My 9-year-old son Jamie is obsessed with chess. I taught him a few basic moves at 5, and then he went on to chess club, summer camp and now, tournaments. All that formal training made him a competent player, but didn't teach him the strategy and anticipation so vital to winning. Those things he learned from a bunch of chess hustlers in Washington Square.

Jamie’s residency in the West Village’s scrappy chess scene began about a year ago, when he asked if he could play a game with the guys one day on our way home from school. He sat down gamely in front of Dwight, a soft-spoken man in a Seventh Day Adventist windbreaker. Dwight waited half way through the game before he started coaching Jamie. His two pieces of advice: don’t move the queen out too early and keep control of the center. Jamie pocketed the advice, gave Dwight “a donation” and was immediately hooked. 

The next day, he wanted to play Dwight again. And the next. We returned to play with him several times, and over time Jamie moved on to play a few of the other regulars. Jamie began asking me for chess money the way some kids ask their parents for Mr. Softee funds: “Please can I play a game in the park?” It started as a roughly $5-a-day habit (one game is $3, two are $5), still a relatively inexpensive way to spend an afternoon.

He wasn’t sitting in front of a computer or a television, and we could be outside together around fresh air and flowers, even if the air is sometimes heavy with smoke. I watched him leap into the game with the speed of the other players who tried to beat chess clocks, but his opponents tried to get him to slow down and get into the habit of seeing the whole board.

True sportsmanship came through in hushed tones from the elderly Mr. Peterson, who shows up everyday from the Bowery apartment he’s called home for decades. He’s a gentle and kind player, likely to ask Jamie questions about moves rather than scold him for wrong ones. Or, it cracked through the game like thunder from the incessantly loud, 6’ 4” guy who’s known simply as Cornbread. “Show me the square, Little Man! Show me the square!”

Jamie played Nashen, whose tutelage would grow louder if camera-toting gawkers passed through, and I realized that he was using my son to drum up more business. “Show me the other move, genius!” Nashen would shout. Or “That’s not the square!” In what would become their last game, the yelling grew to an intensity that broke some invisible boundary of mutual respect. “I just wanted to play him,” Jamie said, embarrassed.

Sometimes Jamie was a novelty, other times he was seen as a pest. One afternoon Jamie walked up to Rahim, whose intensity rises up through his wild hair, sun-damaged skin and black eyes. Rahim was mid-game with a collegiate looking frat dropout kind of guy who wore dark glasses and didn’t crack a smile or look up, though the muttered and shifted around.

I tried to pull Jamie away, but Rahim kept instigating chit-chat with Jamie, calling him “The Kid” as he always did. The other player suddenly jumped from his seat and said, “Later man, I’ll come back when you’re not talking.” Jamie took his place in the empty seat and straightened out the pieces to start a fresh game. But Rahim put on headphones, shook his head, and refused to play; he’d lost a customer. Jamie looked like he’d been slapped.

After four months of playing in the park, a spring semester chess club started up in his school, a local Catholic school. He could play circles around the other kids. He easily won the third grade trophy (and beat the chess club coach), but in his mind his biggest feat was beating Peter, a USCF-rated player in the 8th grade who’d been on the tournament circuit and getting private lessons for some time. With this victory, Jamie decided it was time to get serious. There were chess history and strategy books and a tournament-grade clock for a birthday present. He was no longer playing merely to learn, he wanted to win.

I briefly considered private lessons, but we both preferred the scene at the park. In a city that’s been power washed by Michael Bloomberg, a little grit makes me feel at home. I moved here twenty years ago, and since then have watched my neighborhood, the East Village, gentrify beyond recognition from the neighborhood I used to knock around in long ago. In the chess circle, the ever-encroaching NYU neighborhood doesn’t feel so scrubbed down of its natural history. There are always half-smoked cigarettes stubbed out and perched on the tables, ready to be lit up again in between games. The players curse up a shit storm, but despite that, I am intrigued by their stories.

Dee is a regular who spends as much time carving wooden bird sculptures as he does playing chess. He shared me a few of the creatures he'd carved from 500-year-old wood from the Hangman tree in Washington Square. I’ve paid him to play chess with Jamie, and his is a strong game woven with lessons. “If you move your knight to the center, you’ll control more of the squares,” or, “You have to set up your pieces and defend before you start to take.”

