Retail

Mere months after the highly publicized shuttering of Scores West, investigators have busted yet another Manhattan strip club for selling what the industry so politely calls "extras."

Cops arrested lawyer Louis Posner, proprietor of the popular Hot Lap Dance Club, located at 344 West 38th Street, and some 20 other people, including adult film star and "feature performer" Alexia Moore, on prostitution and money-laundering charges over the weekend.

I recently asked former Scores dancer Ruth Fowler, author of the new stripper memoir, No Man's Land, whether there are any New York strip clubs that don't allow that sort of thing.

"Flash Dancers," replied Ms. Fowler, who performed at various venues around town. "They're really fucking strict. They're, like, the cleanest club I've ever worked at. They're so hard on girls who do extras."

You'd think that the buyers of $100 million apartments in the stat-warping 15 Central Park West would want something a tad more highbrow--say, a Prada or a Harry Winston--occupying their ground-floor retail espace. Instead, the gilded tenants at the A.M. Stern-designed tower will have a Best Buy, a West Elm, and a JP Morgan Chase Bank.

William Lie and Arthur Zeckendorf, the developers of the building, made the official announcement today, though it was first reported in the New York Post on July 8. According to the release:

In an industry presently experiencing substantial turmoil, the JPMorgan Chase Bank lease represents the largest retail bank branch lease in Manhattan in 2008.  read more »

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Today marked the ceremonial ribbon-cutting of the hugely hyped Chelsea hotel in Atlantic City.

Hotelier Curtis Bashaw recently sat down with The Observer to discuss the $110 million project, which aims to lure more young, hip New Yorkers to South Jersey's gritty gaming town and otherwise restore some of the ancient seaside destination's long-lost glamour.

"We do a lot of real estate projects -- we've done ground-up buildings in the city and all sorts of other stuff -- but these hotel renovation projects are among the most challenging and rewarding and pleasurable projects," said Mr. Bashaw, 48, who, alongside his Cape Advisors partner Craig Wood, has combined an old Howard Johnson and Holiday Inn into a single 330-room boutique hotel on the boardwalk.  read more »

Smith Street, Brooklyn's restaurant Mecca, has at long last scored its first boutique hotel, and the hotel's operators sure do know their audience.

Hersha Hospitality's Nu Hotel, at the corner of Smith Street and Atlantic Avenue, hits nearly ever single gruppy note.

Is it eco-friendly? Check. The press release boasts that the hotel has cork flooring, organic linens, and "custom furnishings crafted from FSC-certified, sustainably harvested teak wood."

Is it "Brooklyn" enough? Check. As per the release, "Whimsical references such as stenciled quotes from famous Brooklynites, 'found objects' from local landmarks and other daring local art strive to echo the authentic, confident character of Brooklyn.  read more »

I was at the Old Town bar on East 18th Street on Thursday evening, when a petite woman with a French accent leaned across the bar to my right and demanded from the bartender: "Two Budweisers for Belgian people!"

She laughed. Her and her friends were tourists from Belgium.

The bartender grinned wryly and said, "It's not very good beer."

Indeed. But that didn't stop InBev from buying Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion earlier this week in history's biggest all-cash deal. America's largest brewer, which the Busch family ran for 150 years, will now be in the hands of a company run by Brazilians and controlled by a few Belgian aristocracts.  read more »

It's only July and already the so-called "Summer of Hope" is winding down on Coney Island.

Gowanus Lounge is reporting that the various rides and attractions touted by controversial developer Joe Sitt back in April are currently being dismantled, apparently headed to some other carnival site in Tennessee.

Today's New York Times article about the increasing frequency of overnight airport stays, and the increasing callousness of airlines toward their marooned passengers, has a fascinating tidbit about something called a Mini Motel:

An unscheduled overnight stay at a German airport inspired one business traveler, Frank Giotto, the president of Fiber Instrument Sales in Oriskany, N.Y., to create the Mini Motel, a one-person tent complete with air mattress, pillow, reading light, alarm clock and pillow...

Asked what airports would think of a tent city of his Mini Motels, Mr. Giotto expressed confidence.

“People sleeping in chairs don’t seem to bother them,” he said.  read more »

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Eating a bagged lunch at your desk? You're not alone. The toughening economy has more Americans brown-bagging it or eating at their companies' cafeterias rather than at restaurants near the office.

