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The Paper of Record for Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side, Soho, Union Square, Chinatown and Noho, Since 1933
December 11, 2014 • $1.00 Volume 84 • Number 28
‘What would Jane say?’ Raft of anxious questions about ‘billionaires’ island’ BY ALBERT AMATEAU
P
ier55, the daring project announced last month by the Hudson River Park Trust and the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation, made its public debut on Dec. 3. The $130 million project drew reactions last week
ranging from awe to outrage during a presentation at the meeting of the Community Board 2 Parks Committee. The new pier, conceived as a square island between the historic Pier 54, which is to be demolished, and the pile field that remains from the old Pier 56, would have two PIER55, continued on p. 16
BY TEQUILA MINSKY
I
t was the last day of De Robertis Pasticceria & Caffé, and the black-andwhite photos that tracked the family were off the whitetiled walls. They lay in the empty baked goods display counter alongside cafe items — espresso spoons and tin plates for sale. The legendary
half dollar cemented into the vintage, ornately tiled floor had been pried out a couple of weeks earlier. Nonetheless, a montage of photos of the last three generations of De Robertises hung above the counter. The fourth generation of DeRobertis proprietors — both in their 30s — busDE ROBERTIS, continued on p. 25
PHOTO BY ED LEDERMAN
Another pasticceria bites the dust as De Robertis Caffé closes on First Ave. A night view from the West Side Highway of the still-under-construction Downtown Whitney Museum.
Ready for the Whitney BY EILEEN STUKANE
T
he Whitney Museum did what artists have done for decades. It pulled up stakes and left home — in this case, Madison Ave. and E. 75th St. — to be creative in the Village. To be more exact, though, the Whitney is really coming home, since it was in Greenwich Village that the museum was founded in 1931. The Whitney’s new, asymmetrical Renzo Piano-designed building, on
Gansevoort St. between the High Line and the West Side Highway, is set to open in less than five months from now, on May 1. The Whitney is the first major cultural institution to come Downtown, perhaps drawn by the energy of a neighborhood already in the throes of transformation. Anticipation is high. David Gruber, outgoing chairperson of Community Board 2, believes that the Whitney will become a “huge asset to the Village.”
The museum, he pointed out, is actually part of a growing “ribbon” of culture and entertainment on the West Side that currently notably includes the Chelsea gallery district, High Line park, Meatpacking District, Chelsea Piers and Chelsea Market. Adding to that will be projects coming down the pike, including the Hudson Yards’ planned Culture Shed at the High Line’s northern end; the WHITNEY, continued on p. 14
Top cop pulls out of Chamber talk................page 2 Mendez not backing off on bag bill...............page 3 A little chess with Garofalo and Co...............page 19 Die-in disrupts Grand Central.......page 5
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