Ken Watanabe

Last night at its monthly full-board meeting, Community Board 1 voted unanimously to approve developer Ken Watanabe's plan to transform two parking garages at 50-52 Laight Street into a 17,500-square-foot, six-story luxury residential building with a two-story penthouse addition. The proposed building will be constructed of brick and limestone with fiberglass panels.

Because the property sits in the Tribeca North Historic District, the Landmarks Preservation Commission will get final say on the aesthetic appropriateness of the building; the Board of Standards and Appeal must still approve a variance to expand into the rear lot of the properties.  read more »

-Matthew Grace

"The slender Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers (from "Bend It Like Beckham") has widely spaced blue eyes, slightly flaring nostrils, and a flattened upper lip—he can look pensive or brutally calculating at will.
[...]
"Scarlett Johansson wears her blond hair up, which brings out the oval shape of her face and the soft beauty of her features, and she, too, has an unusual upper lip, curved and fleshy, and a low, smoky voice." - GAME PLAYING, by David Denby, The New Yorker, January 9, 2006.

"Chiyo, lips painted in a crimson circle, does attain a surpassing chic, but her paramount desire, which is to preserve her virginity for the highest bidder and then become the mistress of a handsome married gent (Ken Watanabe) who was once nice to her as a little girl, isn't very attractive psychologically, and provides little that we can root for." - BEASTS AND BEAUTIES, by David Denby, The New Yorker, December 19, 2005.

"Joaquin Phoenix, who plays Cash in the bio-pic 'Walk the Line,' is a remarkable-looking actor, with deep-set blue eyes, a long chin, and a scarred upper lip that serves as a nice equivalent to Cash's crags and creases." - RINGS OF FIRE, by David Denby, The New Yorker, November 21, 2005.

"Bill Murray has strong cheekbones, a lordly crest of hair, and thin lips that he presses together in an act that suggests self-containment more than disapproval." - LONERS, by David Denby, The New Yorker, August 8, 2005.

Related: "Sally, who always disconcerted me because she was lushly beautiful, and in dark auburn colors, like the one model in the fashion magazine who did not conform to cliché, Sally with her soft lips and lustrous head of reddish-brown hair had never said anything that was the least bit interesting..." - Great Books, by David Denby, 1997, p. 168.

"One of Shapiro's students, Francesca, a tall young woman with ripely rosy lips and a head of tousled hair, spoke English so well, with so little accent, that I had hardly noticed she was Italian." - ibid, p. 238.  read more »

—Matt Haber