Coffee, crepes and more are coming to the Upper West Side.
Espresso Matto is opening a new location on Columbus Avenue between 85th and 86th Street in the former home of a dry cleaners. “Seems like an odd place given that Joe’s is right on the next corner, but then people do drink a lot of coffee!” Rebecca notes. Espresso Matto also took over the old Filicori Zecchini space on 95th and Broadway earlier this year. Thanks to Sharon for the photo.
TAP NYC, a crepe shop, is slated to open at 267 Columbus Avenue near 72nd Street sometime this winter, according to GrubStreet in an article about how tapioca crepes are the next hot breakfast food. TAP “will market their own boxed tapioca for the home cook, carving out an exotic alt-flour niche in a post-pancake world.”
Popular Community Bank is opening on Broadway between 108th and 109th while its location on Broadway and 111th just closed. That location “had been there ever since I moved to the city in the early 90s” Robert tells us.
After an extensive renovation, Corcoran Group Real Estate is opening new offices at 70th and Columbus in the former home of Amber restaurant (which moved across the street).
Are you in the Halloween spirit yet? Well, there’s a Spirit Halloween pop-up open now on the East side of Broadway between 102nd and 103rd.
I wonder if espresso Matt Wil also do “everything $2” like the one on 95th has..that’s a great deal
Tapioca crepes are the next hot breakfast food.
“an exotic alt-flour niche in a post-pancake world”
Oy.
I give it six months.
ditto.
And the development insanity goes on–as a 25-year resident of 86th Street, I can say with some authority, WE DON’T NEED MORE RESTAURANTS AND COFFEE JOINTS! These places will be out of business within a year.
Any place that serves decent espresso and isn’t a Starbucks gets my vote.
Bring them on I say!
As a 30 year resident I completely disagree and say the more coffee and restaurants the better. But let’s stop with the 30 story condos already.
“But let’s stop with the 30 story condos already.”
When will the developers overplay their hand– by making the neighborhood so overcrowded that people will start finding it less desirable, causing real estate values to start plummeting?
as a 45 year resident i disagree with you both
but it takes time to develop a real UWS attitude
If that happens, the marketplace will have proved you absolutely right.
Of course, if that *doesn’t* happen, the marketplace will have proved you absolutely wrong.
Isn’t it neat the way that works?
86th Street resident for 16 years and live right around the corner from both.
Yes we do, they bring people, jobs, taxes and provide for a real need. The diner on 86th and Columbus has been empty for years and we need a new 24 hour diner. You guys complain about banks, they do nothing for the community, these small business do wonders for our neighborhood. Let’s support them!
Agreed! There really aren’t that many independent coffee shops in the 80s–there are lots of Starbucks locations, sure, but I don’t find their coffee to be particularly good, and I’d prefer to support a local business anyway. My go-to was always Oren’s, but they’re gone. Yes there are a few other options, but I’d much rather have another independent restaurant or or coffee shop rather than another bank or CVS.
I would LOVE to see more diners in the area.
Get a load of the Bloomingdales Outlet banner offer at the top.
They sell $800 shoes but are trying to entice shoppers to come in with an offer of a free frozen yogurt IF a shopper spends $50.
We need shops that reflect our make up
not ones that try to put us on a tourist
shopping tour.
There’s already a crepe shop on 72nd btwn Columbus and Amsterdam. Is that a thing now?
I think one recently closed in the neighborhood. You can’t pay rent with overpriced, unsatisfying crepes.
UWSSurfer – you should such a store then. Any ideas?
This does reflect “us”. These shops are who we are.
i don’t got no $800 shoes.
oh, oh
i’m in the out-group
“We need shops that reflect our make up”
Sooner or later you are going to have to come to terms with the notion that the ‘make up’ of the UWS is continuing to evolve. There are no walls around it. If people have the will and the money they will move here, and that is changing and will continue to change what “our” means.
What is happening with the Trader Joe’s on Columbus and 92nd? It appears there has been no construction progress.
Amster Thai is opening on Amsterdam between 101&102 (was glue free bakery). Lava Kitchen is opening on Broadway between 101& 100 (in old Sura spot).
That’s Gluten free
so it’s got glue?
All I can say is this place will be a tight squeeze. I remember the dry cleaners that was there and it is a tiny space.
Matto is filling an unmet niche — Joe’s line is too long, and Birdbath does not have espresso (only drip coffee). So now you can get an espresso drink to accompany your tasty Birdbath food item.
Joe, while great for coffee, has a long line at times, so a new coffee shop is desperately needed.
And Joe’s espresso is not that great, so a competitor is welcome.
Gastronomie has excellent espresso (Illy) a block south of Joe.
As a resident of 84th street for more than 35 years, I miss the old mom and pops and some great restaurants that where around the hood that had to go because of rents. It is becoming way too rich for my taste.
Anybody know what’s going into the old Bang and Olufsen storefront next to Starbucks on 76/Columbus?
Demolition work has also begun in the old Pinkberry store on Columbus between 74 & 75 St. Right across the street, in the old Aerosoles place, interior work is currently be done.
