New York Post - USA (2020-11-14)

New York Post, Saturday, November 14, 2020

nypost.com

By Beth landman

Say goodbye to the European café

vibe New York diners enjoyed this

summer. One big gust of wind and

that flower-strewn restaurant awning

won’t be much better than an um-

brella in a hurricane.

But enterprising operators, from

top toques to neighborhood eateries,

have a solution to extend the life of

their street-side tables that goes well

beyond heaters and overhangs.

They’re constructing elaborate out-

door-dining shelters.

Are these igloos any better than

simply dining indoors — where ca-

pacity remains capped at 25 percent?

Yes, according to the experts.

“An enclosed outdoor area has bet-

ter air exchange than indoors, so the

chance of viral particles getting di-

luted is greater,’’ Dr. Waleed Javaid,

director of infection prevention and

control at Mount Sinai Downtown,

told The Post.

Besides, wary New Yorkers simply

won’t take the risk of dining indoors

as COVID-19 cases surge — restau-

rants are among the 10 percent of

public spots that appear to account

for 80 percent of coronavirus infec-

tions, according to research published

in the journal Nature on Tuesday.

“Nobody wants to eat inside,’’ la-

mented Marco Fregonese, the chef-

owner of Gramercy Park restaurant

Novitá, one of the first to set up an

outdoor-dining shelter.

From whimsical greenhouses to

courtyard bubbles, here are a few of

the most alluring, creative and down-

right beautiful al fresco dining pods

in the city, and the measures they’re

taking to promote safety.

Fine dining in a greenhouse

Leave it to prolific chef Jean-Geor-

ges Vongerichten to cook up whimsi-

cal greenhouses, complete with

wooden flooring, rugs, banquettes,

In poD we

Restaurants lure wary diners

with high-design outdoor

shelters as winter looms

Stefano Giovannini (4)

Two people died and

three people were injured

in a steam pipe explosion at

the Veteran Affairs Hospital

in Connecticut on Friday

morning, according to Gov.

Ned Lamont.

The blast occurred at a

maintenance facility at the

campus in West Haven,

which is separate from the

hospital, a source told News

12 Connecticut.

Work was being done

there at the time.

A VA employee and an

outside contractor who

worked for Mulvaney Me-

chanical were killed, ac-

cording to the Hartford

Courant.

They were not immedi-

ately identified.

The three people who

were injured are VA em-

ployees. They suffered non-

life-threatening injuries,

state police said at an after-

noon press conference.

VA Secretary Robert

Wilkie said the blast oc-

curred in a “non-patient-

care area.”

Lia Eustachewich, Wires

Deadly hosp blast

Ghislaine

‘sex dish’

block bid

By ReBecca RosenBeRg

Ghislaine Maxwell’s law-

yers filed a motion Thurs-

day to keep a July 2016 dep-

osition she gave about her

sordid sex life under wraps.

She doubled down

on the same argu-

ments she made in

her unsuccessful bid

to keep an earlier

deposition secret.

Her attorneys ar-

gued that releasing

the deposition — given in

2016 as part of Jeffrey Ep-

stein accuser Virginia Rob-

erts Giuffre’s now-settled

civil suit — would jeopar-

dize her right to a fair crim-

inal trial, embarrass her and

violate a protective order

that promised to keep the

proceeding private.

“She appeared at the July

2016 deposition and an-

swered hundreds of pages

worth of questions con-

cerning her ‘own sexual ac-

tivity’ and ‘her knowledge

of the sexual activities of

others,’ ” lawyer Laura

Menninger wrote of the hu-

miliating interview.

After US District Judge

Loretta Preska ordered the

release of the earlier April

2016 deposition and other

sensitive documents, Max-

well’s lawyers took their

case to the 2nd US Circuit

Court of Appeals. The

higher court sided

with Preska.

The 465-page dep-

osition was released

in October and de-

tailed the seamy re-

lationship between

Maxwell (inset), 58,

and late pedophile Epstein.

Maxwell was grilled for

seven hours on topics that

included Prince Andrew,

with whom Giuffre has said

she was forced to have sex;

Maxwell’s ties to former

President Bill Clinton, who

was pals with Epstein; and

the existence of a “laundry

basket of sex toys” kept at

the late financier’s mansion

in Palm Beach, Fla. Prince

Andrew has denied the alle-

gations.

The British socialite was

arrested in July on a six-

count federal indictment al-

leging that she trafficked

underage girls to be abused

by her and Epstein.

2nd deposition war