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June 18th, 2009
 Some bicycling advocates were not very happy with comments City Council candidate Margaret Chin made about the Grand Street bike lanes, in her recent interview with the Lo-Down. In responding to a question about Mayor Bloomberg's transportation policy, she said, in part:
"…That bike lane (between Chrystie and Canal) is the stupidest thing,
that's what people in the community say. It just created a lot of
congestion. But the city says 'we think it's a good idea. We just think
people will get used to it.' Wait a minute. You can't just impose that
on a community…"
Bicyclist Liam Quigley posted the following comment:
"The Grand Street Bike lane is a vital part of my commute to my home in the LES as well as to my friends and family. I implore you to try to see the benefit for the community in having
a truly safe network for bicycle commuters, not one that puts them toe
to toe with traffic and huge trucks that are often careless about
cyclists."
Liam, and apparently other cyclists, contacted Chin's office for an explanation of her position on the bike lanes. You can see the full post on his blog here. The bottom line: Chin says she's not "anti-bike," and she doesn't oppose the concept of the Grand Street bike lanes – just the execution. She told Liam, "It has added confusion and removed space from an already congested area, and doesn’t work as well as it could." Chin added, "the creation and usage of the Grand Street bike lane has been, in my opinion, a failure." She also reiterated the main point she made during our interview: the Department of Transportation must do a better job of taking community feedback seriously.
Some critics of the bike lanes argue the configuration of Grand Street makes it nearly impossible for large emergency vehicles to make turns. In a message to us, Liam said the design is not the problem:
The bike lane… has design considerations for larger vehicles (fire trucks, etc).
There are buffer zones near intersections in the parking lane, where
parking is not allowed to provide better visibilty and allow for
vehicles that need to make wider turns. The problem is, people park here illegally. Crack down on that and trucks can turn somewhat more easily.
A representative for "Transportation Alternatives" said, essentially the same thing to us following the heated "transportation town hall" City Councilman Gerson's office sponsored on the LES a few weeks ago.
One thing's for certain: this debate is far from over. Next up in our series of interviews with the candidates running for the District 1 Council race: Pete Gleason. Read what he has to say about the bike lanes Monday.
June 18th, 2009
 A few weeks ago we linked to a "Grub Street" item about the departure of chef Gavin Mills from "Broadway East." It turns out Mills was not at all pleased with the way the restaurant's managing partner, Laurie Tomasino, characterized his departure.
“Gavin is a great chef, but he’s at a stage of his career where he
wants to make a mark — say, from a three-star review — but he didn’t
have the experience or business savvy to know there was a serious
disconnect between the food and the scene.” Tomasino says the
restaurant wanted Mills to change the menu more often — “We weren’t
asking him to dumb down the food but to broaden his horizons and bring
new, affordable ideas to the table in an effort to reach the
neighborhood.” She says she’s currently looking for a great chef who’ll
appreciate the venue’s melding of art, music, and food (maybe Don Pasta?).
Then, several days ago, there was this rather strongly worded rebuttal (read it in full here) left in our comments section:
"…that's bs. Broadway East has had 6 chefs, the first of which left
before the restaurant opened… when he put his notice in, he was not asked to leave in
any way, his entire kitchen staff including the assistant manager left
too. Broadway East is a sinking ship that is being run by people who
have absolutely no clue about the restaurant industry."
Turns out, the author was Mills' wife. We contacted Gavin, who's relocated to California, for a fuller explanation. He was fairly circumspect but did not take too kindly to the suggestion that he lacked "experience or business savvy." Mills said he was lured from the highly regarded "Mas Farmhouse," in the West Village, with the promise that he would have the freedom to create a "farm fresh," inventive menu. He was asked to change the menu more than once, and he was open to that. But Mills says he was commited to the idea of "fine dining" and balked at the suggestion from the owners that he serve up "pizzas and banana splits."
We also discussed the restaurant's struggle to balance its status as a hot nightlife destination, while also appealing to people in the neighborhood. Broadway East's owners apparently concluded the food and the prices were too "high end" for, what Mills called, "the deep Lower East Side." He's now searching for a new job in California. He's only been looking for a couple of weeks.
Meanwhile, as Grub Street reported, Broadway East continues to look for a new chef. Patricia Yeo (formerly of Sapa and Monkey Bar) is helping out in the interim.
June 18th, 2009
Chef Dennis Ngo with Co-owner Tuan Bui at the banh mi counter inside An Choi on Orchard Street.
Although the Vietnamese restaurant, An Choi (85 Orchard), is new to the 'hood, as of a couple months ago, co-owner Tuan Bui is not a newcomer to the Lower East Side. It's been his neighborhood for almost nine years – he can't imagine living anywhere else. Tuan has watched the LES change during the past decade. There are those big, towering developments, like the Blue Building and the Hotel on Rivington, but he really likes how the community is evolving below Delancey Street.
"People say it's too much gentrification, but I do love the diversity and the history it has. I mean here we have Hassidic Jews, the Chinese, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, professionals, artists, hipsters,
tourists. It's one of the most diverse neighborhoods in New York, so I like that this (restaurant) is
something I can contribute, to add to it's diversity".
After 7 years in the finance industry, Tuan took a "sabbatical" and traveled on his own through Vietnam last year. He ate different types of regional food throughout the country and realized he was ready to bring some of his cultural heritage back to the Lower East Side.
Luckily his brother, Huy Bui, who is an architect, was also ready to work on his first solo project. They had noticed a big gap between the "no frills" type of Vietnamese food Chinatown offers and some of the more upscale, high concept Vietnamese restaurants uptown. "We wanted to be something in the middle, to elevate the experience of eating the traditional street food everybody loves but bring it inside to a nice environment." But mostly, Tuan saw a need for an authentic Vietnamese restaurant. "Sometimes when I order in Vietnamese at a Pho restarant in Chinatown, he says with a twinkle in his eye, they don't understand what I'm saying".
Continue reading An Choi – Bringing the Comforts of Vietnamese Street Food Indoors
June 18th, 2009
Shelly Silver's mayoral control bill passes the Assembly. The Senate? Oh, never mind.
Census officials are facing an uphill battle, trying to count the estimated half million undocumented immigrants in New York. As the Gotham Gazette puts it, many immigrants see participation in the Census as "a murky unknown — a vast question mark, which many fear could lead to a one-way ticket home."
More on the violent feud among rival gangs that has left at least two people dead this week: the brother of Lower East Side rapper "Tru Life" has reportedly been linked to the stabbings of two men outside an apartment building Monday morning.
The Bicycle Film Festival, including an art show known as "Joy Ride," staged in several Lower East Side galleries, is in full swing.
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