A traffic-less street allows for outdoor dining in the middle of Amsterdam Avenue. These folks were eating at the Hungarian Pastry Shop near 111th. Photo by Gailh Klein.

October 12, 2020 Weather: Rainy, with a high of 55 degrees.

Notices:
Our calendar is full of local events, including an online seminar about the crucial question: “What’s wrong with my veggie plant?”

News:
A decades-old ethnic dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, two small former members of the Soviet Union, led to a large demonstration on Saturday in front of the ABC Eyewitness News building, on 66th and Columbus, ABC7 reported. “The demonstrators say the event was meant to bring more attention to a conflict with Azerbaijan that they say is fast becoming a humanitarian crisis. ‘Over the last two weeks, Turkey and Azerbaijan have just preemptively, unilaterally begun attacking the Armenian population. They’re bombing civilians, they’re violating human rights law,’ demonstrator Edward Majian said.”

A dangerous “dip” in the Henry Hudson Parkway caused by overnight construction sent drivers flying the following morning, CBS2 reported on Friday. “CBS2 witnessed many cars driving southbound just past the exit for West 95th Street experience the jarring drop. Sparks flew from one car. A car passing by nearly bottomed out. ‘Next thing I know, I was half airborne, came down, couldn’t see where the roadway, where it was, what was going on. Just smashed in hard,” said driver Steven Schlegel. “Lost the mirror in my car, the entire rim cracked.’”

Soccer, screws, elephants and a food festival are all elements in a dispute between a Harlem kids soccer club and the NYC Parks Department, the New York Post wrote. “Rangers have said the field can only be used for baseball after it was recently resodded, yet appear to be singling out the Elephants, said club manager Joe Lupton in an email to media outlets. Other soccer games have been allowed to continue, according to the club leaders — who suspect the move could be retaliation for publicly complaining about screws left on the fields after a Parks-sponsored food festival.”

There is a wonderful interview with Upper West Sider Mandy Patinkin in The New Yorker, this week. “Patinkin has to some extent flown under the radar as a show-business figure. He has been spending the pandemic at his small, converted farmhouse, in upstate New York, with his wife of forty years, the writer and actress Kathryn Grody, but he has lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan since the nineteen-seventies, and he still maintains a low-enough profile there to shop at Barney Greengrass and Murray’s Sturgeon Shop without causing a stir. (This may be in part because, with his casual hiking clothes, rimless wire glasses, and bushy eyebrows, he blends into the dad-ish neighborhood aesthetic.)”

“Carol Paumgarten, the co-founder and longtime artistic director of Steps on Broadway, a dance studio that became a sweaty New York institution that indiscriminately welcomes elite ballerinas, children in leotards and everyday New Yorkers with ‘Flashdance’ fantasies, died on Sept. 24,” The New York Times reported. “Stars of the dance world like Misty Copeland, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Julie Kent have all trained in front of the mirrors and barres at Steps. So has Madonna. But Ms. Paumgarten strove to make sure that it was equally a haven for everyday New Yorkers who just wanted to dance.”

Finally, few eating-related events have elicited such sadness as when La Caridad 78, the Cuban-Chinese restaurant that had been a staple in the neighborhood for 52 years, closed in July. Now New York Times writer and La Caridad lover from the time he was in high school, Sam Sifton shares the recipes for his favorite Caridad dishes. “This weekend, at long last, I intend to pay homage to the restaurant’s memory, and make my favorite Caridad meal: pork chops in black bean sauce, with yellow rice, black beans and a platter of maduros. Won’t you join me? You won’t be sorry.”

Happy holiday to all, whatever you choose to call it.