Retail

Back in March, this reporter was dismayed to discover that charming restaurateur Toney Edwards had finally lost his long, drawn-out legal fight to protect his beloved French bistro Le Madeleine from the wrecking ball.

Landlord Mark Scharfman was reportedly planning to tear down the single-story structure on West 43rd Street and replace it with a multi-story residential building.

Now, adding insult to injury, I come to find out, via the blog Lost City, that Mr. Scharfman has installed a new tenant in Le Madeleine's place -- specifically, another French bistro called Le Petit Un Deux Trois. Incroyable!

"...it has to make you wonder by the landlord insisted on kicking Le Madeleine to the curb. Was it personal between the landlord and the restaurant owner, Tony Edwards, who always insisted Scharfman couldn't legally tear the building down. Did the economy foil Scharfman's plans? Or maybe Un Deux Trois just offered more money."

"Good riddance! Throngs of confused people meandering knee-deep in trash blown from unattended-to garbage cans. Nice! Really, really nice! There are many other cleaner, safer, better beaches and boardwalk attractions so close in Jersey... Coney Island doesn't even have a shell store or decent restaurant associated with its beach area." ["Advantage Sitt! Astroland Closing for Good"]

Coney Island's Astroland will have its last day this Sunday. Then it's over for the iconic amusement park, according to reports out this afternoon. A deal couldn't be reached by 1 p.m. today between Astroland's operator and its landlord Joseph Sitt, who has big plans for the area (if the city doesn't get its way first).

Here's the Post's take. Here's an emailed statement from Lynn Kelly, president of the Bloomberg administration's Coney Island Development Corporation:

Today’s announcement that Astroland will close after 46 years should be a serious wake-up call to those who have stood back and watched as the fate of Coney Island has been left in limbo without any safeguards for its future.

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The Federal Reserve released on Wednesday its every-six-weeks anecdotal take on the national economy called The Beige Book. Here's a grab-bag of ultimately meh numbers for New York City:

• Broadway theaters report that business "improved moderately" in July and early August compared to the six weeks before. Attendance and ticket revenues increased 1 to 2 percent annually in July and 3 percent in the first half of August.
• Average Manhattan apartment asking rents declined 2 to 4 percent in July and August compared to the same months last year (more on falling rents here). And: "The rental vacancy rate, though still below 2 percent, is reported to have climbed noticeably over the past year."
• More home sales are falling through due to tighter financing. The sales markets in Brooklyn and Queens were worse for sellers than in Manhattan.
• The number of construction permits issued in June for multi-family buildings was four times greater than in the same month in 2007. And the first half of 2008 saw 63 percent more multi-family building permits issued than the first half of 2007.

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From Crain's:

Despite the drop in business from Wall Street firms, New York hotel bookings are strong this summer. But hoteliers are worried that their industry will take a big hit next year if the economy worsens.

Local hotels’ key corporate account business has weakened considerably in 2008, with a 15%-25% reduction in bookings from Wall Street firms, notes Sean Hennessey, chief executive of Lodging Investment Advisors.

Michael O'Connell, scion of Red Hook real estate mogul Greg O'Connell, is taking charge of a project to move the recently closed Cheyenne diner from its Chelsea location to a seaside spot in Brooklyn.

Mr. O'Connell, 37, has worked on developments with his father since he was 7. "It's hard to do anything on my own, my dad and I do pretty much everything hand and hand," he said. "But, yeah, this was definitely more my idea, and I'm taking the lead on this."

The Cheyenne was forced to close this April to make way for a nine-story apartment building being erected by the diner's landlord, George Papas, at 33rd Street and Ninth Avenue.  read more »

Daniel Boulud expounds upon his new Maison Boulud in Beijing in the August/September issue of Haute Living (a magazine that managed to turn four under our radar--happy birthday!). The site of the eatery, Mr. Boulud's first overseas restaurant, has an interesting pedigree:

Set just minutes from the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, the restaurant’s location is the former American Embassy to the Qing Dynasty [China's last imperial dynasty]. It is where Henry Kissinger conducted secret meetings with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and where the Dalai Lama was in residence from 1951 to 1959. It is an absolute honor to be able to call such an iconic setting my Maison à Pékin.

(To his credit, nowhere in the Haute Living piece does Mr. Boulud turn the phrase "Peking duck.")

Above is a YouTube clip of Mr. Boulud in the kitchen of Maison Boulud.

