An upscale, sit-down Chinese restaurant is being eyed for Main Street. The Planning Board last month approved a zoning overlay that would allow the Sound-A-Rama building (1483 Main St.) to subdivide. Sound-A-Rama would use half the space and Main Street Barber Shop (1495 Main St.) would move into the other half while the Chinese restaurant would slide into the barber shop’s current location.
“It’s not a done deal,” Director of Building, Engineering, Planning and Economic Development Lenore Slothower told the Planning Board, but it prompted the zoning move as the building owner is looking at possibly bringing in the Chinese restaurant.
Also approved for a zoning overlay last month was a tattoo shop at 209 W. Main St., among the storefronts as it approaches Irving Street. Nearby will be a Portuguese barbeque takeout joint (10 seats) at 205 W. Main St. that the Planning Board gave minor site plan approval to in September. The zoning overlays eventually will require final approval from City Council.
I was out of town for the holiday last week, but the Zoning Board of Adjustment was expected to take up a few applications at its meeting, including possibly one for the burned out former beauty supply store on East Cherry Street and site plan approval for 1500 Main St. (the corner of East Cherry), among others.
Category Archives: Downtown
Citizen justice
I heard this report on NPR the other day detailing how the police department in Naperville, Ill., a suburb about 30 minutes west of Chicago, loans out a radar gun to citizens in one neighborhood, allowing them to track the speed of cars on their streets. They don’t necessarily issue tickets but they do collect information that cops then compile and even send out warnings.
Naperville is substantially bigger than Rahway (Pop. 130,000 v. 27,000), but speeding seems to be an issue in neigborhoods everywhere, particularly in downtowns that aim to attract shoppers/pedestrians. The NPR report reminded me of Rahway’s downtown; Arts District Park would be a perfect spot to set up shop with a radar gun. Making Irving and Main streets two-way likely would slow down traffic some. I remember being at a presentation by Project for Public Spaces several years ago. A fascinating group, they said there are little (read: cheap) things that can be done to slow down traffic, such as making the street appear more narrow to the driver (i.e., painting a shoulder on a wide street). But please, none of those awful “bump-outs,” all they do is eat up parking spaces.
Pedestrian-friendly streets are like parking when it comes to downtowns. Some (Summit, Hoboken) constantly grapple with providing adequate parking because there’s so much traffic. Others that are still rebuilding wish they had that problem, as they try to draw more people and traffic downtown.
Eighty Eights is 86ed
Eighty Eights, the live jazz restaurant at Main and Lewis streets, is on the way out, and apparently a Cuban-type restaurant is on the way in. A liquor license transfer was approved last week, from Eighty Eights to Cubanu. Typically, a liquor license transfer is completed as part of a sale of the entire business.
Luciano’s set to open
Luciano’s, which from the outside has looked like it was ready for business quite some time ago, is expected to officially open in January.
The 250-seat Italian restaurant at the corner of Main and Monroe streets will host some parties during the remainder of this year.
Let’s get started
The business of blogging is booming in places like Brooklyn, where dozens of sites cover specific neighborhoods within the borough, focusing on small parochial areas. And that’s despite New York City’s numerous media outlets, probably because there’s plenty of news that doesn’t make it all the way up to TV, radio or other big media. Call it “hyper-local” coverage.