Crain’s Breakfast Forum with Attorney General Eric Schneiderman will be held at Roosevelt Hotel, located at 45 East 45^th Street (4 miles from OfficeLinks’ Wall Street office, 1.5 miles from OfficeLinks’ Chelsea office, 1.2 miles from OfficeLinks’ Bryant Park office, and 1/3 mile from OfficeLinks’ Grand Central West office) on Thursday, February 16, 8-9:30 am.  Tickets are $75 per person (or $750 for a table of ten) if purchased by February 9, $80 thereafter (or $800 per table of ten). Pre-registration is required to attend this event. To register for this event, click here.

Can’t make it? @crainsnewyork will be tweeting live from the event. Follow #agforum and join the conversation at 8:00 a.m. on the day of the event.

Mere steps from OfficeLinks’ Chelsea, New York offices, you’ll find the hot chocolate that “changed the hot chocolate landscape” in1990, when it made it’s debut in New York.  Note, I did not say “hot cocoa” – I said, “hot chocolate.”  There is a reason for that.

At City Bakery, located at 3 West 18^th Street, you can sip on decadent treat: hot chocolate made from pure melted chocolate bars, making the word “cocoa” forever obsolete when talking about this cold weather favorite. One sip and I know you’ll be forever changed.

And mark your calendar now: Every February, The City Bakery hosts an Annual Hot Chocolate Festival, a celebration of a menu of hot chocolate flavors such as Banana Peel Hot Chocolate, Vanilla Bean Hot Chocolate, Malted Milk Hot Chocolate, Bourbon Hot Chocolate and Sunken Treasure Hot Chocolate.

City Bakery is part bakery, part cafe, coffee bar and cafeteria, in a two-level space at Union Square, that creates seasonal menus from locally-grown and organic raw materials from the Union Square farmer’s market two blocks away. City Bakery serves world-class breakfast pastry, a salad bar buffet like no other for lunch, soups, sandwiches and specialty pizzas. The bakery is open seven days a week, for breakfast and lunch, late afternoon coffee, chocolate drinks and pastries.

If you haven’t yet experienced real hot chocolate or a Pretzel Croissant, you absolutely must head around the corner a Chelsea gem: The City Bakery.  For more information, click here.

There is still room to grow in New York City – and it’s slowly happening on the West Side of Manhattan.   Immediately following New York’s defeat in its bid to host the 2012 Olympics, the fate of the Hudson Yards was not unclear.  Despite the early uncertainty a new neighborhood is starting to emerge.

Since 2005, residential buildings and new hotels have risen west of Eighth Avenue between 30^th and 43^rd Streets.  And, a boom for office space is on the horizon as well.  Related Companies, a major New York developer, announced plans to build a 51-story office tower, which luxury retailer Coach as the anchor tenant.

Development plans are so ambitious for Hudson Yards the city predicts, over the course of the next 20 years, that stretch of New York real estate could have more office space that Baltimore or Stamford, Conn. – reaching an astounding 24 million square feet of office space for the West Side.

We’ll have to see how the construction of the Far West Side progresses through these uncertain economic times.  Any economic hiccup could derail the lofty goals.

The borders around Manhattan’s central business district continue to expand, leaving businesses with more options regarding office space.  We will be following how the revitalization of this underutilized part of the city pans out.

To show their support for sustainability, landlords have converted some prime real estate space in their buildings into bicycle storage rooms for tenants.  These spaces have emerged at some of the most desirable addresses throughout Manhattan.

At the top of the list is the Empire State Building, which opened an 800-square foot bike room at the base of the building.  The space, which normally could have been rented at a premium, was re-designed to store bikes as part of the building’s $550 million renovation to make it environmentally friendly.

While landlords are losing potential revenue at the ground floor level, they certainly understand they can gain a competitive edge in a market that is focused on green construction.   They have also found that bike storage facilities have become an effective marketing tool for attracting future eco-friendly tenants.

If your building offered a bike room, would you bike to work?

You’ll want to be less than 1 mile from OfficeLinks’ Chelsea office space at the Chelsea Market’s Chelsea Wine Vault on Thursday, December 8, 6:30-8 pm. There, Chelsea’s wine experts will walk you through the basics of wine serving so you’ll have enough wine at the right temperature to suit all palates. They’ll also let you taste crowd-pleasers that are affordable enough to bring to all your events – or to order for the group or even give as holiday gifts.

