A driver on his way to New Jersey on Wednesday at about 10 a.m. turned West around 88th Street. Unfortunately for him, there is no road there, a fact that neither the GPS nor his own eyes apparently recognized.

The front-wheel drive car got stuck on the stairs, spinning its wheels as the clouds floated by and the geese above cackled heartily to themselves.

From the photo above, it appears that he opened the trunk, perhaps to remove the helicopter blades or floating hovercraft buoys. It is technically true that New Jersey sits West of Manhattan. You just need the right equipment to get there.

Ray Jacobs, who sent us the photo above, talked to the sorry soul:

“The attached photo was taken at 10:00 am on May 1st at the stairs leading down to Riverside Park just south of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument  at 88th St.  The driver explained to me that he was trying to get to a hotel in New Jersey and was just following his GPS,  The car, with Rhode Island plates, could not back up because it is front wheel drive and the front wheels were in the air.”

Sometimes people ask us why we devote an entire category on West Side Rag to Absurdity. The answer from now on will be “this is why.”

If someone can think of a better headline (we agonized over this for 5 minutes), please let us know in the comments and maybe we’ll change it.

Canadian singer Michael Bublé performed a song in the subway station at 66th street Thursday morning, had it filmed, and then advertised it as an impromptu event on YouTube. He’s using it to promote his new album, “To Be Loved.”

“Singing in the New York subway is something that’s been done for years and years, and I feel like it’s the most authentic, organic way to make music,” he told a Yahoo music blog. The video, though, doesn’t feel very authentic. It’s rare to have a full microphone set and hire an a capella group for an impromptu performance, isn’t it?

Anyway, does this guy do it for you? To me, he’s just trying too hard to be Sinatra, and no one can really match up to Ol’ Blue Eyes. But hey, Bublé has sold about 30 million records, so he’s clearly connecting. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Upper West Siders have a reputation as complainers, and now we’ve got hard data to back that up: the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released data that shows that Upper West Siders complained to them more than nearly anyone else about credit card companies, according to an analysis by Bloomberg News.

To be sure, the CPFB did not tally the total complaints to the credit card companies themselves, which is where most people go when they’re upset about charges. They’re just looking at complaints to the CPFB itself, which is an agency created after the financial crisis to help consumers dealing with large financial institutions that maybe, just maybe, are trying to fleece them.

People who live in zip codes 10023 and 10024 lodged a total of 54 complaints to the CPFB in the past two years, behind only the complainers of Boca Raton, who lodged 94 complaints. A total of 18,539 complaints were lodged nationally. Capital One received the most complaints.

The truth is most Americans have never heard of the CFPB and would not go to the trouble of calling them. So the data might just show that Upper West Siders are simply much more informed and willing to get political than other people.

Nonetheless, complaints are complaints, and we do love to complain.

Photo via flickr by cloneofsnake. There is no reason to believe the person in the photo is complaining or is from the Upper West Side…but the expression seemed appropriate.

It’s Macaron Day, and however you feel about that, know this: stores are giving away free macarons!

Among the stores is Epicerie Boulud on Broadway between 63rd and 64th streets. Thanks to Gothamist for the tip. Now go enjoy a butter-cream filled French pastry.

Also, as a rite of spring, Rita’s Italian Ices is giving away Italian ices until 10 p.m. at its store at 2486 Broadway (92nd street)

See below for macaron locations:

View Macaron Day NYC 2013 in a larger map

Photo by kubotake.

The great jazz musician and composer Thelonious Monk lived much of his life at 243 West 63rd Street, just off of West End Avenue. His ground-floor apartment was bursting with creative energy, and was just as messy apparently as most other Upper West Side apartments occupied by non-geniuses:

“Monk’s piano was notorious for its clutter. It occupied a significant portion of the kitchen and extended into the front room. The lid remained closed, since it doubled as a temporary storage space for music, miscellaneous papers, magazines, folded laundry, dishes, and any number of stray kitchen items,” a recent biography noted.

The city honored Monk, who died in 1982, by naming the cul-de-sac on the block where he lived “Thelonious Sphere Monk Circle.” But they left one thing out of the tribute: an O. As you can see in the photo above, the sign spells Thelonious as “Thelonius.”

Now, Upper West Sider Ken Biberaj, a candidate for City Council, is trying to fix the oversight. He’s urging the city to replace the sign in time for a tribute to Monk next week that will feature Monk’s music played by a trio from Juilliard.

“DOT is inspecting the location and will make any necessary adjustments, as needed,” DOT spokeswoman Nicole Garcia told us.

Update: the city changed the sign the very next day after we published our story!

Check out Ken’s letter below:

Letter to DOT about Thelonious Monk Street Sign by Ken Biberaj

Photo courtesy of Ken Biberaj.