Jamie’s game got better—“I can see in his eyes that he hates losing,” Rahim noted one day—and I was getting something out of our park visits as well. When the magazine where I’d spent a decade crumbled in 2008, gone too was the daily banter with colleagues. I turned to freelancing and teaching, a benefits-friendly formula that worked for my family. But even after four years, I occasionally missed the social fabric of an office, where people note your comings and goings and send jokey emails around the office. Never too intimate, but familiar enough.

And so it was at Washington Square Park. One day I met Dan, a backgammon player who likes to talk about the evils of white sugar, the miracle of juicing and the greed of doctors. Before I knew it, Dan was asking me if I know how many bowel movements a day I was supposed to have. (I did not.) A couple of weeks passed before I saw him again, and he had been carrying around some magazine articles that he’d been saving for me. I was genuinely touched that someone was carrying around clippings for me, even ones about bowel movements. I thanked him, and he walked back to his own table and promptly lit a cigarette.

One day, Rahim turned to Jamie and said. “Hey kid, watch my pieces. I’ll be back in about an hour.” Jamie nodded. “Remember, it’s $3 for one game, $5 for two.” Jamie took his place at Rahim’s table, brimming over with a new kind of pride at being the Master of his own space.

A boyish guy from the pickle stand on Father Demo square came over to play, offering Jamie a dollar. (He refused.) Next was an older man who played out of nostalgia for the tournaments of his youth.

Suddenly it occurred to me that Jamie could set up his own table. I could stop paying the guys, and he could still play, only now his opponents would most often be NYU students and strangers passing through looking for a free game. I bought him the standard plastic pieces from the Chess Forum around the corner, and afterward we went to scope out a table. He set up his own pieces for the first time and waited. At first it was awkward; I sat across from him and watched him lean his forehead on the table, crack open a book and read, but if he was going to pick up a game he would have to sit up straight and try to engage potential players walking by. Before long, he had a taker.

I was relieved that Jamie’s table didn’t attract consternation from the other players, who by this time treated him like a little mascot. I'm glad, because when potential players come through I’m keenly aware of the level to which the guys have to compete with one another to get customers. Jamie might even be good for their business. Tourists with kids walk through and see a young kid set up at his own table, and they want their kids to play.

When time allows, Jamie sets up shop once or twice a week. He still picks up games with all of the regular players who wander over in boredom, or from the tourists, or from guys just knocking off of work who move through the circle, unwilling to “donate” to play. When people ask him if he wants a game, he’ll lift up his head from a Goosebumps book and say yes.

They almost always want to know how old he is, and when he tells them he's nine, they say, “I thought you were 11 or 12.” Some guys look embarrassed to play such a young kid, but when the pieces start flying, one game will turn into three or four.

Since we’ve begun going to the circle together, I’ve felt the space between Jamie and me widen. I don’t sit next to him at his table anymore, and a natural maturing is kicking in as he adjusts to the fourth grade. He sits up straighter, and in between games he reads longer books with finer print. He tests out conversational small talk openers, as if he’s maneuvering his way around a cocktail party, only he’s The Kid, drinking chocolate milk and asking the guy across from him who his favorite chess champion is.

Every blue moon, he’ll still play Dwight. “Wow, I can see you've improved,” Dwight will say. Jamie hasn't beaten him yet, but he’s gotten a couple of draws. “You need to slow down,” Dwight will add. Jamie tries, but I’m not sure he can.

Be Careful! (timmredpath, flickr)

It can be hard to know where all the bodies are buried in New York (Washington Square Park, Bryant Park and Madison Square Park are just a few of the city's re-purposed resting places).

Potter's fields rarely fare well over time (regardless of the surrounding real estate's desirability), but many of the city's historic cemeteries have been well-loved—watched over by attentive congregations, descendants and preservationists (see: the Trinity Church graveyard in lower Manhattan).

Unfortunately, even the most attentive caretakers cannot always protect the dead from development, or an errant backhoe.

The Times reports that historic Quaker graves dating back to the 1600s may have been desecrated by contractors working on a new medical office building behind the congregation's Flushing Avenue meeting house.

The Quakers claim that workers pushed a utility pole into the back of the Queens graveyard, damaged old trees and, worst of all,  put up a plywood fence among the graves.

In adherence to a Quaker tradition at the time urging humility, many of the graveyard's earliest plots lack headstones. And, as in many historic graveyards, the older graves were located in the back of the burial yard. The grave of John Bowne, the influential Quaker leader who founded the congregation's meeting house, may even be among the disturbed.

Pinnacle Engineering P.C., the company constructing the office building, agreed to stop work after the Landmarks Preservation Commission threatened to impose a hefty daily fine.

