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Midtown West, Restaurants

Photo by Max Lau

A new food hall opened this month in Manhattan’s Garment District, adding some bold flavors to the mostly lackluster options in the neighborhood. Located at 231 West 39th Street, The Deco Food + Drink features eight family-owned vendors, a cocktail bar, and event space. An ode to 1920s New York, the Carpenter & Mason-designed space features an Art Deco aesthetic, with geometric tiles, bright blues, and brass accents framing each section.

See inside

Art, Midtown West, Urban Design

All photos courtesy of the Garment District Alliance

One of the city’s busiest neighborhoods is getting a little slice of peace. The Garment District Alliance and the city’s Department of Transportation unveiled a new street art installation Wednesday afternoon. The nearly 180-foot painting by artist Carla Torres, “Nymph Pond,” takes up the stretch of Broadway between 37th and 38th Streets. The best part? The block with the mural is being temporarily set aside as an “urban garden” until the end of the summer.

See it here

Featured Story

Features, Midtown, Restaurants, Where I Work

Noam Grossman, Upside Pizza, NYC restaurants

Photo courtesy of Molly Tavoletti

How do you heighten something as ubiquitous in New York City as a slice of pizza? It’s all about the dough. Noam Grossman, the founder of Upside Pizza, which opened in the Garment District in January, uses a 100 percent naturally leavened dough with a sourdough starter, unbleached flour, and a rise time of 72 hours. Grossman credits this mixture, along with the use of a brick-lined oven and in-house ingredients, for making Upside Pizza stand out among the hundreds of other slice joints found across the city. With a team consisting of dollar-slice gurus Eli and Oren Halai, of 2 Bros. Pizza, and pizza consultant Anthony Falco, of Roberta’s fame, Grossman’s pizzeria elevates the New York slice experience while retaining its grab-and-go roots.

“We’re not cranking out quick-made pies,” Grossman told 6sqft. “We’re working tirelessly to make our pies memorable, and the absolute best they can be.” And all of this is happening in a 330-square-foot joint on the busy corner of 39th Street, across from the Port Authority. Boasting a colorful, in-your-face aesthetic, the inspiration for Upside Pizza’s design came from “the nostalgia of being a kid in the ’90s when hip hop and sports reigned supreme, and local pizza parlors were places of community gathering,” he said. Ahead, hear from Grossman on Upside Pizza’s plan to perfect the slice, the pizzeria’s expansion, and his favorite slice joint in the city.

Meet Noam

Midtown West, Policy

Image via Wally Gobetz/Flickr CC

Just two weeks after the city announced that they’d spend $136 million to create the “Made in NYC Campus,” a hub in Sunset Park that will provide affordable space for film and fashion companies, it’s come to light that the de Blasio administration has been planning a rezoning of Manhattan’s Garment District. As Crain’s explains, this could potentially roll back rules that require landlords to rent a portion of their buildings to fashion companies, a clear push to drive these businesses toward lower cost space in Sunset Park.

More info ahead

Architecture, Midtown West, New Developments

230 west 36th, VOA Architects, Garment District, Midtown offices, Midtown South

The visualization wizzes at Hayes Davidson posted this image of a hyper-modern tower addition atop an imposing Verizon-owned building at 230 West 36th Street.

While few details are provided with the accompanying image, an article from the Times last year mentioned that the top two floors and some unused development rights of the 1924 building were being shopped around to developers as a potential hotel site. The rendered building appears to be a commercial office building, however. With the dearth of development sites suitable for large office floor plates east of Ninth Avenue, and a hot Midtown South office market where vacancy rates hover near 9 percent, the site could be a prime opportunity to construct new office space in the heart of the Times Square/Penn Station sub-market.

More details ahead

Featured Story

Design, Features

Making the Cut: Is NYC Still the World’s Fashion Capital?

By Michelle Cohen, Tue, January 13, 2015

NYC fashion

Via j-No via photopin cc

Will 21st century New York City be able to retain its fashion capital status? How does an aspiring fashionista build a brilliant career? The answers come from a winning combination of education, innovation and inspiration, plus financial and media support.

Though styles come and go with dizzying speed and designers fall in and out of favor, New York City has held the title of global fashion capital since the mid 20th century, when it rose to prominence with the unprecedented idea of developing sportswear as fashion. Today’s NYC is home to some of the world’s top fashion schools whose famous graduates add to the city’s fashion culture and networks. Foreign designers choose to live and work here because of this status and creative energy, adding even more to the fabric. We may share this pedestal with quirky London–and trés chic Paris, the brainy Belgians, the stylish Scandinavians and the ascendant Aussies make things more interesting–but NYC is known as the place where style ideas and trends are born and exchanged.

But is NYC still the world’s fashion capital?

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