A 76-Year Old Diner Is Closing in the Meatpacking District
Despite Hector's lease lasting until 2033, the team has decided to shut down now. 'COVID changed so much of our business,' he says, adding that he and his family, who took over the diner 45 years ago, will take some time to reset — but aren't ruling out opening another restaurant somewhere else.
Kapelonis said the butchers were some of the diner's most reliable, longtime customers, who had become 'like family' over the years. Throughout its life, the diner also appeared in many films and television shows, including Law & Order , and counted crew members as ongoing regulars. Perhaps most notably, Hector's was also featured in Taxi Driver .
The Meatpacking District has changed so much since Hector's first debuted in 1949: A cobblestone neighborhood once filled with industrial businesses and, later, nightclubs, has transformed into a luxury hub for designer shopping and high-end restaurants. All through that, Hector's has remained an affordable constant — until now.
Eater has reached out to the Whitney Museum for comment. See More:
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
3 hours ago
- Associated Press
Auditor: California could save $225 million a year by letting state employees work remote
Gov. Gavin Newsom appears to have arbitrarily ordered workers back to the office without using specific rationale such as data on worker productivity, according to a newly released report from the California state auditor's office. The audit, which state legislators requested in May 2024 after the governor first ordered workers back to the office two days per week after they had been sent to work remotely during the COVID-19 lockdown, found that Newsom's office failed to gather important information about departments' office space needs and costs and did not use any data about state workers' productivity to justify its in-office mandate. Earlier this year, Newsom signed a new executive order that upped the required in-office days from two to four, but he relented in a series of contracts his administration signed with public employee unions. State Auditor Grant Parks concluded that California could save as much as $225 million per year and reduce its office space by nearly a third if it sticks to having employees in the office two days a week and working remotely three days a week. The governor's office also ignored survey findings from its own oversight agency, the Department of General Services, which had collected estimates from departments on how much office space they would need to bring workers back more often. 'In general, we determined that a one‑size-fits-all approach to telework is counter to state policy and may limit opportunities for significant cost savings,' Parks wrote. Supporters of work-from-home cheered the report as further vindication for their claims that Newsom's return-to-office mandates were capricious, politically motivated decisions rather than a true effort to increase worker productivity. Union leaders say flexible hybrid work policies can simultaneously save the state money and help achieve ambitious climate and emissions goals by reducing commuter traffic. 'This audit confirms what has been apparent for some time: Flexible telework benefits taxpayers, state government, and state employees,' said Ted Toppin, executive director of the Professional Engineers in California Government, a union representing state engineers, in a statement Tuesday. The audit recommended that state lawmakers require departments to identify positions that can successfully telework three days a week and offer such an option. It also instructed the state to develop guidance for departments to evaluate the effectiveness of their telework programs. Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for Newsom, said in a statement that the governor's office 'respectfully disagrees' with the auditor's findings, which were based on 'hypothetical theories and incomplete information.' 'This audit on state telework is not a scientific study, nor does it paint a complete picture of the state workforce or the benefits of working in person,' Gallegos wrote. ___ This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump's tax law is even better for rich people than originally thought. Here's how much more the top 10% stand to gain.
President Donald Trump's freshly enacted tax and spending law keeps looking better for America's top 10%, according to a new analysis of the bill by nonpartisan congressional scorekeepers. This top tier stands to gain around $13,600 each year over a decade from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Congressional Budget Office said Monday. That's up from the CBO's estimates in June, before the bill became law, when researchers at the office projected that the top 10% stood to benefit by around $12,000 annually. My father was worth millions. I suspect my mother is stealing my inheritance. What can I do? Why Wall Street's biggest bear is expecting a 14% stock-market pullback before the end of 2025 Social Security will speed disability-benefit decisions for more conditions Republican lawmakers pushed the megabill forward to Trump, who signed it on the Fourth of July. Middle-class households are also poised to receive some help from the tax cuts, researchers said Monday, and could gain around $800 to $1,200 each year over the next decade. That's higher than the CBO's June estimate of $500 to $1,000. One projection that hasn't changed between the CBO's new assessment of the law's winners and losers and its initial look in June: The poorest Americans will lose money under the bill due to a thinner social safety net. That's still the case, though the latest estimate suggests a slightly more moderate impact: The lowest 10% of households by income would see their financial resources decrease by $1,200 per year, CBO researchers said Monday. That's compared with a $1,600 yearly financial hit estimated in June. The top 10% of households have average 'market incomes' — which include wages and capital gains — of around $700,000, CBO numbers show. The lowest 10% have market incomes averaging nearly $24,000. The legislation includes spending cuts and tighter eligibility requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, and Medicaid, the federal program administered by states providing health insurance to low-income people. The number of uninsured people in the country will grow by approximately 10 million over a decade, and 7.5 million of those people will lose coverage as a result of tighter Medicaid eligibility rules. Republicans have said the cuts are needed to address waste, fraud and abuse in the