Editor’s Note: As part of a regular West Side Rag series, artist Michelle Hill interviews and draws Upper West Siders. This is the twelfth installment in our Portrait of a Neighbor series.
By Michelle Hill
An interview with Upper West Sider Stephanie Blackwood.
Where were you born?
Great Bend, Kansas….on the great bend in the Arkansas River (before it ran dry)
Why did you move to the Upper West Side? What have you been doing here?
I left Hell’s Kitchen when some crack-crazed teenagers threatened me with a knife and suggested that I mind my own business. I paid attention, took their advice and moved. It was the 90s, after all. In the 22 years I’ve lived here, I’ve started 4 successful marketing communications agencies, helped start a health care clinic in Dakar, and launched a new career in fundraising.
How long have you been on the Upper West Side?
Moved to West 69th Street in 1991 and have been here off and on since…18 months in LA, 18 months in DC, 9 months in Senegal…I always come back.
What was the WILD west like?
There were many more bars on Columbus Avenue through the 90s…and that made it fun and noisy and a great party scene.
What do you miss about the old Upper West Side?
Cheap eats. Telling tourists that it really is okay to go into Central Park. More room on the sidewalks. A certain pride that this was the LIBERAL Upper West Side.
What do you love about the Upper West Side?
Everything but especially the lovely neighbors and helpful merchants I’ve come to know through the 69th Street Block Association, the first group of its kind in NYC!
If you had a wish list for the new mayor what would it be?
More bike lanes, support for small business owners, fewer street festivals…NO, get rid of the street festivals, which contribute nothing original or particularly interesting to any neighborhood. Mixed-age day care for young and old…I don’t have a clue how it would work but I think it would be good for everyone.
it takes courage to criticize the big avenue ‘festivals’ (in particular) and call them what they are: midways minus rides.
apart from an excuse for the citizens to stroll the street free of vehicle traffic for a day, they bore. with the same vedors jumping not only from festival to festival but also within it—repeating stations every five blocks or so—they lack charm everywhere except where they mount a performance stage.
why is this? fees? the harlem week street festivals attracted widely different vendors than the columbus avenue street ‘festival’. i found it interesting.
an insightful person and a “real” West Sider. thank you.
Yes, please! Get rid of those street festivals! I’m so sick & tired of crowds coming into the neighborhood to look at the same pair of tye-dyed blue jeans, the same lousy food, the same potted plant. Residents are left to pick up the garbage for days. Surely, their time has come!
Great piece but barely expresses her generosity, grace, humor, courage and contributions. Let’s have a feature story now.
Ditto Carol Winer — this was nice to see but Blackwood is easily the subject for a full feature by someone. And PS, while I haven’t lived there for years, I too thought it was brave to so accurately criticize the “neighborhood” festivals.
Love the portrait and the interview. It’s sad the UWS has definitely changed in the past 20 years. I also think block parties should be in the inner streets and not avenues creating traffic nightmares.
Love the portrait and the interview. It’s sad the UWS has definitely changed in the past 20 years. I also think block parties should be held in the inner streets and not avenues creating traffic nightmares.