And the restaurants are feeling it. From today's Wall Street Journal:

Lisa Hall, owner of Kitchenette, two home-style eateries in New York City, recently added an incentive for frequent patrons: For every 10 sandwiches a customer buys, they get the next one free. The goal is to boost revenue with additional sales. "We can charge an extra 25 to 50 cents, but that doesn't even halfway cover the extra costs we are being charged," she says.

Nick Liuzzi, owner of Samantha's Trattoria in New York City's Battery Park, typically caters to brokers and banker-types. But, as those industries suffer, Mr. Liuzzi estimates that the Italian delicatessen has seen a 15% to 20% drop in lunchtime traffic since last year.

In the spring of 1976, Joni Mitchell trekked out to the North Shore of Staten Island to the Mandolin Brothers, a vintage American guitar dealership that had opened five years earlier and had already become a well-trodden pit stop for musicians, guitar buffs, and fretted-instrument collectors.

Ms. Mitchell bought a 1915 Gibson Mandocello and a Martin herringbone guitar, Mandolin Brothers President Stan Jay recalled on a recent Friday afternoon. On the ferry back to Manhattan, she penned “Song for Sharon,” beginning with the lyrics: “I went to Staten Island, Sharon, to buy myself a mandolin.”

“Something must have set off an autobiographical memory for her so she wrote this highly personal song… which is the story of her life and the story of her friend Sharon’s life, who she knew in Canada,” Mr.  read more »

If you missed the barrage of Bastille Day celebrations over the weekend, fear not because there will be ample opportunity for Francophiles and foodies alike to mark the beginning of the end of the ancien regime tonight at the hundreds of brasseries and bistros in the city.

Zagat has a list of some of tonight's culinary-themed festivities, including a DJ, specialty cocktails, and complimentary amuse-bouches at the bar of Alain Ducasse's new bistro Benoit; and the week-long pre-fix menu featuring escargot, duck confit, and crème brûlée at West Village Eatery Le Gigot.

We can't help but remember a time when Bastille Day was less than trés chic.  read more »

Folk singer David Peel was leading a crowd of protesters in a singalong of his charming ditty “Die Yuppie Scum” on Friday evening, when suddenly the rebellious crooner experienced a moment of clarity.

“What are we doing over here?” Mr. Peel asked. “Where are the apartments?”

A few doors down, it turned out.

Demonstrators had intended to gather outside an apartment building at 47 East 3rd Street, owned by controversial landlord Alistair Economakis, who has been trying to uproot its rent-stabilized tenants for years in order to create a sprawling manse for himself and his family.  read more »

In May, right after the cheap, trendy clothing chain Steve & Barry's announced that they had leased the Soho store that was home to Tower Records for two decades, The New York Times wrote a glowing article about how the company had managed to expand to 276 locations nationwide and strike up partnerships with the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker, yet still charge under $10 for "stylish celebrity-branded clothing."

Co-founders Steve Shore and Barry Prevor were quoted throwing around words like "revolutionary," likening Steve & Barry's to "the Google of Fashion."

Basically, The Times attributed Steve & Barry's success to the "underlying business model that relied on an obsessive attention to costs"--like eschewing advertising, manufacturing overseas, and opening branches in under-performing malls.  read more »

Syms -- the family-controlled bargain clothing retailer with a massive and massively ugly white department store on Trinity Place -- admitted to shareholders that it earns more from its real estate holdings than from its clothing sales, yet Marcy Syms, the CEO, continues to insist the company is not a REIT.

Ms. Syms said that the company earned $2 million last year in rent from its property holdings nationwide, yet only a meager $807,000 in net revenue from clothing sales, according to an item in today's Wall Street Journal.

As The Observer reported last week, many shareholders suspect the Syms family, which still owns 57 percent of the company stock, of trying to take the company private again, so it can reap more of the dividends from its growing real estate empire -- which includes a growing assemblage of air rights and properties around its store in the Financial District.  read more »

Spain’s skimpy, ubiquitous, mass market clothing chain, Mango, is venturing where no Western retailer has been before--at least since the 2003 war--by opening a branch in Iraq, WWD reported today.

Undaunted by the political instability, sporadic violence, and relatively more modest style of dress that prevails in even the relatively peaceful, liberal Kurdish region of Northern Iraq, Mango’s president of expansion Isak Halfon told Women's Wear Daily that the one million people in the city of Arbil are “starving for something like this.”