“If we saw anything, if we found any bones or anything like that, we would have stopped the operation,” project manager Arnold Matthew told The Times. “I’m not aware of any desecration that occurred."

Mr. Matthew also claimed that an archaeological survey conducted at the site before construction indicated that it was safe to proceed and that a non-invasion method was used to stabilize the Quaker property during construction.

But ground, and the graves in it, have been known to shift over time.

Technologies exist to help contractors avoid this kind of problem. Ground-penetrating radar, which looks for abnormalities in the density of the earth, is often used by archaeologists to determine unmarked burial sites (and by detectives searching for homicide victims).

Also, it's generally a good idea to be really really careful when you're building next to a burial ground that's hundreds of  years old! Construction projects sometimes uncover unknown or unconfirmed burial sites that have been paved, built and even landfilled over—like the African Burial Ground, uncovered in 1991 during excavation work for a federal office building—but it's another story when you know there are bodies nearby.

And Pinnacle admitted to The Times that the site's wooden wall was in fact on Quaker property. In the graveyard.

At most construction sites, infringing on a neighbor's property might get you a nasty letter. But if there's anything we've learned from countless scary movies and books, it's that you don't mess with a grave.

kvelsey@observer.com

And so it was with the graffiti-covered faux-bomb shelter/art installation erected in Washington Square Park on Monday afternoon.

At issue was a Sderot-style bunker of the sort used by Israelis when Palestinian militants lob missles over the border. Just what it was doing in Greenwich Village and what it meant depended on whom you asked. To Artists 4 Israel, the group that created the installation with funding from the Birthright Israel Alumni Community, it represented a sad piece of daily life in the Holy Land. To the pro-Palestine protesters who arrived to offer their own take, it seemed a questionable piece of propaganda, on city property. To passersby, a spectacle.

The Observer showed up just a few minutes after the protesters, "got their act together," according to Artists 4 Israel president Craig Dershowitz, "and started saying their usual diatribe about Israel."

"You'll notice, none of them have mentioned the bomb shelter. None of them have mentioned the kids who are living under this threat of terror," he said.

The protesters held signs declaring "Gaza Hungers for Justice" and demanding "U.S. Dollars out of Israel." They chanted, "Not another nickel, not another dime, no more money for Israel's crimes" and handed out their own pamphlets.

"For most of the day this has been relatively peaceful," Mr. Dershowitz said. "What we're doing is creating artwork and beauty. So what can you say to that, right? And what can you say to ‘Children should not have to live under threat of rockets?' Who can be against that?"

Artists 4 Israel's literature said that Israeli students, Jews and Arabs like, have but 15 seconds to get into a bomb shelter when a warning is sounded. The protesters' literature included information on how to boycott Israeli products, divest from the country and encourage the U.S. government to cut funding.

"Artistically, it's kind of sad because they're appropriating New York hip hop art to serve the Israeli propaganda agenda," said Andrew Felluss, a music producer with the group Artists Against Apartheid, who was handing out the opposition's literature. "It's a little disturbing." 

The shelter itself was small, about five-by-five. The graffiti was contributed by COPE2, SKI, 2ESAE and KA, graffiti artists who, according to Matt Mindell, a representative for the Birthright Israel Alumni Community, had visited Israel on a trip funded by Artists 4 Israel and were "trying to reenact what they experienced on a daily basis." None of the artists are Jewish, he said.

"A bomb shelter shouldn't be about death or getting destroyed, I guess is what they were trying to say," said COPE2, who hadn't actually been to Israel yet, but plans on going on a junket soon. "It's just both sides. It's like, damn, could this end? Especially when kids are getting involved and getting killed."

COPE2 said he has both Jewish and Palestinian friends and that he added his work to the shelter because of his close friendship with Dershowitz and Dershowitz' commitment to the project.

Inside the bunker, a flatscreen TV was mounted on one of the walls showing footage shot during the bombings. A man was available to answer questions.

Only a few minutes after The Observer ducked inside, an argument broke out between one of the protesters and the guy answering questions.

The protester, a woman, declared, "This is just rhetoric, these aren't facts," and referenced an event in which she saw the Israelis as aggressors. He retorted that Israel is the only democratic state in the Middle East and that "you can be gay and live in Israel, you can't do that in other countries." She countered that Israeli troops had raided the office of a Palestinian news organization. He said the Palestinians did the same thing to CNN. She asked where he got his news and he did the same. They both cried bias.

