The Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership is pleased to announce the launch of its new Public Safety program. The BID's Safety Team, easily recognized by their blue uniforms, badges and Flatiron patches, is on patrol seven days a week.

The Safety Team is under the direct supervision of Scott Kimmins, the BID's Director of Operations, whose intimate knowledge of the district was honed by his 20 years as a member of the New York City Police Department's 13th Precinct.

The Public Safety officers will fill a variety of roles in the district, including:

• Acting as neighborhood ambassadors to residents, merchants and visitors, providing directions and assistance.
• Notifying the appropriate authorities about "quality-of-life" concerns, ranging from illegal vendors to uncollected garbage.
• Acting as the eyes and ears of the BID by observing conditions around them, so that suspicious activities can be quickly reported.
• Documenting safety concerns such as malfunctioning traffic lights, broken curbs and potholes.
• Offering appropriate assistance and referrals to the homeless.
• Assisting the appropriate authorities in emergency situations such as traffic accidents or cases of personal injury.

The first Annual Meeting of the members of the Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership Business Improvement District (BID) is scheduled for Thursday, June 14 at Cipriani 23rd Street (200 Fifth Avenue).

Registration and continental breakfast is at 8:00AM; the Annual Meeting begins at 8:30AM.

Guest speakers will include Commissioner Robert Walsh of the New York City Department of Small Business Services and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

RSVPs are required for the event and all BID members (including property owners, commercial tenants and residents) should register prior to the event in order to vote for directors. Please click here for RSVP and registration information.

The 5th Annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party returns to Madison Square Park on June 9 and 10. The event features barbecue from the nation's top pitmasters, live jazz, blues and bluegrass, a BBQ film, seminars with barbecue experts, great merchandise and more.

Admission to the block party is free, including live music and select seminars. Food, beverages and merchandise are available for purchase, with proceeds benefiting the Madison Square Park Conservancy.

Scott C. Lamkin, a 23-year-old graduate of the University of Cincinnati, is the newest staff member of the Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership Business Improvement District. Scott has taken on a wide variety of projects at the BID, ranging from organizing the Partnership's files to compiling a handbook of New York City codes on quality-of-life concerns.

Lamkin, who lives in Brooklyn, has become enchanted by the Flatiron district: "The architecture is amazing, especially the Flatiron Building, the Met Life Building and the Appellate Courthouse," he said. "And Madison Square Park has been a great place to sit and read on my off hours."

For Lamkin, New York has been a never-ending stream of surprises.

"You hear a lot of things about New Yorkers," he said, "but everyone I've met has been been incredibly friendly. I was also surprised by how popular I became back home after I moved to New York. All my Cincinnati friends now want to visit me."

The historic International Toy Center, one of the best-known buildings in the Flatiron district, has been sold by the Chetrit Group for almost half-a-billion dollars.

The new owners, L&L Holding Co., a privately held real estate investment firm, plans to convert the 800,000-square-foot property into a Class A office building, with retail shops and restaurants at street level. The purchase includes a four-story building at 23 West 23rd Street, next to the Toy Center, whose formal address is 200 Fifth Avenue.

"We intend to transform 200 Fifth Avenue into a very chic and exciting office building, befitting its history and location," said David W. Levinson, chairman and chief executive officer of L&L. "Everything but the facade of this building will be new."

Proposed renovations include a series of hanging gardens in the interior courtyard, and the possibility of a sky lobby on the top floor and a roof garden.

Asking rents will be in the middle $70s to low $80s a square foot, according to published reports attributed to Robert T. Lapidus, L&L's president and chief investment officer. Occupancy is projected for late next year.

The 16-story Toy Center opened as an office building in 1909, with construction completed a few years later. Designed by the architects Maynicke & Franke, it rose on the site of what 70 years earlier had been farmland. In 1839, a farmhouse that stood where Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street now intersect became a roadhouse called Madison Cottage. It was the last stop for northbound travelers on their way to the wilds of upper Manhattan.

The cottage was replaced by a theatrical venue called Franconi's Hippodrome in 1853, then became the Fifth Avenue Hotel in 1859. The hotel catered to the bold-faced names of the day, from Mark Twain to Ulysses S. Grant. Its guests paid up to $2.50 a night for the privilege of staying there. That included four meals a day - as well as dining privileges for guests of guests. On the sidewalk outside the hotel, which faced Madison Square Park and the trolleys that trundled along Broadway, stood the landmark clock that still gives passersby the time of day.

