Monday, July 1, 2024
Sunny. High 80 degrees.
Temperatures will be slightly cooler this week, with no rain in the forecast and the hottest day coming on Thursday when it will hit 86 degrees.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
Welcome to the mid-point of the year. Tuesday, July 2, is the 183rd day of 2024.
Thursday, July 4, is Independence Day. It has only been a federal holiday since 1941, but has been celebrated since the Civil War. Banks, schools, and post offices will be closed.
Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks will be launched from barges on the Hudson River for the first time in a decade, meaning views from the UWS will be great. The two-hour live broadcast on NBC and Peacock will start at 8 p.m. on Thursday, July 4th, with fireworks set to launch around 9:25 p.m.
Upper West Side News
By Gus Saltonstall
Elaine Schwartz, a legendary Upper West Side middle-school principal, died at the age of 92 in her neighborhood home last Monday.
Schwartz founded The Center School in 1982 and served as its principal for the next four decades. She started the school with 60 fifth and sixth graders in a building on West 70th Street (it has since relocated to West 83rd Street and Columbus Avenue).
Schwartz retired last year at the age of 91.
“Over time she became synonymous with [the school],” wrote The New York Times in an obituary of Schwartz on Thursday. “She eschewed an office, instead stationing herself at a small desk in the corner of a classroom. She roamed the halls, chatting with students and faculty, and her presence became the glue binding the small community together.”
The Center School runs from fifth to eighth grade, instead of the more typical sixth to eighth grade, and puts students from all four grade levels into the same classes. There are also two shows during the school year in which all students participate.
“We have had the chance to watch them grow, to rely on our sense of humor, and to learn from them,” Schwartz said, in a speech at a recent graduation. “They cannot be quiet but that’s because they have so much to say to each other and to us….The part that is important to me…is that they remember they were in school once where learning was fun and important. Where you could question and argue…..We want them to leave willing and ready to argue, willing and ready to think, and to know that learning should be all of that.”
On a personal note, I attended The Center School, Class of 2010. That time was incredibly important to my development as a person and a student. Many of my closest friends today are people I met in middle school. I am grateful for the extraordinary leadership of Elaine Schwartz. She will be dearly missed.
Central Park was recently named the 18th most-loved attraction in the world, according to Tripadvisor.
“The Travelers’ Choice Awards Best of the Best celebrates the highest level of excellence in travel,” an introduction to the Tripadvisor ranking reads. “It’s awarded to those who receive a high volume of above-and-beyond reviews and opinions from the Tripadvisor community over a 12-month period.”
This year, Central Park ranked ahead of the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, and Petra.
No. 1 on the list? The Empire State Building.
We’ve got New York City pride and all, but it was slightly head scratching to see the Empire State Building beat out the Eiffel Tower, the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia, and the Colosseum.
You can check out the full list — HERE.
After months of back and forth and public outcry, Mayor Eric Adams and Speaker Adrienne Adams shook hands on Friday to signify an agreement on a $112.4 billion budget for the city’s 2025 fiscal year.
Mayor Adams brought a model plane to the budget handshake to indicate that they had “landed the plane.”
Highlights include $58 million in restored funds for libraries, which means most branches can stay open on Sundays. The budget also restored funds for arts programs and cultural institutions, which West Side Rag reported on last week.
“This adopted budget reimagines early childhood education to set our working families and youngest New Yorkers on a path to success,” the mayor said in a news release. “It also allocates a record $26 billion in capital for affordable housing, addresses rising health care costs, ensures hospitals and health care providers are not gouging New Yorkers, and makes numerous investments to improve quality of life by enforcing regulations against illegal cannabis operators and funding our cultural institutions, libraries, parks, transit, and more.”
You can read a breakdown of the budget — HERE.
A recent New York Times article sheds light on “Why More Older New Yorkers Are Ending Up in Homeless Shelters,” mentioning the Upper West Side multiple times.
The number of single adults ages 65 and older in New York City’s homeless shelter system has more than doubled from 2014 to 2022, according to a report released last week. The growth rate is three times that of younger single adults entering the shelter system during the same period.
The article highlights the Valley Lodge shelter on West 108th Street, which helps older residents find permanent, subsidized apartments within two years.
