ROPE-A-DOPE: Celebs like Miss USA Nana Meriwether (above), Michael Strahan and Nicole Murphy will face an obstacle course at Cipriani Wall Street as City Hall looks to relocate a newsstand directly out front. (MAXA /Landov)
Velvet ropes are synonymous with the city’s most exclusive entertainment and party venues. But now the iconic barriers are being called upon to guard a much more pedestrian location: the rim of a big, empty sidewalk hole.
Incongruously elegant black ropes surround a shallow rectangular pit in front of 55 Wall St., the landmarked, colonnaded home of Cipriani, Wall Street’s palatial grand ballroom — the district’s most glam venue for celebrity galas, fundraisers and society weddings.
The hole marks where a newsstand is to be built — directly in front of one of the ballroom entryways and just feet from its red-carpet stairs.
Cipriani and Community Board 1 argue that the plan — part of the city’s newsstand modernization campaign — will ruin FiDi’s chief venue for glamorous gatherings and also pose a huge security risk.
The ballroom in recent months has been the site of charitable galas hosted by Elton John and AMFAR as well as the WWE Superstars for Sandy Relief event attended by Mayor Bloomberg.
The kiosk controversy has drawn the attention of at least three city agencies, the community board and the Downtown Alliance.
At least one participant in the drama is on board with the new location: Bali Bapel, who runs a beat-up-looking stand at the southwest corner of William and Wall streets. It would be razed and replaced at no cost to him by the new one outside Cipriani.
“I like the idea for the new one,” Bapel said. “It makes the city look good.”
In fact, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, which is in charge of “street furniture,” says a newsstand’s new site is proposed by the stand owner — not by DOT — which only has an “administrative role” in reviewing the plan.
Cipriani has no beef with DOT but says having the stand at its doorstep will interfere with hosting galas in the ballroom distinguished by mighty Corinthian columns, marble walls and 70-foot-high ceiling.
The ballroom draws Hollywood-style red-carpet entrances and “step and repeat” photo ops as guests alight from limos at the curb. Welcome tents for parties and weddings are often set up on the sidewalk. All that might be impossible with a 12-foot-long newsstand in the way.
When a construction crew dug up the sidewalk last month to prepare for the new stand, it cordoned off the pit with the customary orange barrels and yellow tape.
Cipriani soon replaced them with the velvet rope because “what was there originally was so ugly, we were losing clients,” said general manager Eric Bonnetain.
Cipriani lawyer Christy Reuter said, “We have been trying to get to the bottom of why anyone would allow a newsstand to be constructed in front of a landmarked building on Wall Street where thousands of people come in and out all year, many for high-profile events, including dignitaries, politicians and celebrities.”
Security is a broader concern. CB1 chair Catherine Hughes said, “CB1 strongly urges the Department of Consumer Affairs and the Department of Transportation not to proceed with relocation of a newsstand to in front of 55 Wall St.”
The fear is that the newsstand could be used to conceal a bomb like the ones at the Boston Marathon.
“A package left on an empty sidewalk clearly raises concerns,” Reuter said, “but a package next to a structure seems to just blend in.”
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said the department’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau was “agnostic” on the Cipriani newsstand issue, adding it might neither “enhance” security nor create a threat.
The plan to move the stand to Cipriani’s front door took the neighborhood by surprise. CB1’s Hughes said the board was unaware because “DCA rules require our input only for new stands [at the same spot] — not for relocations.”
The Downtown Alliance declined to comment but is said to be involved behind the scenes.
The need for the new kiosk grew out of a scheme to replace all the city’s funky, old-fashioned newsstands with shiny new ones of stainless steel and glass designed by Spanish company Cemusa — which has a 20-year, $1 billion contract with the city to build 3,300 bus shelters, 20 pay toilets and 330 newsstands.
But Cemusa can’t simply replace Bapel’s stand at William and Wall because the new model is too big for the narrow sidewalk next to a subway entrance. The catch is that Consumer Affairs requires that any relocated newsstand must be within 500 feet of the original site.
That leaves few options for Bapel’s stand, as two logical nearby locations are already taken by other Cemusa-built stands — one of them just 20 yards from where Bapel’s relocated one would go.
The DOT has the stand re-siting in front of Cipriani “under review,” an agency rep said. Until then, the velvet rope will continue to stand guard.