Latest news with #BryantParkCorporation
Time Out
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
EXCLUSIVE: The Bryant Park free summer movie lineup is officially here
Those free movie nights at Bryant Park aren't just a beloved annual tradition for attendees, but for spectators, too. (Seriously, who doesn't love watching the weekly scramble of everyone trying to plop their picnic blanket in the ideal spot to watch Jaws for the 1,000th time? It's a movie in and of itself!) And we're gloriously getting yet another season of the summertime favorite when Paramount+ Movie Nights at Bryant Park returns with a bold lineup of celebrated films and crowd-pleasing favorites next month. Bryant Park's big screen will light up summer nights in Midtown beginning on June 9 with an 8pm showing of the 1980s Molly Ringwald classic, Pretty in Pink. And there are plenty more great flicks where that came from—the free series will run weekly on Monday nights through August 11, with everything from Francis Ford Coppola's Oscar-winning masterpiece The Godfather to Christopher Nolan's sci-fi weeper Interstellar all ready to be enjoyed under the stars in midtown Manhattan. 'Each summer, we see strangers become neighbors on the lawn,' said Dan Biederman, president of Bryant Park Corporation. 'Movie Nights remind us how powerful simple moments, like watching a great film outdoors, can be in bringing people together.' What's the full lineup for Bryant Park Movie Nights? Check out all of the top-notch titles you'll be able to watch for free this summer at Bryant Park: June 9: Pretty in Pink June 16: The Wood June 23: Kinky Boots June 30: Stand by Me July 7: Good Will Hunting July 14: Interstellar July 21: Ghost July 28: Pulp Fiction August 4: Blades of Glory August 11: The Godfather What time should I get to Bryant Park for movie nights? As mentioned, these summertime screenings are very popular, so Bryant Park recommends getting there at 6pm in order to snag a good spot. However, we suggest getting there even earlier, like 5pm, when the lawn opens for picnicking. Can I bring food to Bryant Park movie night? Yes, you're welcome to BYO food and drinks. But if you don't want to a haul a picnic basket through midtown, food items are curated by Hester Street Fair on the Fountain Terrace and available for purchase. You can also snag for-purchase beer, wine and summer spritzes from Stout NYC on the eastern end of the lawn beginning at 5pm. What else do I need to know?
Time Out
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
You can take free yoga classes at Bryant Park from now through September
New York's ultimate open-air yoga studio is back. Bryant Park just announced the return of its wildly popular free yoga series, with sessions running from May 28 through September 17. Now in its 22nd year, the beloved al fresco fitness tradition has grown from a few mats on the lawn to one of the city's largest and most consistent community workout programs, often drawing more than 1,000 yogis per class. Led by over 30 of the region's top instructors, each session offers a fresh flow, welcoming all skill levels and ages. Whether you're a seasoned vinyasa pro or a "what's a downward dog?" beginner, you're invited to stretch, sweat and find your zen in the heart of Midtown. Classes take place twice a week: Tuesdays at 10am on the Upper Terrace and Wednesdays at 6pm on the Lawn. Registration is required (and spots go fast), so snag yours early and don't forget to BYO mat and water. Mats are not provided, and trust us, you don't want to be the one practicing on bare concrete while your neighbor nails a headstand. This year, viral athleisure brand Halara is stepping in as the series' first-ever presenting partner, adding a splash of stylish flair to the already feel-good affair. Select sessions will feature branded giveaways to amp up the community vibes and keep you looking fresh while you work on your form. 'We are always delighted to see the lawn filled with a yoga class,' Daniel Biederman, Bryant Park Corporation's executive director, said in a release. 'What started with just a small group has grown into a community tradition.' Whether you're looking for a new workout routine or just want an excuse to wear that new matching set, Bryant Park Yoga is your midweek dose of peace, plank and pigeons—of both the pose and park variety.
