Editor’s Note: As part of a regular West Side Rag series, artist Michelle Hill interviews and draws Upper West Siders. This is the tenth installment in our Portrait of a Neighbor series.
By Michelle Hill
Name: Paul R 
When and where were you born?
I’m a child of the 50’s, born in the Yonkers area.
Why did you move to the Upper West Side?
As with most suburban kids, moving to the city is the cycle of life. Grow up in the suburbs, move to the city after college, get a job, get married, have a kid and move back to the suburbs (I’m still resisting the final leg of the cycle).
What have you been doing here?
Living, playing, working. Enjoying the best of what a city can offer. Since the economic downturn, I’m mostly just a dad and baseball coach. FYI; I think the Upper West Side has the largest Little League in the world (97 teams!). PS. Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, etc etc etc all lived on the Upper West Side and Lou Gehrig, the greatest baseball player of all time, went to college at Columbia U.
How long have you been on the Upper West Side?
Over 25 years.
What do you miss about the old Upper West Side?
I miss cheap rent, but not much else. There was a reason why they shot “Death Wish” and “Panic in Needle Park” on the Upper West Side in the 70’s; because this place was a mess and it was dangerous.
What do you love about the Upper West Side?
Location, Location, Location. The Upper West Side is the greatest city to live in the world (it blows away Paris, San Francisco, Rome, LA, Sydney, Moscow, Auckland, London, Hong Kong, Zurich, etc, etc, etc ok maybe not Zurich). Central Park on one side and Riverside Park on the other and some of the world’s greatest culture squeezed in-between. The performing arts mecca of the world: The Beacon, Jazz, Thalia, Kaufman, Lincoln Center is like a giant world class performing arts festival every day all by itself!. Great restaurants (Picholine, Lincoln, Boulard, Fiorello, Per Se, Landmarc, Jean George, etc, etc, etc) and cheap eats too (Westside Diner, Jalepeno, La Caridad, Grays Papaya, Ollies) not to mention the amazing selection of food markets (Citarella, Zabars, Fairway and now Trader Joe’s, are you kidding me?!). Great Schools; Fordam, Columbia (didn’t the president go there?), Julliard, LaGuardia High School (the most famous high school in the world, how many high schools had there own TV show and 2 blockbuster movies made about it?!). I love that there is a bike path along the Hudson River all the way to Inwood. And I really love that I can walk everywhere. What people don’t understand about NYC is that it really is the only small town left in America, because NYC repeats itself every 4 blocks. Most people live their lives in a 4 block radius; school, work, eat, play, shop, Starbucks; repeat. You can’t leave your home without walking into 10 people you know. In the suburbs you get in your car and go to the drive-thru window; very anonymous. Also, I love that my kids can walk across the street to school and that I sometimes go weeks without getting in a car or subway.
What do you hate about the current Upper West Side?
The noise and congestion. I hate construction and scaffolding on every other block. “It was O. Henry who once wrote that ‘New York will be a great place — if they ever finish it.” I hate that Barnes & Noble closed at Lincoln Square and that the only place to buy a music CD is at Starbucks. I hate that the West Side Highway has the best view in NY. I hate that getting into a good public middle or high school is harder than getting into Yale. I hate that the Upper West Side is so great that many Upper East Siders are moving here.
If you had a wish list for the new mayor what would it be?
Expedite the proposed plan to bury the West Side Highway from 72nd to 59th street under Riverside Blvd. Reduce the size of “fire hydrant no parking zones” to 5 feet (when was the last time you saw a fire hose hooked up to a fire hydrant or a fire truck try to parallel park into the hydrant zone space (oh that’s right… never!). Make Times Square and Central Park “pedestrian only” all the time. Eliminate all fences in Central Park, before the Central Park Conservancy turns Central Park into a park museum (give a kid a chance to feel grass and dirt under his feet and don’t make it illegal to climb a tree). Extend Riverside Park, by building a giant pier park from 68th to 59th street like they did in Chelsea and Greenwich Village (why are you just letting all those ancient pier pilings just rot). Make developers build more schools. If you are going to bring 20,000 people into a zip code, you are going to need a couple of schools… ya think?. No new school, no new high rise luxury condo!. Make education a priority so all neighborhoods can have good schools. Oh and make it illegal for Upper East Siders to move here. 🙂
Love these comments and agree totally if only living here for 5 years.
By the way, I am a child of the 50’s, lived in Yonkers and would love to know who Paul R is. We may have gone to school together.
I agree with his analysis of the residential cycle of life, sans the final step , i.e., return to the burbs.
I grew up in a really small town in NJ. The town was so small that it didn’t have enough people to frequent the local tavern to keep it open — so it went out of business along with a lot of other mom and pop shops.
I can’t image living anywhere else but NYC.
I moved from the village to the UWS 18 years ago. There is nothing like the UWS. It has everything — great food, shops, entertainment and an eclectic group of people who live here — artists, writers, musicians, doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs(?).
The Upper East Side is stodgy and boring. It lacks the vibrancy of the UWS. You don’t see anybody on the streets in the East 80’s after 8:00 p.m. On the UWS life goes on 24/7.
But, keep that a secret — we Upper West Side folks don’t want to be invaded by a horde of East Siders.