I hope that it is highly curated and artisanal at the very least. I want some bang for my buck.
Or at least some olufsen.
There isn’t a single “old school” neighborhood in Manhattan that is not escaping change.
East Village, Lower East Side, Chelsea, West Village, Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton, Yorkville, Harlem, East Harlem, Gramercy Park, and yes, even the UWS; all areas that in whole or largely remained not bothered by major changes are now getting it in spades.
Our grand or great-grand parents generation worked hard to get out of Ludlow Street. Now the younger generation are spending millions or thousands to live down there.
You knew something had changed when Saint Vincent’s was closing, and no small number of locals said “good riddance”. They never would or did set foot in the place and seemingly are quite happy with multi-million dollar condos in place of a charity hospital.
Irony is many Upper Westside residents have been fleeing to Brooklyn (Park Slope area), and in turn are now causing economic displacement of previous residents who are in turn moving to NJ or Westchester.
you think this is our future?
Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016 | You might as well call the Lower East Side crane city – construction projects on Delancey Street are reshaping our skyline.https://i2.wp.com/www.thelodownny.com/leslog/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/delancey-street-cranes.jpg?resize=650%2C399
Huh? What is your point?
You are looking at the past through rose colored lenses. Many of these “old school” neighborhoods were once grimy and crime ridden before they got gentrified.
Not too long ago the UWS was a dangerous and undesirable place.
I’m grateful for change.
Sherman,
Respectfully…perhaps I am mistaken but I recall you had indicated having grown up in the suburbs and moved to NYC relatively recently? So perhaps no actual experience of the UWS as “bad” neighborhood?
As a kid here in the 1970s, have very positive memories. My relatives, older than I, feel similarly. The UWS was not a grimy neighborhood – it was a mixture of low, middle and high income. Yes there was more crime as there was throughout NYC.
Some might say that the 1990s was the “sweet spot” – the UWS still retained a neighborly feel, still with a number of small businesses and “mom & pop” shops and was a largely middle-class area.
The transformation of an authentic, stable middle-class neighborhood like the UWS into a luxury “section” with mall chain stores is not gentrification. Gentrification is slow and “organic” improvement of a failing neighborhood. Luxury real estate “takeover” and chain store dominance is not gentrification – one might argue luxury real estate actually destroys stable middle class communities.
“The transformation of an authentic, stable middle-class neighborhood like the UWS into a luxury “section” with mall chain stores is not gentrification.”
Luxurification?
The UWS has never been an “undesirable place” for me.
Sorry about your experience.
dannyboy is right,the UWS has always been a desirable neighborhood and still is today…however, it was more
desirable with the mom & pop stores of past generations
where everyone knew your name. I wish you all the good
luck to be living here for as long as I have, 80 years.
“I wish you all the good
luck to be living here for as long as I have, 80 years.’
Beautiful!
That was the gist of my post.
Change is happening but you still get comments on this forum and elsewhere from those looking for “old school” or “mom and pop…” type shops of old.
The areas mentioned in my post held out longer in terms of accommodating such businesses as they hadn’t seen *that* much change. Now as one stated that is coming fast and furious.
At least the UWs is being spared what seems to be certain major changes to UES/Yorkville as the Second Avenue Subway inches towards opening. East of Lexington Avenue lacking a subway line largely escaped large scale development, that is changing.
So what you’re saying is; “It could be worse”.
let’s celebrate then?
Regarding the general topic of neighborhood stores/restaurants…
Once long-time and/or small businesses, shops and restaurants close there is a loss – permanent – of stability and community feel.
Moreover, the new “replacement” shops and retail tend to churn in and out.
If you have not been in the East Village in a while, take a look. Virtually all of the long-time and quirky stores and restaurants have been forced out by high rent plus the impact of the transient NYU demographic. The replacement shops last for a couple of years, then close and replaced by different, short-lived restaurants and shops.
The Transactional Neighborhood?
“manhattan mark” identified himself as an UWS resident for eighty years and recalled the neighborhood of old in exclusively positive terms. While not going nearly as far as back as that, I, too, recall with nostalgia many aspects of the neighborhood from my youth. These include many of the local “mom and pop” businesses. There are also, however, a number of things from that time that I recall without any fondness. This latter category includes the squalor and sordidness of the SROs on my block, which brought a sleazy prostitution and drug scene and where the residents threw garbage out of the windows; an attempted break-in of our apartment; and getting mugged in broad daylight on Broadway when I was around twelve. My mother has additional memories that go back further, perhaps the worse of which is the rape of a teenage girl occuring on the roof of our building.
The changes to the neighborhood have neither been all bad nor all good but mixed. Most everything in life is a trade-off.
Whenever I see people recall the neighborhood of the past solely in a positive light and lament all the change that has to come to it as being for the worse, I am reminded of the following passage from Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad:
(Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, conclusion of Chapter LIV)
(Scan of full book here. Librivox recording of full book, delightfully read by John Greenman, here.)