Unlike Mango’s Western branches, the Iraqi flagship won’t carry the typical skin-tight, midriff-baring, cleavage-flaunting, provacative attire, but a conservative line designed by Lebanese designer Zuhair Murad, tailored to the Middle East.  read more »

The Carlyle Group closed today on the purchase of an interest in the retail condo at 666 Fifth Avenue, the tower that Kushner Companies bought last year for a then-record $1.8 billion, according to a source familiar with the deal.

Carlyle Group -– the mammoth private equity group that manages $82.7 billion in 60 funds worldwide and recently, with Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., bought 650 Madison Avenue for $680 million -- is purchasing this deal in partnership with Stanley Chera's Crown Acquisitions. The 49 percent stake, as reported by Bloomberg News, in the approximately 90,000-square-foot retail portion, which includes a Brooks Brothers and the NBA Store, is valued in the deal at $525 million.  read more »

OoooooK. A backlash has apparently bubbled forth against Starbucks' new Pike Place Roast, a smoother blend that the coffee giant unveiled in April. The Wall Street Journal this morning reports that regular Starbucks addicts are the ones none too pleased with the blend and they're taking to the blogs!

Much of that debate is taking place on the company's customer-feedback Web site, which the chain launched in March. The site is littered with thumbs-down verdicts on the new roast. ...

A customer with the handle Westend complained in a posting on the site that the flavor of Pike Place Roast is "weak, watery and no substitute for the bold." Another, ArtM, called the coffee "a fundamental, grievous error." Beccajav derided its finish as "reminiscent of a taste from the dentist's office."

On a recent warm summer evening, two young professional couples sat idly chatting before a performance of Hamlet at Central Park's Delacorte Theater.

"Have you been to the new Ikea in Red Hook?" one of the young men asked his companions, receiving a chorus of "no, not yet!" in response.

On came a list of household items wanted, but not necessarily needed. "I was a bit worried about getting everything home on the ferry," one young lady said.

"I can help you," said her male companion.

With the opening of Ikea Brooklyn on June 18, no longer is a trip to Elizabeth, N.  read more »

Master mall builder Forest City Ratner and Blumenfeld Development Group have snagged another discount retailer for East River Plaza, the 485,000-square-foot suburban-style mall being developed in East Harlem along the FDR Drive, between 116th and 119th streets.

Marshalls, the discount housewares and clothing store, has committed to taking 33,000 square feet in the mall, according to a press release issued today. It will be the first Marshalls in East Harlem.

A recent article in The New York Times said the mall is slated to open in October 2009.

Some highlights of the $480 million project include an estimated 2,000 jobs (that is, of course, the developer's estimate); a multi-level 1,248-space parking lot; a Target; a Best Buy; and possibly a Home Depot.  read more »

The esteemed and embattled Chelsea Hotel has yet another new manager.

Hotel blog Living With Legends has the scoop that former Hard Rock Hotel boss Andrew Tilley is taking over today, becoming the hallowed Bohemian enclave's third manager in just over a year.

Mr. Tilley replaces former corporate manager BD NY Hotels, the Richard Born and Ira Drukier-led outfit fired this past April after just 10 tumultous months in charge.

The previous manager, legendary hotelier Stanley Bard, had overseen the hotel's operations for nearly 50 years before his controversial dismissal last summer.

After 10 years of getting bruised and battered by the biggest linemen and linebackers in college and professional football, former West Virginia University and Pittsburgh Steelers standout Amos Zereoue is now trying to finesse his way to success in the smash-mouth New York City restaurant scene.

Which is tougher?

"Life in the New York restaurant scene--hands down," said the 5-foot-8, 200 pound, 31-year-old redshirt restaurateur, looking rather Usher-esque in a white suit and shades, during a boozy relaunch party Wednesday for his 2,200-square-foot eponymously named eatery, Zereoue, at 13 East 37th Street.

Originally opened in 2006, in the former Frere Jacques space, Mr. Zereoue's West African and French fusion restaurant has twice closed down for some needed retooling; most recently, a complete overhaul.  read more »

Mike Fleming, a 29-year-old Ohio native who has been living on the streets since 2003, had his 15 minutes of fame a few months ago when he discovered the building schematics for the Freedom Tower while sifting through a trashcan on Houston Street.

A couple months later, Mr. Fleming again finds himself facing the same grim realities he did before his brush with notoriety.

