Because of construction in Battery Park, there are few benches along the walkways but visitors can find a place to sit inside Castle Clinton - the fort from the War of 1812 that now serves as a ticketing facility for Liberty and Ellis Island ferries.

The National Park Service and the Battery Conservancy are running a chair design contest with a $10,000 prize for the winner. There are five finalists whose chairs are on display in Castle Clinton, and visitors are invited to try them out. That means they can sit down as long as they want and then vote for their favorite chair. The winning design will be mass produced, and the chairs set up on the three-acre oval lawn on the northern side of the park, near Castle Clinton.

The chairs, made from recyclable materials, had to be durable, heavy enough to keep from getting blown or carted away and airy enough to facilitate water drainage. The prototype chairs will be on display through September, with the winning design announced in the fall.

The competition began on July 31, 2012, when The Battery Conservancy Americas Design Competition put out an open call for designs from students and professionals from North, South and Central America. The finalists were selected from 679 designs submitted by more than 1,500 designers in 15 countries.

The five finalists came from Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the United States. To see the five finalists, the 50 semi-finalists and every design that was submitted, click here or for a more complete experience, go to Castle Clinton and sit down.

"LeFrak plows NJ profits into a dorm on Broadway," Crain's New York Business, 7/28/14. "One of the city's biggest landlords has done what several others have in recent months: plant a flag in lower Manhattan," says Crain's New York Business. "The LeFrak Organization, owner of a huge commercial office and residential portfolio that extends from Queens to the New Jersey waterfront has acquired 180 Broadway, a 24-story property tower with a large ground-floor retail space across the street from the new Fulton Center, for $222.5 million. The company is transferring money it reaped earlier this month from the sale of 575 Washington Boulevard, a 22-story office building it developed and owned in Newport, N.J. The LeFrak Organization sold that property to the building's largest tenant, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and is now utilizing those proceeds in a swap known as a 1031-exchange, which allows it to forgo capital gains taxes and funnel the money in full into 180 Broadway." The building is 112 years old and is partially occupied by Pace University for use as a dormitory. For the complete article, click here.

"1 WTC: Inside the Tallest Building in the Western Hemisphere," Commercial Observer, 7/28/14. "As construction workers hammered on the World Trade Center site and hordes of tourists mingled with afternoon commuters last week, Jordan Barowitz of the Durst Organization invited Commercial Observer for an exclusive tour of One World Trade Center. Although more than 2,500 laborers were applying the finishing touches to the 104-floor, 3-million-square-foot structure designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the 1,776-foot building will open around November of this year, said Mr. Barowitz, Durst's director of external affairs." Commercial Observer came back with some pictures. To see them, click here.

Restaurant opening at 103 Washington St.: A restaurant called "St. George's" is scheduled to open on Aug. 20 in the landmarked building on Washington Street formerly occupied by Moran's. St. George's will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and will serve Chinese, American and European food, according to its chef, Fred Yuan, who comes from Shanghai, China.

The decor suggests the Shanghai of the 1920s and '30's when westerners helped Shanghai to become the leading center of trade and finance in Asia and the city was known as the "Paris of the East." Yuan said that the restaurant is Chinese-owned but is separate from the 50-story Holiday Inn next door, which is being erected by developer Sam Chang. Yuan said that the hotel would open in September.

The building at 103 Washington St. dates from around 1812, with a checkered history as a rooming house, dance hall, bordello, bank and a shop. In 1929-1930, it acquired a terracotta facade and became St. George's Syrian Catholic Church, one of several churches on or near Washington Street, then designated as "Little Syria" because of the large number of Middle Eastern immigrants who lived there.

Bryan Lydon and his mother, Maureen Moran, bought the building in 1982 and turned it into a restaurant. Moran's opened in 1986 and closed on July 8, 2011 - a victim of the World Trade Center attack and of the construction of the Holiday Inn next door. In October 2011, The Real Deal reported that Sam Chang had signed a 15-year lease for 103 Washington St.

St. George's still has the old bar from Moran's, but the dark green walls on the first floor have been replaced with oak paneling. The clippings and mementos of 9/11 that once decorated Moran's are gone. In their place are photos of Shanghai and relics of life there from a few decades ago such as old sewing machines, kerosene lamps, wind-up clocks, wooden-encased radios, bamboo boxes and crockery.

On the restaurant's second floor are an intimate lounge with a fireplace at one end and a small dining room separate from the tables in the common area.  - Terese Loeb Kreuzer

Ongoing: The National Museum of the American Indian is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with free admission. It offers free films, docent-led tours of its exhibitions and tours of its premises, the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, designed by Cass Gilbert. The building, which was completed in 1907, is a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. One Bowling Green. Phone: (212) 514-3700. For the museum's calendar, click here.