Good morning. Today is Friday. We’ll look at Mayor Eric Adams’ attack on outdoor restaurant shacks that became barricades. We will also meet the artist commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to create an installation around the escalator.
Mayor Eric Adams wears a hard hat, wields a sledgehammer and swings. He connects to a waist-high wall that easily gives way. It’s the kind of Twitter-ready photo he’s interested in.
The target was an abandoned restaurant on West 32nd Street in Manhattan. The restaurant that housed the warehouse during the pandemic didn’t take it down when it closed. The mayor said the city would be demolished, starting with more than 20 “neglected shacks” like the one he was standing in front of.
Adams defends outdoor dining – “it has saved 100,000 jobs” in the restaurant industry during the pandemic, he said – and says it should be a permanent part of city life. “What I mean, loud and clear, as long as I can get my hands on it, is that al fresco dining is here to stay,” he said.
But he called the “decay and disorder” at some of the shacks “unacceptable” and promised that a new task force would work to see that picnics were “safe, clean, and safe.” and respectable”. He said the task force would be led by the city’s two transport and sanitation departments with police support. Officials say the Department of Parks and Recreation has assisted in the initial resolution of the problematic hawker fires.
Outdoor dining “cannot be a safe haven for rats,” says Adams. “It cannot be a safe haven for illegal behavior.” And, when asked about the complaints he’s heard about the warehouse, he mentions another. “I have a New Yorker’s nose,” he said, “and listen, someone used this as a urinal because I could clearly smell it.”
Officials say abandoned outdoor restaurant structures make up a small fraction of the 13,000 restaurants that have participated in the Open Restaurants program. Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi said the city is also targeting shacks with “serious violations,” including blocking the Fire Department’s access. “We have dozens of warehouses of that type,” she said. And opponents have gone to court over City Hall’s push to make the dining halls permanent.
In his eight months in office, Adams has developed a reputation as a nightlife-loving mayor, an idea he launched on Thursday.
“There’s a whole industry from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. and everything in between,” he said, “and I think it’s been too long since city leaders just acknowledged that activity from 9 to 5 o’clock. I do not believe that. I saw all night long what a prosperous city we are. In fact, if we closed at 5 p.m., we would be Portland. We are not Portland. We are New Yorkers. We continue to grow – the city that never sleeps. In fact, we didn’t even take a nap.”
Adams did not specify which Portland he was thinking of. In Portland, Maine, where bars and restaurants can stay open until 1 a.m., “you might want to refer to the fact that if you walk around our old port now, you’ll find a lot of New York disc,” said Jessica Grondin, the city’s communications director. “I just said. Of course, it’s all fun. “
She said she empathizes with the problems restaurants face. “It’s been a tough two years for an industry, with all that they have to manage and the low margins they have,” she said, adding that Portland City Council has passed regulations. plan to expand outdoor food service.
Weather
The high will bring a sunny and very warm day with negligible winds and highs in the upper 80s. Tonight the skies will be clear to cloudy with above-average mid-70s temperatures.
PARKING OUTSIDE
Valid until September 5 (Labor Day).
Beautifully decorated escalator
Taiwanese painter and concept artist Michael Lin so glad to Metropolitan Museum of Art said they wanted to entrust him to do an installation. “I thought, ‘Oh, great, we’re going to do something on the facade,’ he said. After all, the Met commissioned the sculptures to go in niches between the tall columns by the main entrance on Fifth Avenue.
That’s not what the Met thinks.
Joseph Scheier-Dolberg, the Met’s curator of Chinese paintings, told Lin that this was the Met’s first committee to deal with escalators, and that the Met already had escalators. It’s on the corner near the Great Hall, which is basically the main Met lobby. The museum wanted him to do something about the cramped, bland spaces around the escalator.
Lin’s hopes faltered, and then he went to work. Lin said. “I mean, it’s a pretty dull space.”
He created a construction called “Pentachrome” with wall panels on either side of the escalator. “This is the first work I do that you can pass,” says Lin.
The panels he installed were high to the ceiling. They painted on motifs from two Qing Dynasty-style vases he found in the Met collection, with magnolias, hydrangeas and tree peonies on one side, and magpies on the other. and plum blossoms. “You are like climbing a tree when you go up,” he says.
Scheier-Dolberg says installations based on Asian art and especially Chinese ceramics are appropriate because they have long been displayed on the second-floor balcony of the Great Hall, where the escalators carry people. But Scheier-Dolberg said there were practical considerations that posed challenges to the project. The installation “cannot have something that requires a narrative element that forces you to pause in the middle,” says Scheier-Dolberg. That can cause a bunch of passengers when landing midway.
There is also the speed of the escalator. “I kept thinking, ‘Wow, this is going so fast – can we slow it down? “Lin said. Unfortunately, he and Scheier-Dolberg say, the answer is no. The escalator runs at only one speed.
The Met says the installation complements Chinese ceramics on the balconies, which have long added color to the cool stone surfaces of the walls and floors at the Met. The installation has “completely transformed the escalator in the Great Hall,” said Max Hollein, the Met’s director. “It doesn’t feel like a dull walk through the DMV office anymore. “
METROPOLITAN . Diary
Book Reviews
Dear Diary:
On a hot summer morning, I squeeze next to a woman on train B, open a book and type in my headphones. The book needs attention.
I can hear my seatmate singing. Normally this would annoy me, but I soon realized the woman had a beautiful voice. I resisted the urge to react and continued reading instead.
When we reached the stop, I stood up and turned to look at her. She laughed.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Yes,” I replied. Honestly, I was expecting her to compliment me on how I dress, the dress I usually wear.
“What’s the name of your book?”
I was surprised.
“The anomaly,” I said. “It’s really good.”
“I know,” she said, “I read a page over your shoulder.”
– Vanessa Spray
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and Read more Metropolitan Diary here.
So glad we can get together here. See you on the second day. – JB
PS This is for today Small crosswords and Spell Bee. You can find all our quizzes here.
Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
