Building a water tower at 96th and West End. Photo by Jordan Cooper.

November 23, 2020 Weather: Rainy, with a high of 54 degrees.

Notices:
Our calendar is full of local events.

News:
Brooklyn Borough President and 2021 mayoral candidate Eric Adams is the latest politician to be caught in a compromising coronavirus position, according to the Daily News. “Adams addressed campaign donors inside an Upper West Side bar and restaurant on Friday night — as the city was bracing for the imminent closure of indoor dining while the coronavirus outbreak surges anew. He gave his stump speech to at least 18 supporters inside ‘Good Enough to Eat’ on Columbus Ave…Mayor de Blasio said earlier Friday that the spike in COVID numbers means indoor dining could end as soon as the first week of December.”

Parker West, the new, 22-story building on West 72nd Street, between Broadway and West End Avenue, will be suffused with the spirit of its namesake Dorothy Parker, the 20th Century American poet, writer, critic and civil rights activist, known for her biting wit. The developer told the New York Post, “‘We went into this [project] with the understanding that it was going to be new, but that there also had to be a historic touch to the property’… The development team is also putting a plaque in the lobby of the building that reads: “This was Dorothy Parker’s childhood home,” to honor Parker’s roots and remind residents and visitors that they are interacting with an important part of New York City literary history. There will also be a photo of Parker in the lobby, as well as images of her original home in the amenities space.”

“Hell may have frozen over several times in 2020 — but so did New York’s most famous chocolate chip cookie,” the Daily News  reported. “Boxes of Levain Bakery Frozen Cookies — available in flavors Two Chip Chocolate Chip, Oatmeal Raisin, Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip and the best-selling Chocolate Chip Walnut — are now sold in the freezer aisle in select grocery stores across the country…The new fully-baked frozen variety, with each sweet measuring in at two ounces, are smaller than the heaping six-ounce cookies the New York-based bakery is known for. And they come with the convenience of scooping them out of the box in your freezer whenever you’re in the mood for one and popping them in the oven for five minutes till they’re toasty.”

There’s been another sucker punching of another New York actor on the Upper West Side, according to the Post. “Alex Weisman, 33 — a member of the original cast of ‘Harry Potter and The Cursed Child’ — needed to undergo laser eye surgery after he was slugged in the face at the 103rd Street station on the Upper West Side, according to the actor and police. Weisman, of Manhattan, told The Post he anticipated the man would ask for money, ‘but instead he just started hitting me in the face…It wasn’t a mugging, it was an attack for attack’s sake.’”

Finally, jazz aficionados are mourning the passing of Cándido Camero, at the age of 99. Camero was an Upper West Sider. “When you talk about percussion, particularly the evolution of conga playing, you’re talking about two periods — before Cándido and after Cándido,” the Grammy-nominated percussionist and bandleader Bobby Sanabria told The New York Times…“‘He developed coordinated independence as applied to the congas and bongo — being able to keep a steady rhythm with one hand while soloing with the other,” he said. “He was the first to develop the techniques to play multiple percussion instruments simultaneously, sounding like three or four players. He was the first to tune multiple congas to specific pitches so he could play melodies on them, and he was an inventor as well. In 1950 he created the first device for a player to be able to play a cowbell with one’s foot.’”