New York Post
26-04-2025
- Business
- New York Post
How bakeries are transforming Bryant Park
Few New York public spaces have seen such monumental turn-arounds quite like Bryant Park. What was once a Midtown Manhattan wasteland given over to derelicts and drug addicts has become one of the city's most desirable commercial and entertainment destinations. In the early aughts, bi-annual fashion weeks helped lure the cultural crowd — and newer arrivals like an annual summer film series and winter gift market now keep them there. And then there are bakeries — lots of them — more than half-a-dozen that have popped up in and around Bryant Park, most notably along a stretch of West 40th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. 12 Competition is a 'good thing,' says Lou Ramirez, owner of Heritage Grand Bakery, one of more than one-half dozed pastry and baked good shops that have set up shop in and around Bryant Park. Tamara Beckwith The success of these businesses reflects both the larger reinvention of Bryant Park and the commercial and retail evolution of Manhattan itself. 'West 40th Street has became a bakery product niche the way there are other [centralised retail] niches in New York,' said Dan Pisark, vice president for retail and amenities at Bryant Park Corporation (BPC). Advertisement Groupings of businesses selling similar products to similar customers may seem counterintuitive from a profit perspective, but they're actually a tried-and-true retail strategy, said Tyler Winograd, retail and consumer experiences studio director at architecture and design giant Gensler. Yet while neither commercial clusters nor bakeries are unique to Bryant Park, the concept 'sort of hits you [here] in the face,' Winograd said. 12 Bryant Park has enjoyed a remarkable turnaround over the past few decades and lures some 12 million visitors each year. Devry Becker Jones/ CC That 'hit' stems from a roster of both longstanding and newer-to-the-neighborhood bakeries that mask Midtown's often urban landscape. West 40th's six key pastry shops include Heritage Grand Bakery, Lady M Cake Boutique, Blue Bottle Coffee, Le Pain Quotidien, Danish bakery Ole and Steen and French patisserie Angelina Paris. There's also Breads Bakery and Wafels and Dinges inside Bryant Park; the Starbucks around the corner on Sixth Avenue; and the five bakery-oriented kiosks in the park's annual Winter Village. Advertisement 12 Mike Guillen/NY Post Design While the concentration of these businesses may appear random, 'if they're clustering there, it's because there's a need,' said Matthew Chmielecki, senior vice president at commercial real estate firm CBRE. Food is an industry that favors critical mass, Chmielecki explains, with each individual business benefiting from like-minded neighbors and customers. A pre-existing bakery, for instance, demonstrates a viable consumer base, suggesting fewer risks for area newcomers. Why not 'create an even more expensive market, if you will, with the same offerings or similar offerings where the people are?' said Winograd. 'It starts to feel like the sort of rising tide lifts all boats phenomenon.' 12 A tray of croissants from Angelina Paris, which is located just off of Bryant Park on adjoining Sixth Avenue. Tamara Beckwith Advertisement Factors, both intentional and circumstantial, explain West 40th's dramatic bakery ecosystem. There's Bryant Park's prime Midtown location, with its steady flow of businesspeople and tourists — roughly 12 million annual visitors, per BPC. Consistent foot traffic, in turn, has encouraged bakeries to embrace their neighbors as opportunity, rather than competition, and meet customer demands, which have shifted — but did not necessarily wane — since the pandemic. '40th Street has sort of taken its orders from Bryant Park,' explained Dan Biederman, BPC's executive director. 'There were many vacancies on 40th Street 10 years ago, 15 years ago.' As the park developed, these vacancies created an opportunity for new retail and therefore, a new identity for the once-neglected green space. 12 A range of ready-to-enjoy baked goods at Heritage Grand Bakery. Tamara Beckwith In 1992, the BPC embarked on a comprehensive plan for Bryant Park, a 10-acre patch long known as 'Needle Park' due to a reputation for high crime and drug traffic. According to BPC history, the nonprofit's seven-year master plan included some $10 million toward grounds maintenance, public-serving programming and other 'lifestyle' endeavors that helped reduce crime by 92%. Long gone are dealers and vagrants, replaced by folks attending those park summer movie nights or winter ice skating sessions. Advertisement Such varied-yet-consistent sources of foot traffic are much of what attracted Anthony Battaglia, CEO of Angelina Paris, to 1050 Sixth Ave. at the corner with West 40th Street. Prior to the pandemic, roughly 10,000 people passed by the spot each week, said Battaglia, a reliable customer base that gave him the confidence to open Angelina in November of 2020, despite the uncertainty of the COVID crisis. 