“I was on the front page of the New York Post the week the pope came to town,” Mr. Fleming said, pulling a poster board of the story clip from his bright orange messenger bag as evidence.  read more »

Veteran nightclub broker Alex Picken, founder of Picken Real Estate and Nightlife Brokerage, married his company's creative director, Pornthip "Jije" Sooksai, in a ceremony in Manhattan on Sunday.

Toasting his new bride later that night, Mr. Picken, 49, jokingly stuttered over the words "my lovely wife" -- a term he said "most of you thought you'd never hear me say."

The newlyweds were introduced to friends and family to the tune of the Rihanna hit "Umbrella" during a boozy reception at Providence, a lavish, three-level, 13,500-square-foot nightspot at 311 West 57th Street, for which Mr. Picken served as site selector, negotiator and broker.

The happy occasion may have marked the notorious night owl's official retirement from bachelorhood -- but "not the industry," he insisted.

Ikea Red Hook has survived its first weekend in Brooklyn. To commemorate, we dedicated several hours to the Ikea experience, starting with their free (for now) water taxi, which departs every 10 minutes from Wall Street’s Pier 11.

The water taxi itself was surprisingly empty and prompt, and filled with happy customers carrying houseplants. I met one woman (holding a houseplant) who was traveling from Wall Street to take her lunch hour in Ikea.

“It’s a beautiful day and a beautiful ride,” she said, “and I want to try the meatballs.”

This kind of short visit is absolutely the reason for the water taxi, store manager Mike Baker told me inside.  read more »

Back in April, as I was trying to figure out how the hell to get out to Glendale for my interview with the Cash Giveaway King of Queens, Damon Hemmerdinger, development director for the Shops at Atlas Park, I asked his rep:

"Think ol' Dale [Hemmerdinger, M.T.A. chairman and also Damon's father] can hook me up with a closer subway stop?"

"Funny!" she said. "But the bus stop right in front is relatively new so consider yourself lucky!"

Luck is one way to put it. Some city officials call it fishy.  read more »

According to Friday's Metro, City Council members are upset about the new bus service,

Regulators continue to crack down on the infamous Kalua Cabaret in Jamaica, Queens -- site of the controversial 2006 police shooting that claimed the life of Sean Bell.

First, the State Liquor Authority stripped the notorious strip club of its liquor license. Now, health inspectors have shuttered the topless juice joint for a number of unsanitary conditions, including evidence of mice.

The city Health Department issued a statement on Wednesday about a rash of salmonella cases likely linked to tainted tomatoes:

The Health Department has linked six new cases of gastrointestinal illness to salmonella, bringing the number of cases to seven in New York City. The new cases are part of a nationwide salmonella outbreak that has been linked to raw tomatoes. More than 200 people have been stricken nationwide, all with the sub-type Salmonella Saintpaul. The Health Department, saying that more cases may be confirmed in the coming days and weeks, reminded residents to avoid certain types of tomatoes while the outbreak continues.

The Post today has a handy tomato user guide.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and City Planning Director Amanda Burden, among others, sawed a log to open the new Red Hook Ikea today.

In this week's print Observer, Benjamin Popper profiles Greg O'Connell, Red Hook's biggest landlord and the de facto godfather of the new big-box.

Grub Street and Eater are reporting that soon-to-be displaced Central Park eatery San Domenico will be reopening in a much bigger, 350-seat space at 19 East 26th Street, right across from Madison Square Park -- Danny Meyer country.

"Right now Danny Meyer is king of the park. We plan to challenge him," as Mr. May told Eater.

The new restaurant will be called SD26.

We don't want to tumble into too much Ikea-related hype, but the below release dropped into our inbox this morning. (In tomorrow's Observer, we'll have a profile of the Godfather of the Red Hook Ikea. Hint: he's in real estate.)  read more »

Coney Island merchant Dianna Carlin continues her quest to reopen her Lola Staar Dreamland Roller Rink in the abandoned Childs Restaurant building with the first of two fund-raisers tonight.

Ms. Carlin is trying to raise the necessary funds for an assembly permit to cover the whole 60,000-square-foot building -- the cost of which is considerable.  read more »

Passionate preservationist Michael Perlman, savior of Manhattan's Moondance and Cheyenne diners, is now spearheading a campaign to reopen Queens' historic Ridgewood Theatre, which closed this past March after nine decades in operation.  read more »

It opens June 18. More photos after the jump.  read more »

Anti-bar-sprawl activists used to bemoan the State Liquor Authority's glaring lack of a single voice from New York City.

Now, the state agency is poised to include a bonafide majority of city slickers.