By 1908, the area had become a thriving commercial center and a year later, 200 Fifth Avenue opened. The present building became a center for toy manufacturers in the years following World War II, continuing as such until recent years when the toy industry began relocating.

The Gramercy Park Block Association's 13th Annual Spring Concert will be held at Calvary Church on Thursday, June 14, from 6:30PM to 8:00PM

This free concert features The Greenwich Village Orchestra, conducted by Music Director Barbara Yahr, with Guest Conductor nine-year-old Jonah Gold.

Calvary Church is located in the BID district at Park Avenue South and 21st Street. Refreshments will be served.

For Touré Namory, getting here was not exactly half the fun.

Touré, a soft-spoken man of 45, lived all his life in the West African nation of Côte d'Ivoire, or Ivory Coast, where he married and raised four children. In 2005, with his country torn apart by civil strife and work virtually impossible for him to find, he made up his mind to seek a better life in the U.S.

Lacking funds to purchase passage, Touré awoke on the morning of March 3, 2005, kissed his family goodbye and slipped onto a boat bound for the U.S. He found a place to hide and spent 17 days at sea, avoiding the authorities and existing on scraps. When his vessel reached the U.S., Touré presented himself to immigration officials. He was detained until April 6, 2006, when he finally was given his papers and released.

Now he's part of the Flatiron BID's "Clean Team," working the 7:00AM-to-3:00PM shift, living in the Bronx and planning to attend English-language classes. On Saturdays -- when he's off duty -- he passes the time quietly, reading a little, but mostly thinking about his family and the day they'll be together again.

Extreme Pita, a "quick service" restaurant with over 200 locations in the USA and Canada , has opened its first New York store at 119 East 23rd Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues.

Extreme Pita focuses on rolled pita sandwiches customized to suit the individual tastes of health-conscious customers. Lunch, dinner and late night menus include a range of customizable pita sandwiches as well as flat baked pitas, fresh salads, soups and drinks.

Papyrus, a fine paper, stationery and gift emporium with over 200 stores worldwide, has opened its latest store across from the Flatiron Building on the corner of Broadway and 22nd Street.

Founded in 1950 as an importer of European paper products, Papyrus is still managed by the same family that founded the company over 50 years ago.

Papyrus offers an ever-expanding array of products, including custom printed announcements, products for entertaining, greeting cards, gift wrap, gift bags, stationery, note cards, journals and unique gifts.

Those contemporary combinations of tempered glass and stainless steel that have begun popping up at bus stops throughout the Flatiron BID are as easy on the eyes as they are on the feet.

The City's newest bus shelters - sleek, streamlined structures installed by Cemusa, an international company headquartered in Madrid - include illuminated signage with bus schedules and a map of the route. A highly visible sign running along the side of the shelter gives the location of the stop for the benefit of passengers on approaching buses.

Cemusa, which specializes in outdoor advertising and environmentally friendly street furniture is installing 3,300 bus shelters throughout the five boroughs, in addition to 330 newsstands and a sprinkling of 20 public pay toilets.

Sapa Restaurant, at 43 West 24th Street, will be hosting a Celebrity Charity Dinner benefiting Project A.L.S. on June 11.

If you have ever wanted Julianna Margulies to wait on you hand and foot, or "30 Rock"'s Rachel Dratch and the stars of "Rescue Me" to serve you champagne, then this event is for you.

Along with the celebrity waiters, the evening includes a six-course dinner, an open bar and generously stocked gift bags.

All proceeds from dinner and silent auction will be donated directly to Project A.L.S.

For more information and to order tickets, please email lisa@sapanyc.com.

Internationally renowned conceptual artist Roxy Paine is exhibiting three stainless steel sculptures - Conjoined, Defunct and Erratic - in Madison Square Park through December 31 as part of the Madison Square Park Conservancy's MAD SQ ART program.

Conjoined is a 40-foot-tall sculpture of two trees whose branches cantilever in space and connect in mid air.

Defunct is a 42-foot-tall stainless steel sculpture of a dead or dying tree infiltrated with fungus.

Erratic is a stainless steel boulder measuring 7 feet high by 15 feet wide. The term "erratic" refers to a rock that is found in an area where it bears little or no relationship to the underlying geology.

Experience Corps is a nonprofit organization with the mission of enabling older Americans to serve their communities and help children succeed in school.

Located in the Flatiron district, Experience Corps recruits, trains and places volunteers in public primary schools. Most volunteers serve the neighborhoods they come from and live in, where they have a strong interest in making a difference. These retirees are also a source of stability, social capital and continuity in their communities.

