Photo by Jordan Cooper from his roof at 96th and West End.
September 12, 2016 Weather: Sunny, with a high of 77 degrees.
Notices:
An appearance by Dave Barry and more local events are on our calendar.
The annual Yarn Crawl will run from Friday, September 23 through Sunday, September 25th this year, with an event at Knitty City. More here.
Primary elections are on Tuesday. Find your polling place here.
News:
The Museum of Natural History has filed plans for its new buildings and they’re a bit bigger than previously envisioned. The museum has increased the proposed size from 218,000 square feet to 235,000 square feet. The museum has scheduled an info meeting on Tuesday night, and it’s on our calendar.
Bullying at Beacon High School forced a father to pull his daughter out of the school. “When she met with the principal the following Monday morning, she admonished our daughter for being ‘very opinionated’ and refused to take any concrete action, not even the seemingly obvious step of seizing a learning opportunity to engage students in civil debate, meaning free of ad hominem attacks or threats of physical assault.”
Bill Telepan talked to Food Republic about why his restaurant closed in May: “Bill Telepan, who closed his eponymous Upper West Side restaurant earlier this year. ‘Our rent was sizable, but it was manageable. I had a few more years on my lease, but what forced me to close was a combination of things — taxes, payrolls and higher labor costs. They all have an effect on the smaller chef-owner restaurants. All these factors were making me raise prices. You can’t be a special-occasion restaurant when you want to serve community on a regular basis.'”
An employee A former employee at Noi Due pizza restaurant was arrested for an attack on two Muslim women in Bath Beach. Update: Noi Due has posted on Facebook that the alleged attacker has not been employed there since February and “This attack is contrary to our ideals and we condemn same.”
West-Park Presbyterian cancelled a talk after finding out the presenter was a 9/11 Truther. “On Tuesday the church canceled the rental contract. “The event was presented to us without full disclosure” when McGuire rented the space, Rev. Robert Brashear told Haaretz. “Reading the advertisement we concluded their activities are clearly anti-Semitic…we can’t let that go forward.”
Mylan, under fire for Epi-Pen price increases, also faces scrutiny over its contracts with NYC schools. “State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Tuesday that he’s opened an anti-trust probe into Epi-Pen manufacturer Mylan Pharmaceuticals for “potentially anti-competitive terms” in its contracts with local school districts.”
Photo by Renee Lucier.
I applaud West Park Presbyterian for cancelling this guy’s speech.
However, a quick Google search of this man provides an abundance of information that he is an anti-Semite conspiracy theorist screwball.
The church should have been more careful about inviting him in the first place.
@Sherman “Ditto”
I don’t think he was invited, I think he rented their space. Kudos to them for standing up to hatred and bigotry, despite a loss in revenue.
So as I said when it first came out, Telepan closed because the prices were too high.
The only reason why my family stopped going like we used to go about once a month. The prices had gotten out of hand. They had reached a level that were almost comp to Dovetail or Lincoln or Boulud Sud, and with all due respect, Telepan is not at that level.
Yes, but it was interesting to hear him say that it was not the rent that was the problem, it was taxes and labor costs. When the story about the closure ran here in May, there was much wailing about “landlord greed.”
New York City taxes commercial property at almost eight times the residential rates, elsewhere the average is a bit under two percent. Then there are the ever increasing water and sewer rates.
The Bloomberg era property tax increases passed in 2003 were the largest in NYC history and are still reverberating. Reassessments mean even if the property tax rate does not increase you are still paying more.
Businesses most always are required to pay a property owner’s taxes in whole or part as a condition of their lease. When rates increase it is passed directly on from the LL to whomever rents or is renting the space.
All this is piled onto ever increasing labor costs that are only increasing in future as the $15/hr. minimum wage is implemented.
New York City businesses are some of the most over regulated in the country. The Department of Consumer Affairs alone licenses nearly 60 different types of businesses, and depending upon the nature of the enterprise some places may need more than one license.
Restaurants in particular complain the City uses the DOH to basically shake them down for money via fines often incurred not for serious violations, but honest business owners trying to interpret rules/laws that are either outdated and or incomprehensible. For instance did you know a restaurant cannot soak silverware?
Long story short if you are a business with very narrow margins NYC become increasingly financially impossible if not hostile place to do business.
Laundromats, dry cleaners, diners, small “mom and pop” type stores, restaurants, etc… are closing all over the City but in particular Manhattan because they simply afford to remain open. In their place we often get international or national chains/franchises, and or places that sell “boutique” type goods or services at vastly inflated prices.
Re: Museaum Expansion Plans Get Bigger
start the review process over
Go to the meeting tomorrow night, 7 – 9, at the museum. Express your opinion there.
Apparently expressing one’s opinion about the museum’s expansion plans falls on deaf ears–the plan is being railroaded through, and those of us in the neighborhood who object are not being listened to. The neighborhood is up for grabs to the highest bidder, and the residents be damned.
People hear you, but you one of maybe 15-20 people on the entire UWS who aren’t in favor of this expansion. So you are given the appropriate amount of attention.
Anyone else getting buzzed in their apartments from Micah Lasher supporters? Apparently someone in my building buzzed one in then he went floor to floor knocking on every door. Pretty obnoxious if you ask me…
Anyone have info on his policies versus his opponents? Would love to not support him.
