After months of renovation (photo seen here is from June), fine food emporium Balducci's opened last Thursday in the 1897 New York Savings Bank Building on the corner of Eighth Avenue and 14th Street. Good news for the nabe, right? Not so fast, says one special Curbed correspondent:
While I'm sure everyone's happy to have a new Balducci's in the neighborhood, I wonder if anyone else has noticed (how could they not?) the overwhelming stench of rotten fish that now hovers over the corner in the a.m., thanks to the copious number of overflowing 30-gallon garbage pails that line the side of the store in the early hours. The worst part is that this is right by a bus stop, and the garbage appears to ooze out onto the sidewalk or something, because you have to step through a gooey sluice of rotten veg and other detritus to get on the bus, trying to balance while holding your nose with one hand.And you thought the transit strike was all we had to bitch about today.
· Balducci's Returning to the Village [Curbed] UPDATE: Balducci's new website is live (with pix), and Andrea Strong has a report.