Outside, a few dog owners clung to a nearby fence, staring at the scene while their pets yipped in the background.

mcoyne@observer.com

Washington Square Park's spiffy new bathrooms, pictured in the renderings to the right, will have solar thermal panels on the roof and a geothermal system, according to Parks spokeswoman Cristina DeLuca. The men's room, apparently long the site of amorous hook-ups, will even have a coupling-friendly, handicapped-accessible stall, along with three urinals. The ladies room will have four stalls, one of which will be handicapped accessible.

(Last summer, Curbed sent out an intern to find out why the men's room didn't have stalls. A "Parks Dude" gave him the following response: "They took the stalls out before the renovations. There were too many gays together in there. You know, this is Washington Square Park. You'd look and see four legs when there should be two in a stall! Crazy! Now there's none of that. Can't do that out in the open.")

Construction is scheduled to start this winter and finish in the winter of 2011, as part of the multi-million-dollar second phase of the always controversial (this being Greenwich Village) reconstruction of Washington Square Park.

drubinstein@observer.com

"We're in this together," Mr. Edwards said, according to Variety.

"Stay strong, stay together," Mr. Edwards added according to the Associated Press. "It's about making sure these big corporations, these big media conglomerates don't step on your rights — that you have a real opportunity to share in the work that you've been producing."

Brian Stelter of the New York Times reported that the crowd of several hundred people was smaller than the organizers had anticipated. That said, the crowd did include such luminaries as David Chase, the creator of "The Sopranos" and comedian Gilbert Gottfried.

How did Mr. Edwards' populist rhetoric go over?

"The problem for Edwards is that when the 'working people' are stars of stage and screen--or snarky New York scribes--it's hard to make much of an impact," writes Andrew Romano on Newsweek.com. "I stood with two comedy writers, one from the Colbert Report and one from SNL. They weren't impressed. To put it mildly."

Afterwards, Mr. Edwards spoke with reporters.

"He used his post-rally avail to roll out his plan to more heavily regulate the credit card industry," reports Politico's Ben Smith. "One thing he didn't do -- as he hasn't lately -- was go out of his way to criticize Hillary Clinton. He hasn't backed off his earlier shots at her, but he seems content at the moment to let Clinton and Obama go at it."

Although, neither Senator Clinton nor Senator Obama were in attendance, both reportedly submitted letters in support of the guild's cause.

In this week's Villager (article not posted online till tomorrow), Lincoln Anderson reports that that City Council member Alan Gerson is threatening to withhold $6 million from the Parks Department for the long-delayed and -debated renovation of Washington Square Park. It seems that Parks reneged on a promise it made to Mr. Gerson and Council Speaker Christine Quinn last fall to not reduce the size of the park's central plaza by more than 10 percent; the park's revised redesign would reduce it by 23 percent.

Debates have been waged for over a year about the future of Washington Square Park, with Community Board 2 the epicenter of the battle. Two lawsuits are currently being pursued to stop the renovation, which is budgeted at $16 million.

-Matthew Grace

Update: Here's your link.

If you’re lucky, you’ll get to see David Bouley himself at work in the open kitchen upstairs at Bouley Bakery and Market, 130 West Broadway (at Duane Street), 212-608-5829, where Japanese food is served alongside French/American cuisine. The cooking is superlative, and there’s a sushi bar that offers wonderful hot Japanese dishes as well. No prix fixe, no reservations.

In the Village, at Gusto, 60 Greenwich Avenue (at Perry Street), 212-924-8000, chef Jody Williams makes the best fried artichokes outside of Rome. In fact, most dishes at this chic black-and-white 60’s-style Italian trattoria are superior and authentic. Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s latest venture, Perry Street, 176 Perry Street (at West Street), 212-352-1900, also reflects mid-century glamour in its sleek dining room in Richard Meier’s glass towers. Some of the food is flawless, such as the red-snapper sashimi and a Thai-inspired dill broth that’s one of the best soups I’ve tasted. Over in the East Village at Uovo, 175 Avenue B (at 11th Street), 212-475-8686, Matthew Hamilton’s inventive cooking is rustic with Mediterranean touches: garlic, anchovies, bitter greens and strong, fruity olive oils. His Spanish almond soup is a masterpiece.

