A REFRESHED GILDED ARMORY AND A REFRESHED GILDED RESTAURANT, TOO One of the most exciting unveilings of the year for New Yorkers of every age has been the partial showing of the ambitious refurbishing of the landmark PARK AVENUE ARMORY also known as the 7TH REGIMENT ARMORY. Located on a full city block of 4 acres between 55th and 67th Street on New York’s Park Avenue when completed will bring to New York an alternate arts center unlike anything in the world. This national treasure involved an arduous transformation of the armory’s immense structured, which was built from 1877 to 1881 by the Seventh National Guard Regiment, the state’s wealthiest and most
PARK AVENUE ARMORY
made with braised short ribs of beef and other unusual recipes. As for real Chinese food--not what we New Yorkers call Jewish Chinese food-- is HAN DYNASTY at 90 3rd Avenue (and 12th Street), which is a clean Sichuan accented menu that is very possibly the best real Chinese food we New Yorkers have seen in years. The noodle dishes and dumplings are incredible and there is a tasting menu (usually I hate them) that is so delicious and inexpensive ($20 each for six people) you can easily order 2 or 3 of them for what could be the best price deal in town. Yes, Dennis, I too love CHIN CHIN but the food is too Jewish and the prices skyrocket in comparison to Han Dynasty. And then too there is REDFARM at 2170 Broadway in the high 70’s, which has a Chinese menu of again real Chinese food with comparatively easy prices and an inventive menu headed by soy and papaya marinated pork chops, which for what the food is cannot be topped. While admittedly BarB-Que has not been the strength of New York food MIGHTY QUINN’S BARBEQUE may prove to be the exception to that rule. The presentation of MQ’s smoked beef rib, a wall of meat riding on a long surfboard of bone may not change anyone’s mind who hails from a State where BBQ is its specialty but it will surely shut them up into a temporary silence of awe and shock! While there’s a pulled pork sandwich equally as impressive and good-located at 103 2nd Ave 6th Street).
blue-blooded at that time, which also functioned as a bit of an upper-class men’s club. Late in 2006 the nonprofit Park Avenue Conservancy signed a 99-year lease with the state to restore the building and to operate it as an arts center. Budgeted at $200 million there is a final date set for restoration of 2018 but in late September there was an unveiling of the restored Board of Officers Room at the Armory that is now being used as an intimate art and performance hall. The fruits of this restoration have been meet with immediate acclaim and deserve a visit by one and all. The retrofitting of 19th-century buildings for art purposes in NYC began around 50 years ago in SOHO. This restoration seems destined to set a new standard both for its scale as well as for its respect and imagination. The Head House in particular, which houses the Board room, will be something very rare--a museum of quasi-period rooms that visibly straddle past and present while being actively used. It will be living, lived in history. And something similar but of a much lesser scale was the reopening and refurberation of VILLARD MICHEL RICHARD, which has recently opened in the old Villard Mansion at the NEW YORK PALACE HOTEL. For lunch go to the sun splashed Madison room or for an elegant dinner why not go to the Gallery and watch the French chefs move back and forth in the kitchen dressed in their tall white toques. A great place to celebrate something or other I would suppose. CONTINUED ON PAGE 158
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