Baconery, a bakery/cafe that infuses bacon into sweet dishes and drenches bacon with chocolate, just opened at 911 Columbus Avenue, between 104th and 105th Streets. Don’t ask for the “light” menu.

The idea for the cafe was born when a guy dipped his bacon into some maple syrup and said “Mmm.”

From the website:

“My name is Wesley Klein and I’m a breakfast and dessert kind of guy. One day I was at breakfast and I used my thick-cut bacon to sop up the last remaining drops of maple syrup from my plate and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I eat breakfast for the delicious salty goodness of the bacon. I love dessert for the sugary experience of warm chocolate chip cookies, brownies, syrup on french toast, and more. It only made sense to marry the two together so the world could enjoy it’s long-awaited fantasy.”

The menu is filled with cookies infused with bacon, bacon covered in chocolate and maple bacon blondies.

If you try Baconery, please let us know what you think. Below is their grand opening deal (on Wednesday).

Update: We hear from a commenter that the police started turning people away at 2:30 and that people in line before that got gas.

Photos by Gail Wein and Laura Weiss (top).

At the first sign of danger, Upper West Siders tend to go food shopping. We saw that with Hurricane Irene last year, and we’re seeing it again as Hurricane Sandy approaches. On Saturday night, as the city started to hunker down, so many locals flooded into Trader Joe’s that security had to ask people to wait outside the store in a line. Once enough people exited the next batch could go in, just like in a nightclub. The next day, the line stretched around the block — at least 100 people were waiting.

The thought of going even a day without the right provisions sets off our danger signals. And here, based on a tour of the aisles at a very packed Fairway late on Saturday, is what we buy hoard.

Bread and bagels, but not pita bread

The bread and bagel bins were completely empty. Baguettes ransacked, rolls gone, organic bread snatched. But the pita bread racks looked virtually untouched.

Smoked fish was still well stocked

Turkey burgers, but not sausages

Newman’s pasta sauce, but not the other brands

Barilla pasta

Original and Honey Nut Cheerios (a few desperate people even bought the chocolate flavor.)

Oreos (but not chocolate-filled Oreos), and Original Chips Ahoy (not the chewy kind)

Scallions, but not radishes or artichokes

Also completely gone: large bottles of water, although the more expensive distilled water was still available. Beer, surprisingly, was also available in abundance. But chocolate Haagen-Dasz was in short supply. In fact, I think I got the last pint (sorry).

In line with the general trend, we hear that Silver Moon Bakery was packed with a line out the door, and there was a run on bread and milk at the D’Agostino on 91st and Columbus. Supposedly, Westside Market on 98th had lines at least 200 people long. They were only letting 10 people inside at a time, and folks stuck outside were getting “nasty,” said our food columnist Laura Weiss.

What does this say about us? Sociologists will still be considering that question decades from now, when they find the ruins of our skittish well-fed civilization.

Let us know about your shopping experience in the comments. And follow West Side Rag on twitter and facebook for more serious and un-serious hurricane coverage.

Photos by Avi.

The Upper West Side’s Sticker Bandit is back!

The bandit, who had been quiet for months, pasted new stickers this week on the window of Duane Reade on 79th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, where the bandit says a window-front display has been collecting and displaying dead flies for weeks.

As you can see in the photo above, the stickers say “How Do I Feel About Dead Bugs?” with an arrow pointing to the dead bugs below. A picture of those bugs is below.

It’s a joke about the company’s “How I Feel” campaign. Get it?

If you haven’t been reading West Side Rag for the past few months, you are now asking yourself “Who the Hell is the Sticker Bandit?” In short, the bandit is a person who has been putting stickers on the windows of vacant storefronts and general eyesores with words like “This is Neighborhood Blight” since last year. The Rag first named this person The Bandit, and the person subsequently put up a website at www.stickerbandit.com. We printed the manifesto here.

As new restaurant Sugar & Plumm prepared to open a couple of months ago, someone pasted stickers warning that “Drunk Nannies” were on the way. It was unclear whether it was the work of the same person. “clever, huh?” was all the Sticker Bandit would say.

More recently, the bandit has lain low. Until now.

We asked the Sticker Bandit by email if he or she is worried about getting caught, and whether it’s even legal to paste stickers on businesses. The reply: “they are stickers, jeez. they seem to work.”

A customer service rep we contacted at that Duane Reade didn’t know what we were talking about when we called, and a two minute discussion yielded no new information: in fairness, it must be strange to hear someone calling your store inquiring about dead bugs, stickers, and Sticker Bandits.

For all of our Sticker Bandit coverage, click here.

All photos via Sticker Bandit.