"For lunch, which, for the nature of my business, is my favorite time to go around to interesting and off the beaten path restaurants in New York City, a great place with counter service on 11th St. and 2nd Ave. is Momofuku Noodle Bar -- great soup and a major hang out for chefs and people in the restaurant business. Barbuto, in the West Village, is lots of fun. If you like Italian, Lupa in the Village is definitely one of the best. For lobster rolls, try Mary's Fish Camp – fantastic, and Fatty Crab on Hudson St. – funky place, great food. I love these places because aside from great food, they represent the most innovative ideas in restaurants. So, if you have two or three hours during the late morning / early afternoon, you can try a few of the places one after the other, like we New Yorkers do."
[more]Pino Luongo, Restaurateur & Author
Stuyvesant Town
Stuyvesant Town, large brick buildings that run from 14th to 20th Streets, from First Avenue to Avenue C, are a mess of functional residences that were originally built in 1943 to house returning veterans of the Second World War and their families. They have gone on to house middle-income New Yorkers in 8,757 apartments. Stuyvesant Town and its sibling Peter Cooper comprise eighty acres that house more than 25,000 residents--and were sold on October 18, 2006 to Tishman Speyer for $5.4 billion dollars. New Yorkers are aghast that one of the last bastions of affordable housing will soon be converted to yet more luxury rentals. One might read a brief history of Stuyvesant Town on Wikipedia and note that in its creation in 1943, the project displaced 11,000 residents along with their business, schools and churches.