So funny. I get harassed from his campaign multiple times per day, not to mention endless mailings, flyers in our lobby, Facebook Sponsored Ads, etc etc. Even his “mom” stopped me to implore that I vote for him. More than once within an hour (on way to and from store). I finally told a campaigner today that because of their nonstop annoyance — without even remembering my face! — they lost a vote.
Yesterday we received 2 separate pieces of direct mail from the Lasher campaign on top of all the other mailings we have received virtually every other day for the last several weeks. We get a phone call from the campaign a few times a week and have had the bell rung by canvassers 5 or six times. Lasher seems to have a problem with the efficient use of resources and judgement regarding when a candidate becomes just plain annoying.
When my daughter went to interview at Beacon the essay question they asked her to compare and contrast the positive and negative effects of social media…Obviously Ruth the Principle didn’t read it…My daughter had been cyber bullied at her NYC public HS and they couldn’t do enough and the principle and the faculty took immediate action. Public or Private it is getting out of hand.
Beacon High School is no longer on the Upper West Side, and has been located in the West 40s since before the beginning of the last school year, so please explain why this story about bullying (which did not happen during the current school year) is news that belongs on this website.
Our kids learn bullying from us adults.
Bullying is an entrenched part of contemporary American culture, whether individuals at home or at work or pervasive messages in the media, advertising, TV shows like the Simpsons, etc. Bullying and poor treatment of others is everywhere.
Maybe, maybe not.
Nine times out of ten those who bully are all mouth and trousers. If you call them out and or stand your ground (even if that requires force) they often slink away with their tail between their legs.
Until rather recently bulling at school was handled not much differently than that famous scene out of “Bells of Saint Mary’s”. The picked upon finally got fed up and handed out a beating. If he or she couldn’t usually a sibling stepped up to do the job.
Fast forward to modern times and everything has to be talked to death by adults (the school), this includes meetings with parents. This usually amounts to no more than finger wagging at the aggressor and his parents because schools largely have been defanged. Suspend a kid today and the parent will threaten all sorts of actions, and usually win.
Loud mouth adults have spawned equally unpleasant children for years, this is nothing new. What has changed is now schools and society deal with the situation.
Go back to school and learn to spell!
“The noun principle and the noun and adjective principal are often confused. Although pronounced alike, the words are not interchangeable in writing. A principle is broadly “a rule of action or conduct” ( His overriding principle is greed) or “a fundamental doctrine or tenet” ( Their principles do not permit the use of alcoholic beverages). The adjective principal has the general sense “chief, first, foremost”: My principal objection is the cost of the project.The noun principal has among other meanings “the head or director of a school” ( The faculty supported the principal in her negotiations with the board) and “a capital sum, as distinguished from interest or profit” ( The monthly payments go mostly for interest, leaving the principal practically untouched).” – https://www.dictionary.com/browse/principal
but you know Stay in school!, sometimes ideas are more important than their spelling.
I believe that because I spent 10 years at University.
Or as Mary Tyler Moore helpfully explained once in her character as Mary Richards, when the subject of the correct spelling of this word in its various guises came up, “Remember, the principal is your pal.” (Said in a perky way, of course.)
well, i guess i’m alone in my reaction.
my impression was that this kinda’ stereotyped unmarried women, but, again i seem to be a party of one on this, so that’s it.
@B.B.
I’ll wait for the independent women and men to reply before i provide my thoughts.
replies, i expect, will be forthcoming…
As I recall Mary Richards was a spinster. If she went around correcting grammar all the time I shouldn’t wonder why.
To who are you addressing that comment?
“To whom”…
Yes, as the recent very sad story out of Staten Island proves, bullying is not going away, nor do many schools seem able or willing to get a handle on things.
Telepan – “taxes, payrolls and higher labor costs.” Must all be in his head. We’re told by our NYC pols that regulation, taxes and minimum wage floors have no effect. Clearly he should spend more time in the government rather than the real world
Well, I read it as the normal cost of doing business prevented Telepan from staying in business. Maybe he just isn’t a good businessman. Blaming taxes, payroll and labor costs for his problems is like blaming the sky for the rain.
What *you* might consider normal CODB and those who have to pay probably are quite different.
Businesses both past and present either close or move due to various costs (labor, taxation, etc…) and or regulatory environment.
Both New York State and City have ranked near or at dead last as having favorable business climate. Entire industries from textiles to manufacturing have largely fled. While still relatively strong the remaining pillar of both economies, Wall Street, is shrinking as well.
Again you are seeing how this plays out by what is closing and what opens or remains.
Why is it necessary to identify the attacker of the two Muslim women as an employee at Noi Due pizza restaurant? That is the only fact linking this event to the UWS without which such a story wouldn’t be reported on this site. There was no need to drag a local restaurant into this story about an attack in Brooklyn.
For a standard assault or other crime it usually wouldn’t be. But this has become a notorious case that’s receiving global press attention and it has a local connection. We have updated the post to indicate that Noi Due says the alleged attacker has not worked at the restaurant since February. WSR
That’s a real stretch. This website promotes itself in the top right corner as “News about the Upper West Side of NYC” which this article clearly isn’t.
If you’re merely satisfied filling up the news section with quantity, then you can find plenty of “notorious” events around the world that have some connection to the UWS.
This article exhibits poor standards of journalism and sheds a bad light on a local business for no reason other than a desperate need to fill up the column.
Disagree, but appreciate the feedback. There’s no desperate need to fill up the column. There’s always more than enough news about the UWS.