The Experience Corps program has three primary goals:

• To give older adults a meaningful place to focus their energies
• To help older adults make an enduring contribution to their communities
• To share the benefits of their experience with the next generation of schoolchildren in need of role models and academic support

Experience Corps thoroughly trains and carefully places volunteers, ensuring that children are getting the effective tutoring they need, bringing people of different ages together for the common good.

Today, over 1,000 Experience Corps volunteers are tutoring and mentoring public school children in a dozen cities across the country, with over 150 volunteers in the local area tutoring one-on-one and assisting in classrooms for children at risk of developing reading difficulties.

To learn more about Experience Corps or to volunteer now, please contact Project Director Kemba Tamar, at (212) 614-5499 or by e-mail at ktamar@cssny.org.

Vere Chocolate Company, on the 6th floor of 12 West 27th Street, is offering free tours of its factory every Friday from 12:00PM to 6:00PM.

You will be able to sample delicious dark chocolate confections, enjoy a glimpse inside a working chocolate factory, and purchase freshly handcrafted chocolates directly from the source.

The tour is free and no reservations are necessary.

MAD SQ KIDS
MAD SQ KIDS is a free summer entertainment series for children on the Oval Lawn in historic Madison Square Park.

Presented by the Madison Square Park Conservancy, the 2007 series begins on Tuesday, June 5 and runs every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 10:30AM through the third week of August.

MAD SQ MUSIC & MAD SQ STUDIO
The Madison Square Park Conservancy presents two free, outdoor concert series - MAD SQ MUSIC, a Wednesday evening series featuring well-known performers from a variety of genres, and MAD SQ STUDIO, a Saturday afternoon series featuring folk and blues performers.

The MAD SQ MUSIC concert series returns to the Oval Lawn in Madison Square Park on June 20 at 7:00PM and runs every Wednesday through August 8.

MAD SQ READS
MAD SQ READS is the Madison Square Park Conservancy's free series of summer readings by notable authors. Each program is devoted to a different aspect of New York life and history. The readings take place Thursday evenings at the foot of the Farragut Monument, located mid-park at 25th Street.

The 2007 MAD SQ READS season kicks off on June 14 at 6:30PM with Gloria Steinem and Kevin Powell.

Baruch's Zicklin School of Business, the largest collegiate school of business in the nation, is holding an Open House information session for its Executive MBA and Executive MS in Finance Programs on June 14. The session begins at 6:00PM in Room 125 of 151 East 25th Street; light refreshments will be served.

Presentations will be given by key faculty, administrators and alumni; a question and answer period follow.

The Zicklin School of Business Executive Program curriculum and academic environment are designed to build upon applicants' skills and experience to enable them to achieve the superior performance level essential for leadership in today's competitive global markets

NYC Business Express is an interactive website, designed to identify city, state, and federal requirements for opening and operating a restaurant in New York City.

Answer the questions in the Wizard to obtain a customized list of city, state and federal permits, licenses, incentives and useful information for your restaurant.

Business Express is a service of the New York City Department of Small Business Services.

The Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership is now sponsoring free walking tours of the historic Flatiron district every Sunday.

Join our experienced guides on a 90-minute journey through this vibrant neighborhood, viewing some of the City's most notable landmarks, including the New York Life Insurance building, the MetLife tower, the Appellate Courthouse and the famous Flatiron Building.

Time:
Every Sunday at 11:00AM.

Meeting Place:
The southwest corner of Madison Square Park, at 23rd Street and Broadway.

Recent News Coverage

• Annual Meeting Scheduled
• BID Giving Free Walking Tours Through Flatiron District
• BID to Hold Concert to Benefit Homeless
• Local Businesses Head to BID Forums
• BID Unveils new Litter Receptacles
• Clean Team Takes On Snow Removal
• BID Welcomes Citibank to Neighborhood
• BID Makes a Clean Sweep
• Officer who Cleaned up Kenmore Named BID's Operations Director
• Long Live the BID
• Jennifer Brown Appointed Executive Director of Flatiron BID
• Manhattan's First New BID in Over Four Years Launched
• New Improvement District Around Madison Square Park
• BID Aims to Clean Up Community
• Flatiron BID uses Hi-Tech to Track Problem Areas
• Flatiron BID Plans Neighborhood Makeover
• New BID Is Milestone in Flatiron District Revitalization

Press Releases

• Discover Flatiron: Free Walking Tours
• Hero Officer Returns to His Beat
• BID Launches Sanitation Program
• Jennifer Brown Appointed Executive Director
• Flatiron Partnership BID Launched

Newsletters

• May 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• December 2006