City defends plan for ritzy Union Square restaurant

So much for the 99 percent.

An administration attorney for the mayor who campaigned on a “tale of two cities” platform argued before the Court of Appeals to allow a pricey restaurant on public parkland that would clearly cater to the 1 percent.

City lawyer Deborah Brenner told judges for the state’s highest court that prices shouldn’t matter for the Chef Driven Market, the restaurant planned for Union Square that has been held up by a 2008 lawsuit.

Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam pressed, “You said what the restaurant charges is not important, [what] if the restaurant charges $100 for an appetizer?”

And Brenner answered, “As long as the restaurant is a park purpose.”

“That’s the end of the inquiry,” Brenner said.

Judge Abdus-Salaam gave Brenner a chance to change her statements with a second question.

“If a restaurant wanted to charge $100 for appetizers and proportionally more for entrees and so on, it’s still a park purpose so it’s OK even though very few people would be able to eat there?” the judge asked.

“The plaintiffs keep pointing to the most expensive things on the menu, which can be $25 to $35 and that may prove too expensive for some park users,” Brenner admitted.

Then she hedged, “We’re talking about, by Manhattan standards, very reasonable prices.”

The Market will be run by the owners of the more affordable 5 Napkin Burger chain — and will pay the city $300,000 a year for the space.

Sanford Weisburst, an attorney for the park activists, said the tony eatery would be displacing an “iconic speaking place”— the covered pavilion at the square’s northern end that hosted soapboxing during the first Labor Day parade in the 1880s and subsequent protests including those during the Republican National Convention in 2004.

“If you could pick the worse place in the square to displace public activities this would be the place,” Weisburst said.

Brenner countered that the café would only take up 2.1 percent of park land.

“This is beyond comprehension,” said plaintiff Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates after attending the hearing.

“According to them there is no limit on the prices that can be charged and the only scenario where a restaurant would not be considered a park purpose is if it took up 98 percent of the park. I thought we got rid of the Bloomberg administration,” he scoffed.

The Court of Appeals is expected to issue a decision by mid-February, a court spokesman said.