system, while opponents argue the cuts go too far and will wrongly kick eligible people off their insurance. The CBO acknowledged its latest estimates for health-insurance coverage as a result of the new law are 'subject to considerable uncertainty.' The bill is letting an enhancement to the premium tax credit expire at the end of the year. The credit is designed to defray a person's healthcare costs when they buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act's exchanges. Some of the earliest health-insurance price jumps could appear this fall, when carriers release their 2026 premiums. Read also: Costs could soar next year for people with Obamacare. What you can do about it now. The law made permanent the income-tax rates set in Trump's first administration. It boosted the child tax credit and standard deduction, both widely used by families. It also added new temporary tax breaks, like deductions for tips and overtime pay, along with a $6,000 deduction for senior citizens. Republicans point to provisions like these when touting the bill's wins for everyday Americans. The law also kept the multimillion-dollar estate-tax exemption from shrinking, while codifying expense and research write-offs for businesses. It also temporarily quadrupled the state and local tax deduction to $40,000, an amount that will gradually increase through 2029 before reverting to $10,000 in 2030. Critics say rich taxpayers in high-cost states benefit most from the SALT cap. The write-off is capped at $250,000 for single filers or $500,000 for married couples filing jointly. The White House and Republican lawmakers have sharply criticized CBO estimates of the bill's impact, saying they lowball economic-growth projections. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the numbers may stoke public skepticism at a time when Republicans are trying to tout the law's benefits. Almost two-thirds of people said the bill would help wealthy people, according to an AP-NORC poll released last month. Six in 10 people said it will hurt low-income people, while 51% said it would benefit the middle class. Trump's tax law is even better for rich people than originally thought. Here's how much more the top 10% stand to gain. stock is sinking. Here's the biggest problem from earnings.
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Yahoo
Do Roth IRA conversions still make sense with the passage of the GOP tax law?
If I understand correctly, Roth conversions are good when you expect tax rates to rise. With the new GOP tax law just passed, taxes aren't going up. Does this mean conversions make less sense now? Confused About Conversions My father was worth millions. I suspect my mother is stealing my inheritance. What can I do? Why Wall Street's biggest bear is expecting a 14% stock-market pullback before the end of 2025 Social Security will speed disability-benefit decisions for more conditions For most taxpayers, if a Roth conversion was a good idea before the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act bill was passed, it is probably still a good idea. You have the strategic value of a conversion correct. You pay tax now to avoid tax later. If the rate you would pay today is lower than the rate you would pay in the future, converting pays off. The amount of that payoff depends on the difference between the present and future tax rates. The bigger the difference, the bigger the payoff. Read: How the passage of Trump's megabill could benefit you at tax time For instance, if you convert $10,000 from an IRA to a Roth IRA, and that $10,000 is subject to a 12% rate, the federal tax bill is $1,200. If in the future you were expecting a 22% rate on a $10,000 withdrawal from the IRA, you would have thus expected to pay $2,200 in tax. By having the funds in the Roth IRA, you paid $1,200 in tax the year of the conversion but avoided $2,200 in tax on the future distribution so you are better off by $1,000. That $1,000 difference corresponds exactly to the difference in tax rates. 22%-12% = 10% and 10% of $10,000 is $1,000. Now, if the future tax rate were to be lower, say you are leaving the IRA to your church, a Roth conversion will cost you, not save you tax dollars. Using the same $10,000 example, you would pay $1,200 in tax to avoid the church paying tax, but churches are tax exempt and would pay no taxes on the bequest anyway. A conversion in that case makes no sense. If the current and future rates are the same, 12% now and 12% later, the tax bill is $1,200 either way so there is no tax benefit to convert. There is also no tax negative to the conversion. Before the tax bill was passed in July, tax rates were scheduled to revert to what they were for tax year 2017. Generally, this meant the 12% bracket would have been 15% and the 22% bracket would have been 25% starting in 2026. However, the new tax law removed the expiration of the 2017 bracket structure. Some taxpayers converted at 12% anticipating a 25% future tax rate. That won't happen now but they are still looking at getting the benefit of converting at 12% and avoiding tax at 22%. Moreover, the scheduled rate increases that the new tax law avoids was just one of the reasons a taxpayer may anticipate higher future rates. For instance, surviving spouses often see higher rates due to the 'widow's penalty' and over time IRA and retirement account balances can grow such that Required Minimum Distributions can increase income enough to reach higher brackets. Also, let's not forget that even though the brackets are described as 'permanent,' Congress can always change the tax laws causing future rates to be higher. While the strategy of paying now to not pay later is simple, assessing how much to convert is not, and the new tax law has added some wrinkles to consider. For clients, we create what is essentially a mock tax return that projects out the cost of the conversion. This is the best way to properly quantify the cost of a conversion because the tax brackets are only part of the calculation. As your gross income increases, you may lose deductions, increase taxes on capital gains, incur additional taxes on investment income, or trigger an IRMAA surcharge (higher Medicare premiums) raising the cost of the conversion. It is not uncommon to see a taxpayer who appears to be on a 12% bracket, actually face a rate on a conversion of 27% or more. If you have a question for Dan, please email him with 'MarketWatch Q&A' the subject line. Trump's tax law is even better for rich people than originally thought. Here's how much more the top 10% stand to gain. stock is sinking. Here's the biggest problem from earnings. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