"Holy shit. As a resident of the greater AC region--and as someone who is a bit ambivalent about the fact that I'm from here--all I can say is fuck off, douchebags. Whatever inherent (albeit at times ironic) charm Atlantic City might offer doesn't need to be helped along by any hipster dilettantes. You're the reason I stay here instead of moving to Philly or Brooklyn. Seriously, YOU RUIN EVERYTHING! A Minor Threat Lacoste shirt? C'mon. . ." ["Beatrice by the Beach"]

Gay-rights activist Storme DeLarverie -- who famously punched a cop during the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion -- will be honored tonight during an exhibit of artworks at the famously arty Chelsea Hotel, where Ms. DeLarverie also resides.

"The Stonewall Veterans Association is bringing the blue Cadillac for Storme," said event organizer and abstract painter Susan Olmetti, referring to the convertible Ms. DeLarverie often commandeers for the city's annual Gay Pride Parade.

The event, which begins at 6 p.m. at the famous hotel, located at 222 W. 23rd St., will also feature live portraiture by noted artist Antony Zito.

Full details are as follows:

MEDIA AVAILABLE: Aug.  read more »

Scarpetta chef Scott Conant may be "too modest" to say it, but here's proof that Italian is the new French.

Literally, in this case: beloved former French bistro Cocotte in Park Slope is being converted into some type of red-sauce joint, described simply as an "Italian restaurant," according to some new signage posted on the premises.

Cocotte, one of this author's favorites in the neighborhood, was suddenly shuttered back in February, with chef and co-owner Bill Snell blaming stiff competition along Fifth Avenue, the Slope's premier restaurant row.

Vornado Realty Trust isn't hell-bent on demolishing the historic Hotel Pennsylvania, anymore -- but it's putting the paperwork in place, just in case.

Vornado recently applied for a Certification of No Harassment from the city, which, if granted, would by no means guarantee demolition but is apparently a prerequisite for tearing down the semi-grungy hotel across from Penn Station.

Vornado, which owns that site and many others in the area, hasn't made up its mind on what to do with the hotel (at least not publicly), and last word was that the company would do one of three things: put a giant office tower in its place, put a smaller office tower in its place with large retail, or simply spruce up the hotel.  read more »

“We’ve been suffering ever since they moved in [six years ago],” said Sean Sweeney, director of the SoHo Alliance and Greene Street resident, who ticked off a litany of complaints ranging from noise from steam cleaning the façade in the middle of the night or from the HVAC equipment on the roof to the hordes of people who line up for new gadgets — and allegedly leave behind heaps of trash.

The final straw — which prompted Sweeney to fire off a letter this week to elected officials — was last Tuesday’s Jonas Brothers concert held at the store, attracting thousands of screaming tweeners for several hours to Sweeney’s block “like it was Shea Stadium and the Beatles.

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The media hubbub surrounding Toys in Babeland's opening in Park Slope earlier this summer ranged from a Post screamer ("Sex-Toy Shop Has Bad Vibes in Park Slope") to a Daily Intel piece about how Internet buzz on the new store was largely favorable. In between, the Daily News informed that the shop would have a baby changing table to cater to the famously family-friendly hood, a tidbit that netted Babeland’s owners an irate phone call from Focus on the Family.

So how's business going now that the store's been open a couple months?

"We're doubling our sales projections," says Claire Cavanah, one of Babeland's owners.  read more »

Self-described "die-hard rock fan" Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined music legends Billy Joel and Clive Davis today in announcing the development of a new 25,000-square-foot annex to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, located at 76 Mercer Street in Soho.

The new annex, opening in November, will include such priceless artifacts as Johnny Ramone's Mosrite guitar and the graffiti-clad phone booth from defunct legendary rock club CBGB.

"We're in a landmarked area of great cast-iron buildings," Joel Peresman, president and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, said of the location, which was picked "for a variety of reasons," he added.  read more »

New data from the city's tourism agency, NYC & Company, indicates that nightly hotel rates shot up to $350 on average in May. That's an increase of $50 from the same time last year.

Suddenly, the current minimum $249 nightly rate at the dumpy Hotel Pennsylvania (pictured right) doesn't seem quite so steep.

Tonight, according to Expedia.com, you can also stay at the Paramount, Hilton, New Yorker and Roosevelt hotels for less than $300.

Book now!

Celebrity hotelier Robert De Niro's notoriously secretive Greenwich Hotel has finally allowed another media outlet, besides Vanity Fair, to peak inside its exclusive chambers. Sort of.

Hotel Chatter - which had its own reservation revoked in April - directs us to this recent Newsweek review of Bobby D.'s lodge, which briefly discusses the rooms, the food, and the decor of this supposed "below-the-radar" hotel.

What, no mention of that posh illegal penthouse?

Not since Zack Morris has a name been so often associated with the word preppy than Dorrian's Red Hand, an unabashedly anti-hip bar on 84th Street and Second Avenue.

