the American Airlines experience these days.

See the Big Apple Any Way You’d Like it Aboard New York Water Taxi

Here’s some great tourist advice – hop aboard the New York Water Taxi and check out “the historic, artsy and vibrant neighbourhoods of Brooklyn including DUMBO and Williamsburg…”

Better pack a sandwich or two, though – the Water Taxi won’t be stopping in DUMBO or Williamsburg until July.

Florent

Bruni has a wonderful reminiscence of Florent, and by extension downtown and New York before it was all business class. I first went to Florent in the late 80s, probably after a night downtown. When we moved to Hudson Square (nobody called it that then) in ’89, Florent was a frequent dinner or breakfast choice. It wasn’t exactly nearby, but everything west of Greenwich felt like the same neighborhood.

I spent most of the ’90s tending bar on Spring Street, and after a good night, we’d head to Florent for breakfast – usually around 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning, sometimes later, rarely earlier. After mediocre nights, we’d hit the Waverly Restaurant for cheap eats, but whenever possible, it was to Florent for steak and eggs (and more drinks). (After slow Sunday shifts, I’d usually hit Blue Ribbon and spend my shift pay with Alonzo at the raw bar, but that’s a different story.)

Hetero, homo or trans, Gansevoort has been over for close to a decade now (ditto “Hudson Square”, or that part of Spring west of Hudson). And no, its not the fault of Sex and the City – that was but one symptom, never the cause. I really hope that Florent got a good settlement out of his landlord.

Rose Plaza

Curbed has dug up some Gene Kaufman renderings of the proposed Rose Plaza project at the Certified Lumber site (just south of Schaefer Landing). As one commenter noted, this design won’t be winning anyone the Pritzker prize.

In the silver lining department, the application at City Planning was filed by Gruzen Samton Architects. Either Kaufman is showing an earlier concept, or Gruzen is only responsible for the master planning, not the architecture.