In midtown, Alto, 520 Madison Avenue (entrance on 53rd Street), 212-308-1099, is the most ambitious Italian restaurant to open in New York this year (apart from Mario Batali’s much-publicized Del Posto, which is too new to review). Scott Conant is serving the Austrian-accented Italian cooking of the Alto Adige, a mountainous area in the North. The décor is strange, but Mr. Conant’s marvelous, jewel-like food shouldn’t be missed. A few blocks west, Bobby Flay is cooking at Bar Americain, 152 West 52nd Street (between Sixth and Seventh avenues), 212-265-9700, and serious cocktails (no gimmicks) are dispensed at a huge zinc bar. Mr. Flay’s regional cooking presents American ingredients at their best and spices them in ways that bring out rather than mask their flavor. The shellfish cocktails are outstanding.

Another new addition near the theater district, Roberto Passon, 741 Ninth Avenue (at 50th Street), 212-582-5599, serves elegant Venetian cuisine in cheery surroundings. The pastas are excellent, especially the black tagliatelle tossed with clams, mussels and Prosecco. On the Upper West Side, at Onera, 227 West 79th Street (between Amsterdam and Broadway), 212-873-0200, chef/owner Michael Psilakis has reinvented Greek cuisine: Instead of stuffed grape leaves and taramasalata, there is raw meze, and the moussaka is made with braised goat, eggplant, potato and béchamel sauce.

In the Flatiron district, at Laurent Tourondel’s BLT Fish, 21 West 17th Street, 212-691-8888, whole, very fresh fish and lobster are sold by the pound and served with a choice of sauces and vegetables on the side, so customers can mix and match as they please. The ground floor is a New England seafood shack. One of my favorites is the Dungeness crab mixed with avocado and served in a tart grapefruit vinaigrette.

Refined Korean food sounds like an oxymoron, but chef Karen Young at Chelsea’s D’or Ahn, 207 Tenth Avenue (near 23rd Street), 212-627-7777, uses French techniques with traditional ingredients. This stylish hole-in-the-wall serves melting Korean short ribs with a French-inspired horseradish celeriac puree and a spicy chocolate soufflé.

Donatella Arpaia and chef Turibio Girardi pay homage to the cuisine of Puglia at Ama, 48 MacDougal Street (between Prince and Houston streets), 212-358-1707, a hot, young trattoria. There are buttery, grilled baby cuttlefish with clams and porcini and first-rate pastas. Terrance Cave’s HQ, 90 Thompson (between Prince and Spring streets), 212-966-2755, is a convivial new bistro serving modern American cuisine that’s sophisticated but accessible: steak with white polenta instead of fries, roast duck with parsnip purée and orange sauce.

Tribeca’s Lo Scalco, 313 Church Street (at Walker Street), 212-343-2900, is quiet, spacious and elegant. Chef/owner Mauro Mafrici produces magnificent pasta and risotto, as well as a roast guinea hen covered in a burnished layer of artichokes that looks like feathers.

Dan Barber’s Blue Hill, 75 Washington Place (between Sixth Avenue and Washington Square Park), 212-539-1776, now in its 15th year, is New York’s most underrated restaurant. Its casual manner belies the high caliber of the cooking—which gets three stars from me and none from those starchy Michelin Guide inspectors. The produce comes from Stone Barns Farm up the Hudson, where Mr. Barber has a sister restaurant. And no matter what the season, there’s a fabulous chocolate brioche bread pudding.

With Gramercy Tavern, 42 East 20th Street (between Broadway and Park Avenue), 212-477-0777, Danny Meyer and Tom Colicchio introduced a new form of “haute” dining, American style, when the restaurant opened a decade ago. The food is better than ever, and everything feels more relaxed now that heavy brown velvet curtains have been installed in the Tavern’s various dining areas, softening the hard edges and absorbing noise.

Last New Year’s Eve, I dined at Abboccato, 136 West 55th Street (across the street from City Center), 212-265-4000, which serves high-end regional Italian dishes. We began with a coffee cup of lentils topped with Osetra caviar and sour cream. Each lentil symbolizes a coin—good luck for the New Year. We could have drunk a bowl.

New Year’s Eve, of course, is the time for resolutions. Dear restaurant owners, you spend a small fortune on décor; please do something about lighting and noise. Those overhead pinpoints worthy of interrogation chambers and the screeching rush-hour din of so many dining rooms I visited this year don’t make it easy for customers to enjoy your hard-working chef’s good food. Fix the problem, and I resolve not to complain anymore.