Dorrian's became notorious during the investigation that led to the conviction of so-called "preppy killer" Robert Chambers, a Dorrian's patron, in 1988. But, for a close-knit cadre of boarding school-educated, liberal arts degree-toting young professionals, living uptown and toiling away at investment banks, PR firms, auction houses and the like, it is better known as "Club D."

In a city where neighborhood haunts morph into velvet-roped nightspots or are gobbled up by Duane Reade in the blink of an eye, the dark wood, red-checkered interior of Dorrian's has changed very little over the past decade, though it looks like they are doing some sort of renovation at the moment.  read more »

American Apparel's opening its 20th New York City location at 429 Broadway, at the corner of Howard Street, in Chinatown, Racked reports. For a full list of actual and coming AA stores, click here. For an explanation of why its storefronts are so damn bright, click here.

The literary landmark Algonquin Hotel hosted a feline fashion show and birthday party on Thursday in honor of Matilda, the famous inn's finicky house cat, now 13.

"I hope we get to see the cat's pajamas," quipped one quick-witted attendee, as guests sipped $20 purr-tinis while cooing at the various costumed kitties in the hotel's famed Round Table Room.

But something was missing. "We can't find Matilda," an organizer confessed.

The resident blue-eyed Ragdoll -- who was rumored to have been hiding out in the hotel's Blue Bar -- will just have to get used to having other critters around.

The splashy celebration, which benefitted the North Shore Animal League, also marked the beginning of a new pet-friendly policy at the Algonquin, which had previously prohibited guests from checking in their own animals.  read more »

"WOW - I love this idea - I would LOVE LOVE LOVE a Costco in my neighborhood (actually I would prefer SuperTaget but Costco is great too) - I love cheap stuff and I'm tired of paying $5 for Corn Flakes - build it, build it, build it." ["Remember Trump City?"]

With government stimulus checks mostly spent, July was a gloomy month for retailers. WWD took a toll of the national chains that either fell short of expectations or took a hit last month--or both--compared to July 2007.

Sales were up 3 percent year-over-year at Wal-Mart, falling short of the 3.4 percent boost analysts predicted. The nation’s largest retailer prepared investors for a tough August as well, estimating a 1 to 2 percent increase.  read more »

• Target’s sales fell 1.2 percent annually.
• Kohl’s dropped 10.4 percent.
• J.C. Penney's were down 6.5 percent.
• Neiman Marcus' sales were down 1.7 percent.
• Saks were down 5.3 percent.
• Nordstrom’s same-store sales dropped 6.

The New York Post's Steve Cuozzo today pleaded with state regulators not to revoke the liquor licenses of seven Cipriani restaurants and banquet halls around town:

It would...cost more than 1,000 jobs, leave our most iconic celebration spaces empty for the foreseeable future, and knock the fizz out of the city's culture of excess - the golden goose that keeps the talent-fleeing, jobs-hemorrhaging "Empire State" afloat.

Apparently, new State Liquor Authority (S.L.A.) commissioner Jeanique Green is a big Post reader.

This morning, Ms. Green cast the deciding vote to accept a $500,000 penalty in lieu of yanking the licenses, thus allowing the Cipriani empire to stay in business.  read more »

"Oh great, just what the neighborhood needs -- ANOTHER luxury high rise for foreigners with euros who do not even live here or for the 1/10 of 1% of any NYers with any money left -- hear about recession? And yet ANOTHER Whole Foods and other retailers to further congest an already congested area -- did we mention the AM & PM gridlock from 63nd Street & 2nd Avenue to 55th Street daily and the ever increasing volume in and out on the 59th Street Bridge? Has the Mayor and everyone else 'in charge' completely lost their minds about this particular intersection ?" ["Whole Foods to Open on Second Avenue"]

Whole Foods has signed as the anchor tenant for a new development at 57th Street and Second Avenue, making it the sixth outlet for the Austin-based food retailer in foodie-laden New York City.

The World-Wide Group announced this evening that Whole Foods would, starting in 2012, occupy 47,000 square feet in its mixed-use development.

“We are pleased to sign such a strong anchor tenant for this pioneering mixed-use project,” said David Lowenfeld, executive vice president of the World-Wide Group, in a statement. “Whole Foods has a proven track record of success in New York City as well as an established reputation for giving back to the community.  read more »

Environmentally friendly performance club Galapagos Art Space opens officially tonight at 7 at 16 Main Steet in Brooklyn.

