Latest news with #BryantParkGrill
Elle
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Elle
Jennifer Lopez Wears Two Glamorous Gowns for One Night Out in New York City
On Monday night, Jennifer Lopez stepped out in not one but two glamorous looks to celebrate Kiss of the Spider Woman composer John Kander's 98th birthday. Lopez began her evening attending a benefit concert for Kander at New York City's Stephen Sondheim Theatre. The multi-hyphenate wore a spring-inspired peach gown with feathered accents and a rhinestone clutch. She opted for a classic middle part with straight hair. She changed outfits for the event's after-party at Bryant Park Grill, choosing a sleek, high-neck white gown, which she paired with bold jewelry. She switched up her hair too, wearing a slicked-back style. The night celebrated Kander and his extensive oeuvre, which includes the music for Chicago and Cabaret. Lopez is starring in a film adaptation of Broadway's Kiss of the Spider Woman, which he also worked on. The Bill Condon-directed musical premiered at Sundance earlier this year and will be released in October. The actress posted photos of her peach gown on Instagram with the caption, '💋🕷️,' nodding to the film's title. In an interview with Variety, Lopez expressed how much she's always wanted to star in a musical. 'I was waiting my whole life to be able to do a real big MGM Hollywood musical, and I finally got to do it,' she said. She continued, 'I got into movies because of West Side Story. I thought I was going to do Broadway. I wanted to do musicals. I love musicals. My kids love musicals. My mother did. It was a dream fulfilled in having done the movie.' Lopez is also gearing up for a busy week ahead. On May 26, she is set to host this year's American Music Awards. It'll be the first time she's hosted since 2015.
New York Post
28-04-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Bryant Park Grill's future in doubt after judge's ruling boots iconic eatery in favor of famed chef
The increasingly toxic struggle to control the popular Bryant Park Grill is leaving a bitter taste for hungry visitors to the iconic Midtown oasis. The nonprofit Bryant Park Corporation (BPC), which manages the park, is booting longtime Grill operator Ark Restaurants in favor of world-famed chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. But Ark owner Michael Weinstein says he won't vacate the glass-enclosed eatery and two small outdoor cafes despite their leases expiring this month, as he presses a court case seeking to overturn the decision. Weinstein told The Post he has no intention of shutting down the Grill and its satellites as 'long as we're in litigation.' 3 Michael Weinstein, owner of the Bryant Park Grill, is suing several entities including Bryant Park Corporation, which is replacing the restaurant with an eatery from superstar chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Gabi Porter Weinstein ran the Grill for 30 years. He's suing the park corporation, Vongerichten's management company Seaport Entertainment Group, the Parks Department which has the final say over an operator, and the New York Public Library, whose main building abuts the Grill's space and has an advisory say. His state Supreme Court filing says the corporation's 'flawed' selection process was designed to choose Vongerichten from the outset and that BPC president Daniel Biederman sought to run the park as his 'personal domain.' But in rejecting Ark's separate request for an injunction to block its ouster last week, Judge Anar Rathod Patel basically called Ark and Weinstein sore losers, saying, 'Mere dissatisfaction with a competitive outcome does not constitute bad faith.' Following Patel's ruling, 'The park intends to exercise its right to proceed to an eviction' of Ark from the site, Biederman said. Bryant Park Grill, at the park's eastern end, has 4,900 square feet indoors and nearly as much space on the roof for alfresco dining. It's one of the nation's highest-volume restaurants with $25 million in annual revenue. 3 The corporation believes Michelin-starred Vongerichten would bring greater prestige and greater revenue to the park over time. Tamara Beckwith The BPC issued a request for proposals to take over the leases for the Grill and the small cafes last year, in advance of their expirations this spring. Eleven would-be operators submitted proposals. The corporation chose Seaport Entertainment Group (SEG) because it believes Michelin-starred, internationally famous Vongerichten would bring greater prestige and greater revenue to the park over time, even though SEG would pay less in rent at the outset than Ark was paying. SEG's proposal 'presents the best combination of operating record, financial strength, and creative talent in the food and design field,' Biederman told Community Board 5. 3 Bryant Park Grill, at the park's eastern end, has 4,900 square feet indoors and nearly as much space on the roof for alfresco dining in warm weather. Steve Cuozzo According to Ark's court filing, Vongerichten's team might need to close the Grill for 10 months or longer for a redesign — to which the BPC would contribute $2 million, which Ark called 'improper' as it was not offered to any of the other applicants. But no shutdown is imminent. Biederman told The Post, 'Weinstein is pulling a wide variety of legal moves to over-stay his lease, so he'll probably stay there for spring and maybe summer months.'
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.
