Midtown musical chairs REALTY CHECK
Pope visit benches benches
THE Post got action — with a surprise assist from Pope Francis.
The notorious homeless-magnet benches on the West 32nd Street “pedestrian plaza” between Penn Station and Herald Square will get the heaveho next week, Realty Check has learned.
Their removal is supposedly for security during the pontiff ’s New York visit next week, which is to include Mass at Madison Square Garden on Sept. 25.
But we’ve also learned the seating pods won’t be coming back after that. “The plaza will be redesigned” after a trial period ends next month, reliable sources said.
The plaza, which cut vehicular traffic lanes by half, occupies the northern slice of the long block between Sixth and Seventh avenues. It was supposed to be experimental, along with a betterdesigned plaza on West 33rd Street nearby, until Oct. 11 — when a decision is to be made whether to make them permanent.
But like most “temporary” plazas, the ones on 32nd and 33rd streets are here to stay.
In a Sept. 6 column, I called attention to the 32nd Street squalor and blamed the city’s Transportation Dept. and Vornado Realty Trust for creating a “homeless” camp amid one of Midtown’s busiest shopping, entertainment and office districts.
Vornado’s 20 million square feet of Manhattan properties include several in the lower West 30s, including One and Two Penn Plaza, the Hotel Pennsylvania and the Manhattan Mall shopping center.
Publicly traded Vornado wants to improve congested street and sidewalk conditions in the area and paid for the plaza’s installation.
But its swift deterioration was an embarrassment to Vornado Chief Exec Steven Roth, who clearly didn’t mean to have drug users and crazies on the doorstep of Manhattan Mall, home to JCPenney and other big stores.
On hot days especially, most of the seating pods at the block’s western end were taken up by foulsmelling vagrants. Some openly smoked K2, the dangerous synthetic marijuana, and frightened strollers away.
On Monday, when the weather was crisper, we still found homeless people on nine of 18 benches.
Sources said dismayed Vornado officials conferred with City Hall and Community Board 5 over the mess. The Vatican came along to provide cover for the retreat.
Dominus vobiscum. nearly markedAfter seven70 standingPine years,St. darkis poised land for to have a heartbeat again.
In the first phase of the Art Deco skyscraper’s rebirth, Furnished Quarters’ new Q&A Residential Hotel has begun taking reservations for n its 132 apartmentsize suites starting Nov. 26.
Designed for business and
longerstay leisure travelers, the apartmentlike Q&A suites on floors 3 to 6 of the 65story former AIG headquarters will boast such amenities as fullsize kitchens.
Rose Associates and DTH Capital are converting most of the tower into 664 luxury rental apartments. The rental office will open in October, a spokesman for codeveloper Adam Rose said. Also, as we first reported, the Spotted Pig team of Ken Friedman and April Bloomfield signed a lease to open a fourstory restaurantlounge complex at the tower’s top and a lobby-level bar.
Having teamed up to successfully reposition 1460 Broadway, landlord Himmel + Meringoff and MdeAS Architects are joining forces to work their magic on 729 Seventh Ave. at West 49th Street.
The owners tapped MdeAS to redesign the entrance and lobby of the 163,000squarefoot 17story boutique office property. The new lobby will boast Italian Carrara marble, glass finishes, a 20foothigh ceiling and an allglass entrance. But in a nod to the building’s 100year history, it will feature touches to reflect that it was once home to United Artists and other film companies — including a celluloid “black box” housing a vintage movie projector.