Three Stars

75 Washington Place

(Between Sixth Avenue and Washington Square Park)

212-539-1776

Dress: Casual

Lighting: Soft

Noise Level: Low

Wine List: Unusual selections from small vineyards, reasonable prices

Credit Cards: All major

Price Range: Main courses, $28 to $32

Dinner: Monday through Saturday, 5:30 to 11 p.m.; Sunday, 5:30 to 10 p.m.

On a recent Sunday evening, my friends arrived at Blue Hill early and fell into conversation at the bar with a professor and a high-school teacher. The small dining room is warm and intimate, with a low ceiling and bare brick walls, and chocolate-brown banquettes with raised backs act as sound buffers. It’s normally rather sedate, but tonight some young women at a nearby table were becoming increasingly boisterous. The teacher finally lost patience. “Shhhh!” she hissed. The entire restaurant fell stone silent.

Blue Hill is just around the corner from New York University, so many of its customers—and it has a loyal following of regulars—must be well used to hushing or being hushed. The restaurant is in a former speakeasy in the basement of a townhouse near Washington Square. Tables are covered with white paper over linen, and the staff wears long white bistro aprons and blue shirts. The casual style doesn’t prepare you for the high caliber of the cooking here. Perhaps that’s why Blue Hill is underrated. Chef/owner Dan Barber and chef Juan Cuevas (who was formerly at Lespinasse and Alain Ducasse), are producing a sophisticated modern cuisine that’s on a par with some of the city’s best restaurants.

When Mr. Barber first opened Blue Hill five years ago, he created an ambitious seasonal menu with produce from greenmarkets and his family farm in Massachusetts. Last year, he opened a sister restaurant at Stone Barns on the Rockefeller estate up the Hudson, just 24 miles north of the city. The farm there now supplies both restaurants with virtually all of their produce, meat, eggs, poultry and even honey.

My friends and I sat down at a corner banquette near the bar and ordered a glass of this year’s hit wine, the Basque Txakolina, pale gold and slightly fizzy, served in a thin-rimmed tumbler as an aperitif. Blue Hill’s wine list is short but interesting, with many choices from lesser-known vineyards, and the prices are reasonable. The terrific sommelier guided us to a Kuhling-Gillot Scheurebe Kabinett from Rheinhessen, a fruity wine that perfectly complemented our food. The staff is well informed, too—although sometimes you might learn more than you wish. “Our veal tonight is baby veal, brought up by its mother, who has only been fed on grass …. ”

We began with a taste of soup delivered in shot glasses—the “last of the tomatoes,” the waitress said sadly. These late-harvest tomatoes had been roasted and smoked over wood chips before being puréed into a wonderful soup. The waitress set down a small wooden board that had two rows of thin, communion-like wafers slatted into it. “They are baked with ‘fifth-generation’ garlic.” Of course. (The garlic is named, in fact, for an Italian immigrant who brought over a highly prized sweet specimen; the family would only sell it chopped or peeled so that no one else could grow it. When the last farmer retired, he gave his bulbs to Mr. Barber.)

After the soup, I had a plate of exquisite tiny fall vegetables—variously raw, marinated or flash-cooked over high heat—mingled with toasted pistachios, fresh soybeans, apples and fennel in a mushroom gelée. It was permeated with the aroma of purple basil and was unbelievably good. So was a warm wild-mushroom and chicken-liver salad with baby greens and toasted pistachios in a herbaceous pine-nut vinaigrette.

Mr. Cuevas has worked in top restaurants in Spain, and he brings subtle Spanish touches to some of the dishes. Slices of foie gras (not raised on the farm) come on a green glass plate accompanied by puntarelle (wild chicory), fennel, tapioca and apple, with a Prosecco vinaigrette and toasted Marcona almonds. It’s light and refined, with a lemony sweetness—the last thing you’d expect with foie gras. Fluke arrived in a big white bowl with honmichi mushrooms, fennel, chopped herbs and fennel fronds floating in an intense, clear broth made from tomato, zucchini and cucumber water, drained in a cheesecloth. Three smoked shrimp were plopped on a bright green lawn of puréed herbs sprinkled with “panther” soybeans. Cod, an all-white dish, was served in a creamy almond shellfish broth, laced with strips of zucchini and Marcona almonds.

Mr. Barber and Mr. Cuevas like tart, citrusy tastes. The crabmeat salad, with mint and cilantro, micro greens, green-tomato marmalade and diced apple was pure heaven. The Berkshire pork was wonderful, but the bitterness of an arugula and mustard-herb pesto served with it didn’t set off the meat to the best advantage. I loved the tiny, tiny lamb chops, with tiny, tiny potatoes, cannellini beans and lettuce, along with a dollop of braised leg and shoulder. Cobia, a large white fish with meaty, firm-textured flesh, came with colorful twin sauces, a rich purple Concord grape cooked with roast lobster shells and port, and a yellow pepper sauce.

