From one theater of war to another: The battle for the soul (hahahaha, sorry, give us a minute) of the Meatpacking District is being waged as fiercely as ever. The Villager updates on the state of the conflict:

[A]pproximately 10 in the Meatpacking District... no longer take reservations from the Hotel Gansevoort. Keith McNally, owner of the restaurant Pastis, started the boycott in response to the hotel's recently erected billboard frame, which stretches eight stories high on Hudson St. and will hold ads measuring 1,200 and 670 square feet.

The ban has been joined by neighborhood mainstay and all-around genius Florent Morellet, and it doesn't seem like there'll be peace any time soon. "This is a multi-front war," said the strangely sexy Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation "We're not letting up on any front."

What with yesterday's Post puffer for McNally, it seems like the boycott brigade has the local media well in hand. Your move, Michael Achenbaum.

Billboard food fight in Market gets hot [Villager]
Rush hours [NYP]
Earlier: McNally v. Gansevoort: Salt I Talks Planned