12 Bryant Park in 1982 before its multi-million conversion and when it was known as 'Needle Park,' owing to its large number of drug addicts and dealers. Bryant Park Corporation 'We have a strong story to sell, and we didn't find, back then, something similar to our [French patisserie] concept,' said Battaglia, who previously worked at posh French chain Maison Kayser, which shuttered its West 40th Street location during the pandemic. With his background in food service, Battaglia knew that Angelina could differentiate itself from competitors as well as complement high-end neighboring retailers, such as Whole Foods. There was also West 40th's relatively optimal rent prices. Although precise numbers for West 40th Street's 'bakery row' are difficult to pinpoint, a 2025 CBRE first quarter report noted average asking rents on Fifth Avenue between 49th and 42nd Street hovered around $615 per square foot, compared to nearly $700 per square foot along Manhattan's main retail corridors. 12 The concentration of bakeries may appear random, 'if they're clustering there, it's because there's a need,' said Matthew Chmielecki, senior vice president at commercial real estate firm CBRE. CBRE Price considerations were part of the reason Lou Ramirez, a managing partner at Heritage Grand Bakery, branched out on his own after working for years at Bryant Park-area bakeries like Maison Kayser and Le Pain Quotidien. Although Maison Kayser later folded its West 40th Street location, Ramirez's Heritage Grand ultimately leased that same space — which makes sense. Locations that have previously held bakeries come ready-made with the ideal physical layouts — commercial kitchens, ample display cases, regulated ventilation systems — needed by similar tenants. 12 Blue Bottle Coffee, yet another pastry spot on West 40th Street along Bryant Park. Tamara Beckwith This is why so many bakeries can crop up so quickly in and around Bryant Park: The facilities are already in place, said Winograd. Advertisement 'Businesses are always looking for any way that it can be favorable to . . . lowering their barrier to entry,' Winograd added. 'One of the big ways they do that is look for spaces that were previously aligned with their business.' Unlike Heritage Grand, Angelina moved into what was, at the time, a new building and had to build out everything from scratch — a process that proved time-intensive and costly. Angelina's landlord, Garden Homes (via its New York affiliate Skyline Developers), wasn't necessarily looking for a bakery tenant, said Battaglia. But building owners like what bakeries have to offer. 12 Groupings of businesses selling similar products to similar customers may seem counterintuitive, but they're actually a tried-and-true retail strategy, said Tyler Winograd, retail and consumer experiences studio director at architecture and design giant Gensler. Gensler At the bare minimum, a bakery smells good, said Biederman. But more importantly, they incentivize employees to shop and dine right where they work — which helps lure lucrative office tenants above, explains Jonathan Resnick, president of Heritage's landlord Jack Resnick and Sons. At the landlord's request, Heritage Grand offered the building's upstairs tenants a 10% discount on its products to help keep them from ever leaving. Advertisement Ground-floor amenities have become increasingly valuable in a post-pandemic world to entice workers back to their offices in traditional central business districts like Bryant Park. But the neighborhood's character is changing, Battaglia says. Despite anchor towers by the likes of Salesforce and Bank of America, companies such as global banking giant HSBC have moved to newer business districts, like Hudson Yards. Meanwhile, employees at remaining neighboring offices tend to follow hybrid or remote schedules, reducing their foot traffic. 