Blue Hill serves a great chocolate brioche bread pudding with roast peanuts and salted caramel in the middle. The apple cobbler is deconstructed: The apples come in a Mason jar, and the crumble is served on the side. Seckel pears poached with caramel were laced with a passion-fruit sauce that kicked the pears into action. A dark chocolate soufflé with ricotta ice cream was a little dry but had great flavors. The fromage blanc soufflé was flawless, with pink peppercorn ice cream. Tiny fresh pears at the peak of ripeness were served as petits fours alongside chocolate truffles.

As we were finishing our marvelous desserts, the women from the once-raucous table got up to leave. The schoolteacher was at the table next to us, and one of the culprits stopped in front of her and glared. “Next time you come here, take a Valium!”

Everyone laughed.

Last April, Community Board 2 finally weighed in on the Parks Department’s plan, passing a resolution that supported the two-stage renovation and redesign.

But earlier this month, in an unexpected repudiation of its earlier vote, the board’s parks, recreation and waterfront committee passed another resolution calling on the Parks Department solely to renovate—and not redesign—the 10-acre park in the heart of Greenwich Village.

The controversial redesign and renovation of Washington Square Park has been the talk of the West Village for months now. Coalitions of community residents have sprung up in response to the Parks Department redesign, each with its favorite issue: There’s a group to save the mounds, the rolling asphalt hills that occupy the southern edge of the park; a coalition to keep the fountain where it currently is, slightly off-center and not aligned with the park’s famous arch; even a coalition of disgruntled dog-run enthusiasts to bark its displeasure at the department’s plan to relocate the runs to the park’s perimeter. And then there’s the Emergency Coalition Organization to Save Washington Square Park, a coalition of coalitions, which simply wants the park to be renovated, not redesigned.

And for months, Board 2 has been the battleground between these competing interests, with eruptions of jeers and boos, affirmations and applause whenever the board’s embattled parks, recreation and waterfront committee took up the issue.

But with the vote in April, many thought that the issue had finally been laid to rest. There was much unhappiness, but even more relief that the board had finally formally approved the redesign, and the members were prepared to move on to issues of a more mundane variety, such as the liquor-license applications and sidewalk-café permits that they regularly deal with.

Then came a change in leadership—former committee chair Aubrey Lees and board chair Jim Smith were both replaced for the interim by Arthur Schwartz and Maria Derr, respectively—and the Washington Square Park redesign was once again under the gun. And on Oct. 6, the committee passed a new resolution, this time requiring that the fountain not be moved, that the plaza surrounding the fountain not be decreased in size or elevated to grade level, that the mounds be kept where they are and, finally, that the new fencing around the park be limited to 30 inches in height.

And on Oct. 20, the committee’s new resolution went before the full board with a standing-room-only crowd in attendance, as swarms of combatants, pro and con, gathered to debate and celebrate—or denounce—the final vote.

After a tumultuous public session—during which district manager Arthur Strickler repeatedly had to plead for quiet amid the jeers and applause following each speaker—Mr. Schwartz presented his resolution to the board. Immediately after, board member Shirley Secunda stood up to offer a substitute resolution that reaffirmed the board’s earlier, pro-redesign resolution. And, after much discussion, it was this rival resolution—not the committee’s Oct. 6 version—that finally passed.

“I’m delighted that it went through,” Ms. Secunda told The Observer after the vote. She said that one of the foremost concerns with the park’s current design—which would have remained in place had Mr. Schwartz’s resolution been passed—is the lack of accessibility for the disabled to the fountain and the surrounding sunken plaza. “I felt, and many other people felt too, that the access right now is impossible,” Ms. Secunda said. As to charges that leveling the plaza would adversely affect its attractiveness to the park’s itinerant performers, Ms. Secunda countered: “It worked just fine in the golden age, when Bob Dylan performed there.”

Washington Square Park was originally acquired by the city in 1797 for use as an execution site and potter’s field, which closed in 1823. It became a park in 1827. In 1889, a plaster and wood arch was erected to commemorate the centennial of George Washington’s inauguration; this was replaced in 1892 by the current Stanford White–designed marble arch. Fifth Avenue ran through the park until 1964, when the park was redesigned and closed to traffic.

