Hundreds turned out for a screening of West Side Story in the Lincoln Center plaza on Friday. Photo by Harriet Flehinger.
August 31, 2015 Weather: Mostly cloudy, with a high of 92 degrees.
Notices:
The Metropolitan Opera will be showing its annual summer HD series this week in the central plaza at Lincoln Center. Check out that and many more events on our calendar.
A hip and exciting downtown literary/music series called Happy Ending will be relocating to Symphony Space in November. Oh yeah, we’re hip and exciting!
If you see graffiti around the neighborhood above 86th street, you can contact the 24th precinct’s resident Graffiti Coordinator Jennifer Toro. Her email jennifer.toro@nypd.org.
From Mark Levine’s office: “Movement Speaks is holding multiple free dance classes for citizens of all ages, throughout the fall on Fridays from 10:30am -12 pm at the George Bruce Library at 518 West 125th Street. Classes have a special focus on senior citizens and are open to those of all abilities. Visit their website for more information.”
Buildings still burning dirty heating oil are breaking the law. Find out if your building is on the list here.
News:
You can buy the apartment at 345 West 88th street where Babe Ruth lived from 1929 to 1940. It’s on the market for $1.595 million and had an open house on Sunday. “My fondest memories [of the apartment] are of me and Father listening to the ‘Green Hornet’ on the radio and looking out to Riverside Park,’’ the Yankee legend’s daughter, Julia Ruth Stevens, 98, told The Post from her home in Conway, NH…During their time on 88th Street, the Ruths had the entire 11-room, seventh floor before it was divided into two units at some point after they moved to 173 Riverside Drive. The apartment currently up for grabs is one of those units.”
A woman who is accused of dining-and-dashing and shoplifting on the UWS this weekend slipped away from cops in the financial district.
Curbed explores why the Cathedral of St. John the Divine isn’t landmarked. That’s one reason why these rental apartments were allowed to be built.
WNYC investigates how tenants in New York lost their political clout.
Some intriguing local history now has its own sign. Stones placed in a small park on West End Avenue between 63rd and 64th street were dug up from a large embankment that was created to allow a railroad to travel over a tidal lagoon there in the 1850’s. A sign was recently placed at the spot.
A fun opera group played a free concert at Richard Tucker Plaza in Lincoln Square.
Excellent news about the Graffiti Coordinator! In San Francisco they have a Graffiti Advisory Board with reps from all the city’s districts, the group has helped get legislation passed and has initiated abatement and prevention programs. Good thing to have someone focused on it.
Are we hip? Or not….Mixed messages on the UWS:
“A hip and exciting downtown literary/music series called Happy Ending will be relocating to Symphony Space in November. Oh yeah, we’re hip and exciting!
If you see graffiti around the neighborhood above 86th street, you can contact the 24th precinct’s resident Graffiti Coordinator”
I was always under the impression that Babe Ruth lived in the Ansonia building.
Well, apparently, Babe Ruth “lived around” in NYC. He is listed as having lived in the Ansonia as well –- among some 29 other celebrities (Wikipedia link included).
Wiki’s list (headed “Notable Residents”) is comprised of many musicians (including Caruso) because the walls, I heard, are 4 feet thick in that hotel. (Correct me if I’m wrong.)
The movie, “The Sunshine Boys” was set there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ansonia
“George Washington Slept Here”
— and maybe also George Herman Ruth:
I was under the impression that Babe Ruth lived at the *Alamac Hotel*, 160 West 71st Street. (Excerpt from site and its link provided below.)
“Additionally, many baseball teams while in New York stayed at the hotel. One of the hotel’s most famous sport celebrities of the time was New York Yankee’s player Babe Ruth (George Herman Ruth, Jr.) who actually took up residency and lived at the hotel.”
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/hotel-alamac-nyc-1922-jos-heinrich-19943327
Does the chalking up of sidewalks count as graffiti?
there’s gotta be a mistake on the Babe Ruth information above.
Babe Ruth did live in the Ansonia when he was having some of his best years with the Yankees. At some point he moved to 110 Riverside (corner of 83rd) where he lived the last years of his life, maybe 10 or 11 years (or more), often waiting sadly by the phone to get a call to manage in the major leagues… a call that never came.
there is a plaque on the 83rd Street side of 110 Riverside saying that Ruth lived there and i believe it gives the years. And that he died in this apartment.
The Babe, arguable the greatest baseball player in history and also arguable the man who brought MLB to prominence, deserves a much much larger plaque.
you can see the tiny plaque on google maps street view. i couldn’t get close enough in the street view to read it.
When it is said that he “lived” in the Alamac Hotel and in the Ansonia Hotel, what is meant? The buildings were hotels. Were these short stays? Were these hotels rented by the day, the month? Did anyone live there on a yearly basis?
Ruth had an apartment at the Ansonia and it was his primary residence. In the old days, well to do people often stayed at hotels on a year round basis. See “Eloise of the Plaza.”
So, when Babe Ruth lived in the Ansonia, he could have had a sing-along with Arturo Toscanini, Igor Stravinsky, Enrico Caruso, Lauritz Melchior, Lily Pons and Ezio Pinza.
I’m jealous.
The Times claims he lived at all the sites named:
“The Babe was a devotee of the Upper West Side, living for many years at the Ansonia Hotel on Broadway and 73d Street, and then successively at 345 West 88th Street, 173 Riverside Drive, at 89th Street, and 110 Riverside Drive, at 83d Street.”
So if he moved to 110 Riverside in 1940, he lived his last 8 years there.
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/07/nyregion/fyi-057908.html
“For many years, it was known as the Almanac Hotel and was frequently used by Babe Ruth.”
More info on the accused dining-and-dashing/shoplifting escapee, Tiffany Neumann: “the police said she was arrested on Saturday after she left the Hi-Life Bar and Grill on Amsterdam Avenue without paying her bill and then went to a store down the block, where she stole clothing.” – The New York Times
I also saw this girl on Saturday morning at Oasis Nail salon on 98th & Broadway. She came in around 10am and acted as if she wanted a manicure (asking about pricing for a polish change vs. a manicure), then proceeded to sit down in the waiting area and paint all of her nails by herself. It was very weird. When an employee tried to usher her to a chair so that she could do her manicure she awkwardly stated that she needed to use the restroom, then spent 30-40 minutes in there before the employee knocked on the door asking if she was ok. Shortly afterwards she came out of the bathroom and told the employee that she needed a cigarette before sitting down for her manicure. I bet you can guess what happened next, she bolted out of the door and never came back.
It’s a pet peeve of mine that there is no large “Babe Ruth lived here” plaque anywhere on the UWS, as far as I know.
there is a display case of Ruth memorabilia inside the lobby of the Ansonia. There also is a tiny, almost unnoticeable plaque on 110 RSD, on the 83rd Street side.
The great Babe Ruth certainly deserves far more commemoration than he is currently given by the UWS. At the very least, there should be a large plaque on 110 Riverside, where he spent his last years.