12 Danish pastry chain Ole & Steen is an example of the global bakery brands that have set up shop in Bryant Park. Tamara Beckwith Businesses like Angelina have responded to these trends by opening new branches in the residential neighborhoods where hybrid workers now spend much of their time. Last year, for instance, Angelina debuted a site on the Upper West Side; the new location now records higher spending per customer numbers than its Midtown counterpart. Changes in customer habits are just one aspect of Bryant Park's ongoing commercial development. The al fresco restaurant Bryant Park Grill, for instance, has operated from behind the New York Public Library since 1995. Despite helping to herald Bryant Park's rebirth, the Grill was unable to renew its lease and will shutter this spring, replaced by a new restaurant from celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Advertisement 12 Bakeries conform to New York City's current 'hybrid' work set-ups; simple snack foods are ideal for taking Zooms or using laptops will sitting in the sun in Bryant Park. Tamara Beckwith Five years after the arrival of COVID, the city's commercial retail industry has mostly recovered — with rents surpassing $100 per square foot in key retail corridors, surpassing pre-pandemic levels. But keeping these figures rising requires foresight and planning, as Central Business Districts — such as Bryant Park and the Financial District — evolve into what Winograd refers to as Central Lifestyles Districts. With more flexible, hybrid work models, 'people [now] look at their days wholly differently,' Winograd says. They want full-service, lifestyle-oriented neighborhoods — and bakeries are an ideal fit for this model. Cheap and quick, they offer WiFi-friendly space for meetings or Zooms, or meals and snacks for those who prefer to work outdoors in places like Bryant Park itself. Such shifts, in turn, continue to transform office hubs like Bryant Park into mixed-use neighborhoods with retailers targeting — and meeting — '24/7' customer demands. Advertisement 12 Despite the large number of bakeries already in and around Bryant Park, Heritage Grand-owner Lou Ramirez says he would happily open another. Tamara Beckwith Which is why, despite the already crowded market, business owners like Ramirez would jump at the chance to open even more bakeries on West 40th Street. Because for now, at least, he says, 'competition is a good thing.'
New York Times
29-01-2025
- Business
- New York Times
A Restaurant That Helped Change Bryant Park Is Losing Its Lease
Good morning. It's Wednesday. We'll get an update on the squabble over the lease renewal for a restaurant that is a centerpiece of Bryant Park. We'll also find out about the city's plan to try to lengthen life expectancy after a dramatic drop during the pandemic. Change is coming to Bryant Park, where a long-established restaurant, the Bryant Park Grill, is losing its lease. It will be replaced by a place run by the peripatetic chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who presides over the market and food hall at the South Street Seaport as well as a dozen other restaurants in New York City. The Bryant Park Corporation, the nonprofit management company that is the landlord of the 9.6-acre park behind the New York Public Library's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, has decided to award the lease to Vongerichten's Jean-Georges Management 'to develop new food and beverage concepts,' with Seaport Entertainment Group as the operator. Seaport Entertainment owns 25 percent of Vongerichten's company. 'It's an iconic space in New York,' Vongerichten said on Tuesday, adding that he wanted to 'change it with new flavors' and mentioning 'local products, local farmers, local fishermen.' 'We want to change the ethos of what they're doing now,' Vongerichten said. Daniel Biederman, the president of the Bryant Park Corporation, told a committee of Manhattan Community Board 5 about the change on Monday. He said the new lease had not been signed, 'but it's very close to being signed.' The Parks Department — which leases the park to Biederman's group, which in turn leases out the restaurant space — will then have to approve the deal. The current operator, Ark Restaurants, has run the Bryant Park Grill for nearly 30 years. Biederman's group said in a statement that the Bryant Park Grill would close in April for renovations. Vongerichten said that 'it's going to take a good year, I think, to refurbish, redesign the whole place.' He said that the 250 employees of the Bryant Park Grill could apply for jobs when the new restaurant is ready to open. Vongerichten said that he would 'probably keep the name because it is so iconic.' But Matt Partridge, the chief financial officer of Seaport Entertainment, said during the meeting on Monday that 'from a naming perspective, it's going to have some component of Jean-Georges in it.' Partridge also said that the Porch, the casual outdoor restaurant in one corner of the park, would be modeled on 'a concept called Happy Monkey.' Vongerichten runs a restaurant by that name in Greenwich, Conn. Ark has been squabbling with the Bryant Park Corporation for months. Michael Weinstein, the chief executive of Ark, had said in September that he had heard that Biederman had been negotiating with Vongerichten. Ark then launched a pre-emptive strike, a page on the restaurant's website headed 'Help save Bryant Park Grill.' Weinstein said in September the Bryant Park Grill now pays roughly $3 million a year in rent. During the session on Monday — a meeting of the community board's Parks and Public Spaces Committee — Biederman did not say how much Vongerichten and Seaport Entertainment had offered. Vongerichten said he did not know what Ark's deal had been. 