Tickets are $40 per person – get yours today before they’re gone by clicking here.

The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree is typically illuminated from 5:30 a.m. until 11:30 p.m. daily, except on Christmas and New Year’s Eve. On Christmas, the tree is illuminated for 24 hours and on New Year’s Eve the lights are turned off at 9:00 p.m.

Some fun Rockefeller Christmas Tree Facts:

• The Christmas tree that adorns Rockefeller Center is typically a Norway Spruce.
• The minimum requirement is that the tree be 65 feet tall and 35 feet wide, however manager of Rockefeller Center gardens prefers the tree be between 75 and 90 feet tall and proportionally wide.
• Norway Spruce that grow in forests don’t typically reach these proportions, so the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree tends to be one that was ornamentally planted in someone’s front or back yard. There is no compensation offered in exchange for the tree, other than the pride of having donated the tree that appears in Rockefeller Center.
• Over five miles of lights are used to decorate the tree every year.
• Only the lights and the star decorate the tree.
• The tree is recycled and the 3 tons of mulch are donated to the Boy Scouts. The largest portion of the trunk is donated to the U.S. Equestrian team in New Jersey to use as an obstacle jump.

Rockefeller Center is located in the center of the complex of buildings between 47th and 50th Streets and 5th and 7th Avenues, less than 2 miles from the Chelsea OfficeLinks location, less than ½ mi from OfficeLinks’ Grand Central West location, less than ¾ mi from the OfficeLinks Bryant Park, and just over 4 mi from the Wall Street OfficeLinks location.  For more information, see the Rockefeller Center Map.

This is a New York City holiday season tradition that should not be missed!

Findings from a new study by the Kauffman Foundation on the Entrepreneurship Gender Gap reveal women only account for roughly one third of all new business launches.  Women entrepreneurs are also falling behind men when it comes to revenue generation.  Less than two percent of female-led small businesses have revenue exceeding $1 million.  In contrast, more than six percent of male-led firms reported revenue of over $1 million.

Keeping this data in mind, ForbesWoman decided to compile its first annual list of the top 20 cities for women in business.  Criteria that were taken into consideration when compiling the list included:

• What cities have seen the biggest growth in the number of female-led firm in recent years
• Where are the most SBA-backed loans going
• Where are women turning the SBA loans into million-dollar profits

At the top of the list were New York and San Francisco.  The study showed women have an easier time finding the funding and resources that can ultimately make their businesses succeed quicker.  Cities that also made the list include:  Tampa, Fla., Bethesda, Md. and Washington, D.C.

On Monday, October 31 at 11 am and Sunday, November 20 at 2 pm, meet Big Onion Walking Tours in front of the Chelsea Hotel, located at 222 West 23^rd Street (between 7^th and 8^th Avenues), just about a ½ mile from OfficeLinks’ Chelsea offices.  Tours last approximately two hours and cover between one and two miles at a moderate walking pace.

Tickets: $18 Seniors, Active Military and Full-Time Students: $15 (pre-payment not required)

For $35 per person, you’ll taste assorted wines from around the world at varying price points. You’ll have an opportunity to ask any and all questions. It’s time to embrace the almighty grape once and for all!

Buy your tickets here.

Hurricane Irene got us thinking about disaster plans.

The devastating aftermath of Hurricane Irene has brought the discussion of disaster preparedness to the forefront for many businesses – at least in the short-term.

Sadly, it takes a devastating natural or man-made disaster to prompt a company to look at or even consider developing a business continuity plan.

Having a comprehensive disaster recovery strategy in place gives businesses the comfort of knowing they have a system in place that will keep their operations up and running for its customers, partners and employees.

Businesses often encounter the most problems when their facility or office space is damaged.  Having a back up location for your company is essential for your employees.  The following checklist can help you determine what type of back up office your business needs.

Make sure your back up office has:

• Sufficient capacity for supporting your organization
• Adequate security for your personnel
• Skilled staff in place who can provide business support to your employees
• A technology infrastructure to meet your business’ needs

Going through this exercise in advance will save your business a lot of hardship in the future.

On the upside, a Babson College professor looked at this recent challenge as an opportunity for entrepreneurs and said, “Often large disruptions such as natural disasters create the basis for new business opportunities.”