Photo by Barbara Migdal.
April 20, 2020 Weather: Partly cloudy, with a high of 56 degrees.
Notices:
Our calendar is full of events you can enjoy from home.
How’s remote learning going? A new city website wants your opinion.
News:
A South American family bought eight apartments in Waterline Square, the new development along the Hudson from 59th to 61st Street, to “stash cash amid Coronavirus,” the Wall Street Journal reports. The all-cash deal closed in a matter of days, the paper reported. “They felt their money was safer in an apartment in New York than in a bank,” the broker said. On the one hand, it’s arguably good news — maybe the NYC real estate won’t collapse amid the economic downturn. But it also continues a troubling trend — new developments won’t solve the NYC housing crunch if they become bank accounts in the sky.
An affordable housing development also sold, Real Estate Weekly reports. “Affordable housing firm Jonathan Rose Companies has acquired Tower West Apartments, a 217-unit HUD-regulated, partial Section 8, and New York City supervised Mitchell-Lama family housing asset at 65 West 96th Street on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.”
Nurse Francisco Diaz explained to Kaiser Health News what he’s seeing at Mt. Sinai West. “‘I have worked during the influenza outbreaks, the swine flu, but never a public health threat of this dimension,’ said Díaz… ‘I am tending to a lot of Latino patients with COVID,’ he said. In New York City, more Hispanics have been killed by the virus than whites, Asians or African Americans who are not Hispanic, preliminary data from city health officials shows.”
The Met Opera’s gala will be live-streamed, says 6sqft. “On Saturday, April 25 at 1 p.m., leading Met artists will perform live from their homes for a free three-hour concert. The event comes after the venue was forced to cancel the rest of its season because of the coronavirus pandemic.”
A long-distance marriage has been tested by the coronavirus, Patty Dann writes in the NYT Modern Love column. “This pandemic has a strange way of pushing some people closer while pulling others apart. My mother waves from the balcony. I offer a grieving woman a hug from 10 feet away. Our sons text us their love from afar. And Michael and I — finally sharing one home base, for however long — turn up the volume on “Fly Me to the Moon” and dance.”
WSR reader Joan Chiverton drew the “masks of the Upper West Side” and the Times published the pictures.
And New York magazine’s Justin Davidson wrote a nice feature about West Side Rag, headlined “The West Side Rag is the Hyperlocal News Site We All Wish We Had Right Now.” “For a quarter-million residents of the Upper West Side, one lifeline is the West Side Rag, a suddenly indispensable online-only publication that combines up-to-date COVID-19 news with updates on a raccoon baby boom, falling trees, photos from adventures in grocery shopping, and videos of Broadway stars belting show tunes from their windows.” Rag readers got praise too — particularly for your generosity in helping people struggling through the epidemic.
West Side Rag is a lifeline for all of us on the UWS even in “normal” times, it’s got the best local information and stories.
But. Especially needed these days. Thank you for all of your great daily news and reporting.
Yes! Thank to West Side Rag and for all the contributors — big and small — who make for a wonderful online, supportive community.
I’ve lived on the West Side for decades but only started to frequent the site in the past several months (pre-Covid). No idea why it took me so long!
Couldn’t agree more! 😊
Nice piece. Congrats!
I completely agree with the sentiments about the West Side Rag.
I <3 West Side Rag!
yes I agree that the WSR appearing in my inbox routinely is a measure of comfort and valuable information in good times and tough times! thank you ..
Yes thank you West Side Rag, you are vital to us and our neighborhood. Keep up the good work!
Thank you WSR!!