- Casino mogul Steve Wynn is bidding on the Aqueduct Racetrack development, which state officials still hope to turn into a gaming complex with video slot machines. [NYP]
- Also submitting proposals are an outfit called the Aqueduct Entertainment Group, SL Green and Hard Rock International, and MGM and the Peebles Corporation. [NYO]
- Although there is no firm schedule for the groundbreaking, the Whitney Muesum of American Art has set 2012 as the opening date for its satellite museum in the meatpacking district. [Villager]
- On Wednesday, the City Council approved Mayor Bloomberg's plan to rezone and redevelop Coney Island, a scheme that allows for hotels, housing, and an amusement district. [NYT]
- In a roundup of upcoming openings in the meatpacking district, New York magazine reveals that the top two floors of the Standard will house a pool, a bar, a cocktail lounge, and outdoor space. [NYMag]
- General Growth Properties is no longer involved in the $700 million project known as the East Harlem Media, Entertainment, and Cultural Center. [Curbed]
- Bill Telepan is looking to open a wine bar near his eponymous restaurant on the Upper West Side. [NYT]
- On Thursday, the Museum of Arts and Design showed off its new pop-up wine bar, a temporary drinking and dining environment created in collaboration with Crush Wine & Spirits and housed in the museum's seventh-floor event space. [MAD]
- In Brooklyn, a 144-foot-long ferry is now an event space for the underground music and performance scene. [Metro]
- Even in a recession, the Related Companies remains optimistic about the future of the Hudson Yards, a 12 million-square-foot development that is expected to include retail space, room for large corporations, and a hotel tower. [NYO]
- Steve Cuozzo checks into the real estate market, highlighting that new hotels are popping up in unpopular areas, while properties planned for others are on hold or canceled. [NYP]
- At Table 8, Frank Bruni is troubled by layout, claiming the restaurant had given "too little thought to logistics and comfort" and the "acoustics are insane." [NYT]
- Adam Platt offers a mixed review of the Greenwich hotel's Locanda Verde, where the "crowd-pleasing cooking isn’t designed to win culinary awards," but is "designed to promote a good time in a casually stylish, relatively economical way." [NYMag]
- Jay Cheshes's assessment of Locanda Verde is more positive, labeling the restaurant a "blockbluster replacement" to Ago, with "flat-out seductive" food and "desserts worth saving room for." [TONY]
- Further downtown, Gael Greene samples the "unexpectedly brilliant" food at Sho Shaun Hergatt, the restaurant inside the financial district's Setai building. [Insatiable Critic]
