WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN: CAFE LALO LAWSUIT, PS 163 EXODUS, A UWS TEEN’S PRIVACY

Great view of the San Remo from Central Park, by @ebdoherty.

This week’s bulletin includes lawsuits, fires, and all sorts of controversy from in and around the Upper West Side. There’s also a raccoon reading the newspaper.

Cafe Lalo on West 83rd street has been sued by 13 female employees claiming a manager sexually harassed them.  They are seeking $26 million. “The suit alledges he’s often ‘visibly intoxicated’ at work, which enhanced ‘his vile, lecherous and sexually aggressive behavior.'” A lawyer for the cafe said “We do not believe the claims have any merit, although the restaurant and Mr. Lalo take claims of sexual harassment very seriously.” (Daily News)

Parents are beginning to pull their children out of PS 163 because of concerns over the large nursing home project set to rise right next to the school. The project will likely be delayed until next year — if it isn’t scuttled entirely — as state officials consider environmental impacts and parents get set to file a lawsuit. (West Side Spirit)

A teenager talks up the benefits of growing up in an apartment on the UWS. “Not once in the 11 years I’ve lived in a co-op have I felt cramped or deprived of any kind of physical privacy.  I don’t feel deprived at all, and when I (or my friends) want more alone time, we go outside. In fact, there’s hardly a more private place than the streets of New York.” (Brick Underground)

Stretches of West End Avenue and Broadway will get extra cleanup after they started to look a little “trashy.” “Two 10-block stretches of the streets have been pinpointed as problem areas, with visible trash seen spilling out of garbage cans and refuse littering the ground on West End Avenue between 86th and 96th streets and on Broadway between 76th and 86th streets.” (DNAinfo)

A fire Sunday night on the 11th floor of a building on 113th and Riverside Drive injured one person. (Daily News)

Do you want to smell like Central Park? It’s the hot new scent in town! (NY Times)

The bizarre tale of a co-op board at 4 West 105th street. (Habitat Mag)

Excavators found traces of fortifications from the War of 1812 in Central Park. (NY Times)

Franklin Reyes, charged in the death of 4-year-old Ariel Russo last year, has now been charged in another case in which he allegedly dragged a police officer during a traffic stop. How is this guy still driving? Oh, and he’s also got an open larceny charge. “In June, Reyes and his father were also charged with allegedly looting an apartment where the father worked as the superintendent. Police said the father-son duo swiped $2,000 worth of jewelry, cash and electronics from a tenant who had died of brain cancer.” (CBS)

The Flemish roof is long gone from an historic building on 90th and West End. (NY Times)

Riverside Center developers didn’t attend a meeting with neighbors. “A tenants association at 315 West 61st Street was snubbed by developers working on the massive Riverside Center project . Despite being invited, the developers declined to show up to a meeting called by the association seeking an update on construction progress.” (West Side Spirit)

The city has been slow to publish park crime stats. (WSJ)

The Post learns more about the divorced dad living out of a van and seeking a condo on the UWS. “He uses a gas burner to cook and relieves himself in an orange bucket discretely stashed in back of the vehicle.” (NY Post)

In predominantly white neighborhoods, including precincts on the UWS, minorities are more likely to be stopped for quality of life crimes, according to NYPD data from 2001 to 2013. “The disparity in summons activity is highest in the 24th Precinct (Upper West Side – North), where blacks and Hispanics make up just 34% of the population but received an estimated 84% of the summonses, and the 84th Precinct (Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO), where they made up 28% of the population but received 78% of the summonses — both a spread of 50 percentage points. That’s followed by the 20th Precinct (Upper West Side – South) with a 48-point spread, the 19th Precinct (Upper East Side – South) with a 43-point spread, and the 13th Precinct (Gramercy) with a 42-point spread.” (Daily News)

The ups and downs of running in the neighborhood’s various parks. (Columbia Spectator)

The gap between the rich and the poor in Manhattan is the largest of any county in the country. (NY Times)

One UWS couple spent $300 at a downtown Denny’s for their anniversary. The meal included champagne. (Daily News)

In the wake of Jill Tarlov’s and Irving Schacter’s deaths, The Post went to Central Park to see if bicyclists broke the rules. (NY Post) The Times went too. (NY Times)

Some Wall Streeters who train in Central Park are reconsidering if they should be riding so fast. “The accident is sparking soul-searching on online bicycle forums and renewing public debate about whether a sport born on the open road can co-exist with millions of cars, trucks, yellow taxis, pedicabs, runners, skaters, dogs straining at extended leashes, gaping tourists and oblivious pedestrians transfixed by smartphones.” (Bloomberg)

Central Park’s slanted outer stone walls can be frustrating to people who want to sit on them. (Gothamist)

The history of the New York Cancer Hospital on Central Park West, which is now a condo building. (Slate)

More on that church being turned into condos on 96th and Central Park West. (NY Times)

A pedicab with an illegal motor caught fire. “A burned-out shell was all that remained after an illegal motor stashed under a pedicab driver’s ride burst into flames, leaving the dumbfounded operator with a slew of summonses.” (NY Post)

Why it’s important that Tavern on the Green fixes its problems. (Grubstreet)

The Rockfall, an apartment building at 111th street and Broadway, used to have a different facade. Christopher Gray Investigates. (NY Times)

A raccoon casually read the newspaper on 100th street and Central Park West. (Gothamist)

For our last bulletin, click here.