Photo by Ed Yourdon of a Hani Shihada drawing of Rosie the Riveter on Broadway and 97th Street.
July 19, 2012 Weather: Mostly Cloudy, High of 84 Degrees.
Notices:
“The Clock” in Lincoln Center’s Rubenstein Atrium is attracting steady crowds. This morning, for instance, the wait was about 45 minutes. I have heard from multiple sources, however, that it’s worth the wait. Read about it here.
News:
The New Yorker gave a pretty harsh review to Joanne Trattoria, the restaurant on 68th just off Columbus Avenue opened by Lady Gaga’s parents last year. The reviewer describes the artwork as “impressively hideous Mediterranean landscapes.” The foccacia bread “is good in the same way that the garlic bread at Domino’s is good.” The squid “has almost no flavor at all.” And to top it off: “The over-all effect, surely intentional, is of the sort of place Joey from Friends would take a date.” (New Yorker)
The city Transportation Department will end the pilot program to create commercial parking spots on West End Avenue, which apparently brought all sorts of vehicles to the avenue that had no business there. They parked for well over the one hour limit and no one was enforcing the law. We broke the story about how residents were upset with the program. (DNAinfo)
The story of “the last remaining mansion” on Riverside Drive. (Ephemeral New York)
It’s really too bad that Community Board 7 can’t figure out a way to have truck loading on the Upper West Side. Most complaints indicated that people think there is too much double parking. Taking away truck loading will only make this problem worse. This is not a hard problem to solve but takes leadership and hard work. Let’s get to work CB7 transportation committee.
As next door neighbors, we looked forward to trying Joanne Trattoria. Alas, the bad review is accurate. Most disappointing was a menu item described as the owner’s pride and joy: the meatballs. They were simply not good. (Are these people really Italian?) The service was dicey. We noticed that everyone else received foccacia bread upon placing their order. Ours never arrived. I beckoned to the waitress. When she got to the table, I politely pointed to the bread plate and said “What is that?” “It’s a bread plate,”she replied, assuming I do not get out much. I stared at her and after a few seconds the light bulb went on and we received the “Domino’s” foccacia.