Among the many folks pleased by Board 5’s most recent decision was Parks Department Commissioner Adrian Benepe. “We’re gratified by the vote; it reaffirms the board’s earlier vote,” he told The Observer. “I think it’s a signal to move ahead.”

Perhaps aiding in that decision was an agreement recently made between City Council members Alan Gerson and Christine Quinn—whose districts include the park and sit just west of it, respectively—and the Parks Department. The agreement, dated Oct. 6 (the same day the committee passed its abortive resolution), calls on the Parks Department to, among other things, limit the size of any perimeter fence, rebuild the mounds “in a similar form,” create an additional playground, construct an elevated concert space, slightly refine the dog runs to make them more amenable to users, and guarantee that the plaza surrounding the fountain would retain at least 90 percent of its current size. Most importantly, the agreement calls on the Parks Department to respect the decision of the city’s Art Commission, which is slated to rule on the department’s plan to relocate the fountain. According to Mr. Benepe, the department will abide by the Art Commission’s decisions; he told The Observer that plans for the redesign will be submitted to the commission within the next month. Once the Art Commission gives the go-ahead, construction on Phase 1 of the project—which will see the northwest quadrant of the park closed for renovation—will start in the spring of next year. It will take approximately one year to complete; then Phase 2, which will cover the southern and eastern reaches of the park, is scheduled to begin.

Nevertheless, even though the redesign is finally back on track, there are still plenty of unhappy parkgoers who feel that their concerns are being ignored. But in the words of Ms. Lees, the former chair of Board 2’s embattled parks, recreation and waterfront committee: “There are too many constituents in the park, and not everyone’s needs can be addressed.”

ENK’s proposal was originally approved by the board’s waterfront and parks committee, but when it reached the floor for a full-board discussion, the ideological differences ensued. At issue was the closing of a public space for the benefit of a private institution. Said board member Adam Honigman: “I don’t understand why there should be any co-option of this public space for private gain.”

Several other board members expressed the same sentiment, including Edward Kirkland, who said: “There should be no significant disruption of normal activities of the park, and I think that should be a principle the community board should maintain.”

Lee Compton, the Board 4 chair, told The Observer that locals usually use the handball and basketball courts. (The baseball courts at DeWitt Clinton Park, which ENK pledged to not interfere with, are frequently used by people from outside the area.) “[ENK’s] asking families to give up two weeks of their fall,” Mr. Compton said.

But fellow board member Margo Cates was more welcoming. Moved by ENK’s willingness to contribute minor repairs to some of the park’s decrepit stairs, she said: “There’s always going to be something that doesn’t work, but for these 12 days there’s something we can gain.”

The skirmish over the use of DeWitt Clinton Park is the latest salvo in a continuing battle over the private use of public facilities. In Union Square Park, neighborhood residents and activists have been slugging it out with the Parks Department for months over the $14 million renovation of the park’s northern plaza. Although the proposed design would substantially increase the area devoted to the children’s playground, at issue was the part of the plan that would allow the 1930’s-era pavilion to be operated as a year-round restaurant. Opponents of the Union Square plan included City Council member Margarita Lopez and State Assembly member Scott Stringer (both of whom are now also running for borough president).

In June, the Parks Department abandoned its plan for a year-round restaurant; the pavilion will only be used seasonally. The park’s current restaurant, Luna Park, has operated out of the park each summer since 1993.

Another battleground over the “creeping privatization of public space,” as some activists termed it, is Washington Square Park’s proposed multi-year, two-phase, $16 million renovation. Opponents of that plan claim that spiraling upkeep costs will necessitate private investment in the park, opening the way for restaurants and kiosks to operate out of the park—something they say is unreasonable in the “people’s park.” (Activists, including the Emergency Coalition to Save Washington Square Park, have recently filed a lawsuit to stop the Washington Square renovation; other opponents are pinning their hopes on an Aug. 3 Art Commission hearing to approve—or deny—certain elements of the plan.)

But city parks are frequently used for private events: N.Y.U.’s yearly graduation ceremony is held in Washington Square Park, and Fashion Week is held in Bryant Park biannually; there are also more than 40 restaurants, cafés and banquet halls throughout the city’s 1,700 parks.

But it seems that Board 4’s letter recommending denial of ENK’s request to use the park might have been unnecessary: Reached by The Observer by phone, Parks Department spokesman Warner Johnston said, “We are not approving this event.” He said the show would have closed parts of the park for an unacceptable period of time.

ENK president Elyse Kroll didn’t return calls for comment.