By Carol Tannenhauser
Monday, May 16, 2022
Strong to severe thunderstorms likely, starting around noon. High 73 degrees. Chance of rain 100%.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events! (Click on the lady on the upper right.)
News
On June 16, the Wollman Rink in Central Park will transform into the DiscOasis, “a colorful disco set up with a roller skating rink and dance floor,” according to Audacy. “At the center of the rink, a glittering roller rink fantasy where theatrical performances directed by the Tony Award-nominated David Korins, and lighting designed by the award-winning David Weiner, will take place. Food and beverage service will be available with special menus to be announced soon. Tickets range from $16 to $64.” The disco will run till October 1.
An Upper West Sider wrote a passionate Daily News Op-Ed about dining sheds. “Born of necessity, the sidewalk sheds added a bohemian vibe to the city’s corporate streets and made it possible to gather safely again. They also helped us collectively to begin imagining a future where cars didn’t take precedence over people, where the streets could be given over to commerce and community, and the city could be a little warmer, a little more human. In my neighborhood, the sheds brought a vibrancy that wasn’t there pre-pandemic.” What do you think?
There’s a new “Gold Coast” and it’s in New Jersey, according to PureWow. “Dubbed ‘the next Brooklyn,’ parts of Hudson County, New Jersey—including Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken and West New York—are hotter than ever, and worth a closer look. For many Gen Zs and millennials priced out of NYC’s intense real estate market, an emerging trend is to rent or buy in these towns, an area known as NJ’s ‘Gold Coast’ (which refers to how they hug the Hudson River parallel to Manhattan from the Financial District up to the Upper West Side.)” New Jersey has also legalized recreational marijuana, although the word is it costs a lot!
Read about the noble end of one UWS boiler and the installation of another in Habitat. “After nearly half a century of faithful service, the electric-powered domestic hot water boiler at the Toulaine, a 245-unit co-op at 130 W. 67th St. on the Upper West Side, was on its way out. ‘While the old boiler was still operational, we wanted to get ahead of the game,’ says Steven Hoffman, founder of the co-op’s management company, Hoffman Management. “Proactively, the board decided to make the change to a new boiler….The old domestic hot water boiler was 10 feet long and 6 feet tall; the new boiler is just 40 inches tall.” It cost $170,000.
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NJ’s Gold Coast is building a lot of housing – especially Jersey City. I hope to stay in NYC long-term, but the anti-development sentiment makes the housing shortage more entrenched every year as prices skyrocket. I think the Gold Coast will probably be the best bet for hard working millennial families who can’t pay $3M+ for a family-sized unit and don’t want to live in the suburbs. But I hope NYC can pass zoning reform to reign in the anti-density/anti-growth crowd who are committed to preventing construction of new housing.
Restaurant street shacks?
Rats.
Garbage (including pushed in front of adjoining buildings).
Hampers sidewalk movement.
Noise for those living above.
Inequity – restaurants get free space; retail stores get no help from the City.
Fire safety and emergency access issues (some shacks even block building entrances.)
Blocks transformed into shantytowns.
Sadly don’t feel the restaurant sheds brought “bohemian vibe to the city’s corporate streets” or “vibrancy” – I feel just the opposite.
The sheds have brought garbage, rats, hampered pedestrians etc.
And IMO they actually highlight inequality and corporatism…
Mostly affluent people dining outside weekday and weekend – while the workers schlep ecommerce delivery, elderly try to navigate cramped sidewalks etc.
On the UWS, most of the restaurants are “corporate” – LLCs or wealthy investors.
The mom & pop places are mostly gone.
Twice last week observed empty restaurant sheds while coming down Columbus Ave in bus, stalled in one lane traffic with delivery trucks.
Some restrictions could be done to manage this
untenable situation.
As on all issues around here, it seems like every is in one extreme or the other regarding the sheds, and no one can meet in the middle.
I’m not a huge fan, but I am OK with them if there is some regulation. Require them to be inspected periodically. Fine restaurants if there is garbage piling up around them. And most important, charge the restaurants for this space. It doesn’t have to be market rate for local real estate, but the are getting public space for free, which is particularly egregious when there are so many empty storefronts looking for tenants, and there is also a shortage of parking and/or truck loading/unloading spaces.
I think we can compromise on a solution.
The sheds are an abomination, for all the reasons the above comments listed.
No, the vibrancy doesn’t come from them or the unimaginable privilege of shoveling wild salmon into your mouth as an 18-wheeler puffs a cloud of black smoke right next to you. IF you managed to safely dodge the speeding bikes to get to your shed.
European-style outdoor dining vibrancy comes from European-style pedestrian plazas that can deliver this in a safe, clean and pleasant environment. So, close streets for traffic, reimagine the city, and do it right. Otherwise, get rid of the sheds and return the sidewalks to some sort of normal – though I have no hope Sanitation will step up.
CB7 approved a small bar in my otherwise quiet neighborhood. The shed is half a block long with music blasting, converting the block into a block party. Not what CB7 had in mind. When will the sheds be gone?
ST
The head of the restaurant lobby is on CB 7.
Perhaps you could reach out to him?
Most of the sheds are awful, ramshackle affairs which should be torn down, and even the nicely built ones attract rats and garbage, so I don’t get the vibrancy argument.
What would be great, though, is more sidewalk dining, in the European style. Unfortunately, it only works in some locations, which would have to be managed, else sidewalks would be even messier. In some cases, streets could be closed for this purpose (eg, Stone St in the Wall Street area)
The situation needs to be managed. But we do want restaurants to survive, don’t we?
Please rid our streets of private vehicles! They clutter the streets
I like the sheds very much – when they’re well-maintained, nicely decorated, and do NOT have music blasting from them.
I feel a lot of sympathy for the restaurant owners and staff who stuck it out through COVID years (even in the best of times, keeping a restaurant in business in NYC isn’t easy). A lot of restaurants are probably still paying back rent from when their only business was take-out. If the sheds help them catch up, great.
But please PLEASE stop the loud music. People of all ages live above those restaurants and some of them are still working from home.
I look forward to the day when dining sheds are gone. Most are unsightly, many are noisy, and all trap garbage and attract rats. But primarily I object to the hijacking of public space resulting in sidewalk congestion and compromised pedestrian safety.
So the restaurants “hijacked public space” by creating space for the public to dine/gather, and you want to fix that by returning the curb to privately parked cars? How Is that an improvement?
Totally agree about the dining sheds, they answered a long desired need for peoples’ quality of lives over vehicles in this city. And perhaps will provide to all of us an opportunity to breathe air instead of car fumes.
I don’t get why people are so extreme in these comments. Why not regulate curbside dining and fine restaurants that don’t keep it quiet and clean? Do people really want to turn the curbs back over to people’s parked cars? The sheds make it easier to enjoy the outdoors.