Governor David Paterson today nominated a former legislative aide, Jeanique Green, presently a senior court analyst in the New York City branch of the state Office of Court Administration, to cast the crucial third vote on all licensing matters.  read more »

"I'm in this business for 40 years," said Joe Chirico, standing in front of Marco Polo Ristorante, the restaurant he owns on Court Street in Carroll Gardens. "I started with Joe's Luncheonette two doors away--after so many years of being in fast food, I decided I needed to open a good restaurant."

Last week, Mr. Chirico was celebrating the 25th anniversary of his Italian restaurant with family and longtime friends and customers, including Borough President Marty Markowitz. When the restaurant opened, Mr. Chirico said of the neighborhood, "It was mostly Italian, but now it's changed for the better. We're getting more young people coming from everywhere, especially from Manhattan. This neighborhood is special, it became a very, very happening neighborhood for professional people; everybody likes to live in Carroll Gardens."

And now a new generation of entrepreneurs are following in Mr. Chirico's footsteps all over the borough, and that is especially true in Prospect Heights.  read more »

Joe O's, the casual sports bar and restaurant in the Hotel Pennsylvania and home to the $13 Vornado pizza -- presumably, an ass-kissing tribute to hotel landlord Steve Roth's ginormous real estate company -- has been shuttered.

Its windows along West 33rd Street have been blacked out, with only a sign hanging from the outside scaffolding to remind passersby of its former presence.  read more »

After months of uncertainty, one of the Upper East Side’s most popular street vendors, Tony Dragonas, settled a suit with the Health Department over violations that had threatened his license and livelihood, allowing him to continue operating his famed food cart on 62nd Street and Madison Avenue.

Once a deal was reached, Mr. Dragonas, his 19-year-old son, Dana, and a dozen of his regular customers who had trekked to the Financial District to testify on his behalf hurried uptown to the same spot he has occupied for 23 years to celebrate, just in time to serve the hungry hordes lined up every day during the lunchtime rush.

Over a year ago, one of Mr. Dragonas’ neighbors filed a complaint about excessive smoke from the cart, and the Health Department began making inspections about three times a month, he said. Between Nov. 29, 2006, and Oct. 31, 2007, Mr. Dragonas was cited for 19 health code violations, many of which stemmed from minor infractions like failing to wear a hat, vending too close to the crosswalk, or putting a cooler on the ground.  read more »

You could talk to any business in the city and hear a familiar lament about high overhead stemming from commercial rents, but for small-scale food entrepeneurs who don't have enough revenue to justify a full-time licensed facility--let alone one equipped with ovens, mixers, and expensive cooking equipment--the problem has an accessible solution, according to a report released today by the Center for an Urban Future, a Manhattan thinktank.

The report urges city to get on the communal kitchen bandwagon by supporting the creation of additional kitchen incubators (small spaces with shared ovens, ranges, and industrial mixers that can be rented when needed) that give small-scale food producers access to affordable space in a licensed commercial kitchen.  read more »

From the Associated Press:

New Yorkers start paying the highest cigarette taxes in the nation Tuesday with the latest $1.25 spike per pack that officials expect to bring in $265 million a year.

As Gawker notes, some Manhattan retailers are selling packs for $10.25 now--that's roughly 51 cents a smoke.

Proprietors of venerable Coney Island institution Ruby's Bar & Grill hope to reopen Friday afternoon, following vigorous repairs to replace a collapsed floor in the men's room that sent one patron to the hospital over the weekend.

Much maligned developer Joseph Sitt of Thor Equities, who owns the building, is chipping in on the cost of repairs, which were completed yesterday, according to a source at the bar.  read more »

A fierce standoff between two New York titans, both ranked on The Observer's recent 100 Most Powerful People In Real Estate, wrapped up an indecisive first-round yesterday.

Dapper restaurateur Giuseppe Cipriani (ranked No. 97) had offered up $500,000 to settle his dispute with the State Liquor Authority (S.L.A.).  read more »

The Health Department has shuttered venerable Ruby's Bar & Grill on the Coney Island boardwalk following a bizarre incident on Saturday, which I reported in this week's Observer.

A cop on the scene summed it up thusly: “One guy was taking a leak, the floor partially collapsed, and he fell 10 feet.”

Police closed down the bar soon after the accident on Saturday. It reopened Sunday. Then the health inspector closed it down again yesterday, according to a well-placed source on the boardwalk.