“To this day, I’m not where I want to be, not where I used to be,” Locket Strowder, 61, who recently moved into Valley Lodge, told the Times. “But if I can just stay here long enough, I think I’ll be okay. I’ve got people watching over me.”
Read the full story — HERE.
Finally, after some questionable reviews of the newly reopened Central Park Boathouse, The New Yorker’s Helen Rosner liked it just fine.
“The Boathouse is a beautiful place to eat lunch, especially in fine weather, especially at the easy pace of people with no pressing work to get back to. (Are they rich, or are they tourists?) The meal itself, to be honest, is considerably more satisfying than a pricey tourist-bait canteen has any right to be. The kitchen is now run by the chef Adam Fiscus, with consulting from David Pasternack, a renowned seafood chef who did brilliant things at the late, much-beloved midtown Italian restaurant Esca. They seem to be embracing all the dreamy, Upper West Side-y, tweed-and-loafers Nora Ephron of it all, with a menu evocative of a Reagan-era (but Dukakis-voting) luncheon party.”
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Broadway between 75/76 (west side) is a mess this morning. Our friendly neighborhood antisemites have shredded the posters of kidnapped hostages and they are either hanging from the columns or horribly littered on the sidewalk.
This is the best we can expect from antisemitic fans of Hamas. They are in our midst and they are disgusting.
Post no bills!
I know we all hate it when commenters bring politics into their posts, but I just have to say that anti-city rants by a certain presidential candidate really make me angry. Things aren’t always great here in NYC, and we all know they’ve gotten worse lately, but it’s not the apocalyptic hellscape he paints it to be.
Or else why would travelers rate it so highly? I don’t need Trip Advisor to tell that they love Central Park. Every time I go there, I see people form all over the world enjoying it.
(I’m baffled by the Empire State win, though. But, hey, I’ll take it.)
So, in conclusion, we are gonna wait for the pure “apocalyptic hellscape” in order to get angry at the right things (not “certain presidential candidate”) and act to fix things?
Because the whole “gotten worse lately” is what matters – and tells you enough about the abilities of those in charge to effect positive change.
“They seem to be embracing all the dreamy, Upper West Side-y, tweed-and-loafers Nora Ephron of it all, with a menu evocative of a Reagan-era (but Dukakis-voting) luncheon party.”
Will someone please translate?
RCP. Translation is rich but pretending to be too cool to care about wealth.
Older people in our neighborhood are becoming homeless because we have a severe housing shortage. People think that we are building a lot of new housing, but the Upper West Side is actually losing housing!
“Council District 6 on the Upper West Side recorded negative housing production, losing more housing as a result of merged units, the report found.” https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-affordable-housing-built-disproportionately-in-communities-of-color-report-finds
When I and my brother were applying for middle school, Center School was located in PS 199. It sounds like it is now maybe in PS 9 or it has its own building. Ms. Schwartz sounds like an amazing educator. I wonder if there are students now whose parents went to the school.
I think the 5th through 8th grade system makes more sense
Gives kids more time in 1 school…
Yes, it’s been part of the ps9 building for many years now.
Elaine Schwartz was a treasure. She created this beautiful, chaotic, dynamic school that paved the way for thousands of students to excel at their later exploits in life, including my two daughters who had the privilege of attending Center School. Elaine was extraordinary in her spirit and creativity and patience. I know she will be deeply missed by myself and the Center School community. My only consolation is that the remarkable school she founded goes on inspiring and improving the lives of middle schoolers.
Dear Taco Tuesday. Why do you think the people tearing down the Hostage posters live on the UWS ? Personally I doubt it.
oh they definitely do. My whole block rips em down. We’re sick of it
Sad to hear the Hamas supporters are vandalizing our neighborhood.
Call the cops when you see them tearing down the hostage posters that are on private property!
This is America, not Israel. Not everyone here is into your cause, and we’re not into people smearing our streets in propaganda.
There is a diversity of opinion in this neighborhood, like it or not. And people you disagree with aren’t ‘terrorists’ by a long shot
Photos of hostages, some Americans, and some murdered, are not propaganda
Agreed. Just because you disagree with the policies of the government of Israel does not make a person pro-Hamas or an anti-semite.