'We were not undercutting anybody,' he said, noting that the Bryant Park Corporation had 'approached us as they approached many other groups.' During the meeting on Monday, several committee members raised questions about the affordability of the new restaurant. Biederman said that 'we do not believe Jean-Georges will be much more expensive.' Weinstein said on Tuesday that Biederman was 'trying to kick out the one institution most responsible for transforming Bryant Park into what it is today.' He said he would keep fighting to stop a change he called 'disastrous.' 'They've never run anything of this size,' he said. 'This is 1,350 seats that get filled at the same time. Good luck to them. They're not going to be able to perform. Eventually they'll figure it out.' Expect mostly sunshine with a chance of rain and temperatures in the high 40s. For tonight, wind and partly cloudy skies with temperatures in the low 20s. Suspended for Lunar New Year's Eve. The latest New York news A plan to lengthen life expectancy In the first year of the pandemic, life expectancy in New York City dropped from 82.6 years to 78 years, the lowest since the early 2000s. Life expectancy has since inched back up to 81.5 years, according to the most recent statistics. Mayor Eric Adams said in 2023 that he wanted the average life expectancy to be higher than that by 2030, and even higher than before the pandemic — 83 years by 2030. On Tuesday the health department released a report that outlined ways to get there. The Adams administration has set a goal of reducing deaths from some cancers — including breast, colon, prostate, lung and cervical cancers — by 20 percent over the next five years, partly by addressing racial disparities in cancer screenings and access to cancer care. The plan also calls for reducing deaths from diabetes- and heart-related ailments by 5 percent. The report characterized the drop in life expectancy as inequitable, with the largest decreases among Black and Latino New Yorkers. Of the 19 proposals summarized in the report, many are intended to reduce racial disparities in health outcomes. The report noted that the Adams administration had already set targets for reducing what it called 'key drivers of premature mortality,' including death from some cancers, partly by addressing racial disparities in screenings and access to care. Among Black men in New York City, for instance, the death rates from screenable cancers are about 50 percent higher than among white or Hispanic men, according to health department statistics. The proposals in the report would cost approximately $36 million, city officials said. My colleague Joseph Goldstein writes that the question is whether this assortment of programs will be enough to mitigate chronic illnesses, especially diabetes, a disease that afflicts close to 13 percent of adult New Yorkers. That figure has not improved in years — and is twice what it was a generation ago. Artful Dear Diary: My trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art typically include a stop to see Seurat's Study for 'A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,' a precursor to his much larger 'A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.' That painting, almost certainly the artist's best known, has been viewed by countless visitors to the Art Institute of Chicago, and by many others who have seen a certain popular 1980s movie in which the piece has a small, but meaningful, role. On my most recent visit to the Met, I heard a man behind me explaining the work to his group: And there's another one at the Art Institute of Chicago that's three times as big as this one, he said. I turned around. 'You really know your stuff,' I said. 'Yeah,' he said. 'I saw 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off.'' — James Devitt Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Francis Mateo and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@ Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