The Observer's Gillian Reagan wrote recently about the whole green nightlife movement:

...[W]ith gas prices soaring and the words “energy crisis” tumbling off even the most un-Gore-like lips, the whole project of greening up nightlife seems perfectly prescient. The typical club—with its blasting sound systems, sweat-cooling air-conditioners and lights blazing three nights a week—gobbles up 150 times more energy than a four-person family every year, according to Enviu, a Netherlands-based, environmental nonprofit group. In New York City, dance spots tend to be open five to six days a week, making their consumption that much higher.  read more »

Since a revamped logo and a new coffee blend didn't seem to work, Starbucks is now wooing caffeine addicts with cheap iced coffee drinks in the afternoon, the AP reports. Starting today, Starbucks will charge $2 for any iced, grande beverage bought after 2 p.m.--if you present a receipt for coffee purchased earlier in the day.

The promotion, which was offered in Seattle, Chicago and Miami earlier in the summer, will run through Sept. 2, in response to "consumers' calls for more value at the chain."

"I think we've kind of hit the nail on the head," vice president of customer relationship management Brad Stevens told the AP. "It's easy for baristas to implement and it's easy for customers to understand."

The strategy sounds a little like something a cigarette company would have done a half-century ago.

The Daily News today examines the ongoing retail turnover on Amsterdam Avenue, where rents now hover around $250 per square foot.

"It's no longer full of beer halls and guys with backward baseball caps watching the game," said Rafe Evans, a broker at Walker Malloy.

Oddly, the article makes no mention of the neighborhood's most recognizable beer hall, the endangered P&G Bar, which is expected to take down its iconic (and landmark-designated) signage and move out when its lease expires on Dec. 31, after more than six decades at the corner of Amsterdam and West 73rd Street.

Its latest rumored replacement: Baby Gap.

Salumeria Rosi, an Italian-style specialty foods store, joins trendy chocolatier Jacques Torres as the P&G's new neighbors on the rapidly changing block.

"The stores now have style where, before, they were utilitarian," said Stu Morden, managing director at Newmark Knight Frank, which inked the Salumeria deal.

The Center for an Urban Future, a nonpartisan think tank based in Manhattan, released its first-ever ranking (PDF) of the national chain retailers with the most stores in New York City.

Perhaps surprisingly, Starbucks did not even make it into the top three, though the Seattle-based coffee chain does have the biggest presence in Manhattan of any of the 160 retailers surveyed, with 186 stores in the borough and 235 branches citywide. It ranked fourth citywide, behind McDonalds (with 248 stores), Subway (335), and the most prolific chain of them all, Dunkin’ Donuts, with a whopping 348 stores.

We can only presume this means that Manhattanites are willing to pay more for their coffee than their outer-borough brethren.  read more »

The 2008 holiday season is shaping up to be a bleak one for retailers, but consumers on a tight budget will get more bang for their buck. Straddled with surpluses from lackluster spring and summer seasons, merchants are bracing themselves for “one of the worst selling seasons in years” and being “practically religious” in merchandise planning, WWD reports.

Standard & Poor’s retail equity analyst Marie Driscoll told WWD that it's seeing a “5 to 10 percent inventory reduction on per-square-foot basis.”

“The consumer, based on the confidence numbers, is much more pessimistic,” she said. “Their income is constrained, and retailers are managing with less inventory investment, trying to mitigate the risk.  read more »

Wall Street was swarming with camera-toting, fanny-pack-sporting tourists last Friday afternoon, but few of them dared venture past the doorman standing sentry outside the pristinely intimidating Hermes boutique on Broad Street.

Inside, a woman from Abu Dhabi, wearing a black abaya accented by a diamond-encrusted, Chanel wristwatch and an oversized, patent-leather bag emblazoned with the interlocking C’s logo, browsed the selection of branded watches while her four young daughters, dressed in matching jeans and pink plaid shirts, jockeyed for a spot on the Hermes rocking horse. She had never been to New York City before, she said, so decided to join her husband on one of his many business trips here to do a little shopping.  read more »

Banquet king Giuseppe Cipriani may have finally met his match in Daniel Boyle, chairman of the New York State Liquor Authority, writes Page Six Magazine scribe Joshua David Stein.

After losing his valuable lease in a legal fight at the Toy Center, the dapper restaurateur now faces life without bellinis, if archnemesis Mr. Boyle has his way and puts all seven Cipriani establishments effectively out of business by stripping their liquor licenses.

How ironic, writes Mr. Stein, if "a clan that has catered to the haute monde for almost 80 years could suddenly be brought down by a normal, middle-class guy in a regular, old courtroom next month.  read more »

A team of city marshals began removing merchandise from one of Harlem’s most iconic music stores, the Record Shack, before noon today, carrying out eviction orders delivered back in February.

The United House of Prayer for All People, the landlord of the 35-year-old de-facto Harlem landmark, gave Record Shack owner Sikhulu Shange 30 days to vacate the premises across from the official 125th Street landmark the Apollo Theater.

Mr. Shange then lost an appeal in civil court in March, and a judge ordered him to leave the premises “broom clean” by May 31.  read more »

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-t