Results tagged “chelseamarket”

Crain’s takes notes of a sharp spike in restaurant closings, with real estate brokers reporting many more closures than usual and a surge in restaurant auctions; the city's leading restaurant auctioneer tells Crain’s he’s been handling “20 liquidations a month for the past year, twice as many as the year before.”

Especially telling is that many of the auctions involve seasoned operators rather than neophytes who miscalculated their ability, the strength of the market or both. An example is Frank's, a chophouse in the meatpacking district that has been owned by three generations of the Molinari family. It closed two weeks ago, along with its adjacent butcher shop.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: two pedestrians struck at 71st St. and Northern Blvd. in Queens, a shooting at St. John's Pl. in Brooklyn, and a collapse at 52nd St. and 7th Ave. in Manhattan.
• Someone stole the "diamond dress" that Carol Channing wore during her stage run in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," from an unattended luggage cart. The $150,000 dress was about to be donated to the Smithsonian Museum.
• Annheuser Busch is moving a distribution plant from Long Island City in Queens to Hunts Point in the Bronx. Beer is seen as a vital fluid essence and economic stimulant to the revitalization of the downtrodden neighborhood.
• The Ground Zero remains of American Airlines Flight 11 passenger Laura Lee Morabito were identified recently through the use of advanced DNA testing techniques.
• Recording artists 50 Cent, L'il Kim and their two record companies are being sued for non-payment of royalties to a songwriter.
• A Nigerian immigrant New Yorker fashioned a bust of Mayor Bloomberg from the tickets he received from the Dept. of Sanitation.
• The Gowanus Lounge reports that Red Hook car owners and other Brooklyn neighborhood residents are pleased that street cleaning will be halved in the near future. Alternate side of the street parking switches will only occur once a week rather than two.
• A salvage team is looking for almost $10 million in silver bars that were never recovered from a 1903 incident when cargo belonging to the Guggenheim family fell overboard into the Arthur Kill on its way to South Amboy, NJ.

It's July 14, which means it's time to appreciate the je ne sais quoi of all things French as you celebrate Bastille Day. Eating frites is one way, but there are many other events and activities today and tomorrow.

We've all heard the old adage that there's nothing more dangerous in the kitchen than a dull knife. A sharp knife cuts cleanly through things. A dull knife forces you to use more pressure, then may bounce off the surface of the onion you're trying to slice and onto another surface, such as--for instance--your hand. Ouch!

Reader Stanley sent us this photograph of what he described as a "low key PETA protest" from the other day. Two PETA demonstrators were protesting an Iron Chef America outside of Chelsea Market, where the show films. An episode of the cooking showdown featured a lobster challenge - Morimoto vs. Eme from Season 3. But the protest may have had an unintended effect: Stanley tells us that he was inspired enough to buy a lobster bisque at Hale & Hearty.

December 7: Alex Prud’homme at O&CO.

We came to win. We were prepared for the challenges they laid before us. Blind wines…bring it. Guess the spices…we came to play. Decorate the cookie…we’ll take down the pastry chefs. This was our mantra. Dirty or fair, we had one goal and that was to win the 2nd Annual Duckathlon sponsored by D’Artagnan.

In a time before Pastis transformed the Gansevoort Market forever, Gothamist lived in shared commercial space on Little West 12th Street with some artistically inclined folks. The food routine was straightforward; La Taza de Oro and Hector’s (44 Little West 12th Street, 212-206-7592) for day to day prepared food, Chelsea Market and Western Beef to buy raw foodstuffs, and Rio Mar served endless tapas with your Sangria.

Bob Tuschman,
Food Network

Not quite the same, but along similar lines: Illegal Art, where you can find illegal DVD-R's of Superstar, Todd Haynes's movie about Karen Carpenter. Meccapixel has some monkey photos (marmoset, colobus) and Gothamist likes us some monkeys.

As part of our foray to the Bronx, we decided to check out the Arthur Avenue Retail Market. Different retailers sell from the large building - cigar makers, florists, housewares (like a mini, less gentrified Chelsea Market) - amidst the stretch of restaurants, bakeries, fishmongers, and other butchers on Arthur Avenue. We made a beeline for Michael's Deli, in the back right corner of the market, because we had seen Michael give a demonstration of how to make fresh mozarella on NYC TV. After he sort of making fun of us for taking pictures (forcing us to pose with a ball of smoked mozarella, so we could be holding "Michael's ball"), Gothamist bought some fresh mozzarella, which, upon trying when we got home, was some incredible stuff - rich and creamy. We didn't even need to salt it!