Founders Hall, built behind the front wall of the St. Ann's Church

While much of the opposition to New York University’s Greenwich Village expansion plan has centered on how new structures would affect neighbors in the future, a recent City Limits article shows the historical basis for the concerns.

In general, NYU touts how its presence has helped local businesses, but the owner of La Lanterna Caffe, a bar on MacDougal and West 3rd streets that’s down the block from NYU’s Wilf Hall at 133 MacDougal Street, told City Limits that he’s experienced the opposite. During the 2008-2010 construction period he reports a series of broken promises that ultimately caused him to lose nearly a quarter of his business. [more]

A rendering of NYU's plan for public spaces

New York University’s assertion last month that it will add 3.1 acres of publicly accessible open space to Greenwich Village may be more bluster than fact, the New York Observer reported, because a lot of the space it’s claiming to add is already publicly accessible.

The university is suggesting that there will be a major net gain in the amount of open space in the neighborhood as a result of its efforts, the Observer noted, but it’s “one thing to knock down a building or transform a parking lot into a park. It is another to take one park and turn it into another park.” [more]

Citi Habitats President Gary Malin and the Greenwich Village office

Residential rental brokerage Citi Habitats has reportedly shut its Greenwich Village office, following the expiration of its lease at 214 Sullivan Street, between Bleecker and West 3rd streets, sources told The Real Deal. Agents working out of the office have been moved to other surrounding offices, a person who answered the phone at the company’s headquarters said, though representatives for the firm did not respond to requests for comment. [more]

The ceiling collapsed at the Marc Jacobs store in Greenwich Village on Saturday, and a large light fixture fell from the ceiling, destroying handbags, scarves and other luxury merchandise, the New York Times reported. No customers were in the store at the time and employees were unharmed.
“It just started cracking,” one of the employees said of the ceiling.
The store remained closed for the remainder of the day and the company’s press representatives did not respond to email.
Some out-of-towners were left disappointed by the closure.
“I’m shocked, really shocked,” said Sayaka Mochino, a visitor from Japan. “I want the iPad case, but they’re closed.” [NYT]

Apartment buildings throughout the city are reviewing their heating systems as they consider how to comply with new regulations issued by the Bloomberg administration in April, the New York Times reported. The new rules require that around 10,000 buildings using cheap, but “dirty,” No. 6 heating oil switch to No. 4 heating oil by 2014. But because the rules also state that buildings will either need to begin using No 2. heating oil or natural gas by 2030, some landlords are considering making the larger switch earlier in order to save money on multiple conversions. While the conversion process is expensive, natural gas costs about 30 percent less than fuel oil.  [more]

New York University made little headway with community advocates last night during a Community Board 2 meeting, during which it elaborated on its plans to add six million square feet of campus facilities to Greenwich Village and the surrounding area by 2031, according to the Village Voice. The expansion plan — which includes proposed satellite campuses in Downtown Brooklyn and on Governors Island — has been controversial among community leaders who say that the neighborhood is already overwhelmed by the NYU campus. But school officials say they’ve made an effort to expand outside of the village, and that the proposed facilities are badly needed for the school. [Village Voice]

[more]

The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted today to extend the
Greenwich Village Historic District for the second time in four years,
bringing the total number of landmark properties the district to 2,320. The
expanded district, the largest historic district in New York City, now
encompasses 235 tenement buildings, institutional buildings and
rowhouses. The commission also granted landmark status to two sites in
the Bronx: the Haffen Building, a seven-story Beaux-Arts-style building in Melrose and the Noonan Plaza Apartments in Highbridge, an Art Deco-style rental complex built in 1931. TRD

[more]

The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted today to extend the
Greenwich Village Historic District for the second time in four years,
bringing the total number of landmark properties the district to 2,320. The
expanded district, the largest historic district in New York City, now
encompasses 235 tenement buildings, institutional buildings and
rowhouses. The commission also granted landmark status to two sites in
the Bronx: the Haffen Building, a seven-story Beaux-Arts-style building in Melrose and the Noonan Plaza Apartments in Highbridge, an Art Deco-style rental complex built in 1931. TRD

[more]

Greenwich Village residents are riled over possible expansion plans New York University is set to unveil in about three weeks, according to the New York Post. The construction would build near two undeveloped so-called “super blocks” north of Houston Street between Mercer Street and La Guardia Place, which had been set aside in the 1960s. Although the school has promised to preserve the space, residents are skeptical — so much so that Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has been acting as an intermediary between NYU and its neighbors. “NYU must co-exist with, not overrun, the Greenwich Village community,” Stringer said.

Three months after signing the lease, Barak Dunayer, president of Barak Realty, has opened his second sales office. In a climate of uncertainty, Dunayer said the time was right to open the Upper East Side location. “Recessions are terrible things to waste,” he said. “And when the market goes down you have a lot of opportunities to expand, if one can afford it.” Besides, “Everything is quicker and negotiable today — the rent, the terms, branding, he said. The company is paying $140 per square foot to lease the roughly 700-square-foot space on the ground level at 1458 Third Avenue, between 82nd and 83rd streets. Dunayer’s wife, Yael, who runs the company with him, designed the space. [more]