While most of us built Frosty out of last week’s snowfall, someone else made some gorgeous snow-art at 122nd and Riverside. (If you’re the sculptor, let us know!) Photo by Karen Tweedy-Holmes.
December 21, 2020 Weather: Rainy, with a high of 43 degrees.
Notices:
Our calendar was slow the last two weeks, but this week it’s got more local and virtual events.
News:
The man accused of setting a fire in a subway train as it pulled into the West 110th Street station last March, killing the train operator, has been charged with murder. “When the fire erupted at 3:15 a.m. in a shopping cart on the second car of a No. 2 train, hero MTA employee Garrett Goble, 36, ushered passengers to safety in the station,” the Daily News reported. “But Goble, a train operator and father of two boys, at some point got lost in the smoke-filled tunnel and collapsed, possibly from a heart attack, sources said…[The suspect] has led a troubled life…[he] jumped from shelter to shelter…and served prison time for a 2013 robbery conviction.”
A federal stimulus bill is about to get passed. It leaves out most direct aid for state and local governments, though schools got some money and the MTA got $4 billion. Restaurants won’t get the aid they had asked for.
A city investigation found serious flaws in how the NYPD handled this summer’s George Floyd protests, prompting an apology from the mayor — who had denied problems even as reporters and others pointed them out, Gothamist reported. “Senior NYPD officials committed a number of serious errors in their response to this summer’s protests against racist police violence, including deploying officers without proper training, and relying on faulty intelligence that undermined the rights of New Yorkers to peacefully assemble, according to an independent report from the city’s Department of Investigation.”
Open streets brought New Yorkers out in drives this year. Could they be continued? The Times has a cool visualization.
Upper West Sider Tina Fey bought her first car, like some others have during the pandemic. But no, it wasn’t a flashy celebrity sports car. It was “a car that looks like a medical sneaker” and one that is “so safe” — a Subaru Forester, Car and Driver reports.
A freelancer acquired the desk of Vincent Canby, the legendary New York Times film and theater critic, hoping it would cure her writer’s block, according to the Times. “I found a photo online of Mr. Canby posed at the desk in 1980, an ashtray to the right of his typewriter. I’ve framed it, so he’s here to challenge me, his eyes contemplating something in the distance, his smile a little skeptical. By this time he had settled into a roomy apartment on the Upper West Side…His erudite, lucid film reviews drove me to haunt now-bygone theaters like the Thalia, the Beekman, the Plaza, the 57th Street Playhouse, the 68th Street Playhouse, and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.”
And Congressman Jerry Nadler endorsed Comptroller Scott Stringer for mayor, bringing together Upper West Side assembly members past and present (they both served in the assembly, as does current member Linda Rosenthal.)
Correction: We initially had the wrong info on MTA funding.
She not only bought a Subaru, she bought the ugliest one they make.
And what model would you have suggested?
Any update on the UWS Dog Groper? We he detained (or at least contacted) by police?
Nadler’s endorsement does Stringer no favors. These dinosaurs all need to retire.
You’re well-named, Crankypants. Congressman Nadler has been doing a good job during these trump years; he’s been as good a bulwark as we could’ve expected during this onslaught of anger and obscenity that has characterized the ceaseless attacks against the norms of comity that were once embedded deep in our society, and against our shared reality and even our belief in verified facts and science.
Luckily, Dinosaur trump well be leaving Washington quite soon for more zany southern climes, so maybe we’ll have more of a chance against the ongoing climate disaster, for starters.
Protests against “racist police violence”?
We can all do without inflammatory rhetoric like this.
The Gothamist has turned into a left wing rag.
Gothamist merely reported on findings by the NYC Department of Investigation. That does not make it a “left wing rag.” As for racist police violence, would you call the killing of George Floyd and countless other innocent African Americans by the police anything but examples of racist police violence?
Oh goodie, Scott Stringer for ZZZZZZzzzzzzz……
The train operator was a true hero. What a tragedy.
Wondering if there is some sort of fund for his family?
The NYPD and FDNY have non-profits (including Tunnels to Towers) that support their families (in addition to city benefits) but not aware of support for MTA families.
Here’s the gofundme info: https://www.gofundme.com/f/1yox1rm15c?qid=18a708203811fcfe89cd9b1fe2931725
Thank you Lynn!
I can’t believe the UWS and the city cannot come up with better than these 3 lifelong tired repetitive same non-effective ideas candidates who only care about their own agendas. I am so embarrassed for our city. Never voted for one of them. Look at where this city is now after the last decade. Wake the Hell up, people.
The city is in pretty great shape in one important measurement: you are less likely to get murdered here than Orlando, New Orleans, Chicago, and 62 other cities.
New York doesn’t even make this list: https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/murder-map-deadliest-u-s-cities/
I’m not talking about crime (though we all know it’s up this year), I’m talking about new people with new ideas who pay attention to what their constituents are bringing to their attention. Someone new who walks around their neighborhood and the city to see what’s happening and not keeping their head in the sand. They need to talk to small businesses and hard working people to see what is affecting them. These career politicians are out of touch & smugly sit on their pedestal and judge.
I agree with you completely. We need new people and we need to stop voting for progressive democrats.
in my opinion they need to go back to two times a week (each side) alternate side parking enforcement. People are parking their cars and just leaving them for weeks in the same spot ($65 ticket is a parking bargain– if you even get one once a week). Makes it really hard for people who need their cars daily to commute to work in, say, the
outer Bronx. No parking space turnover. VERY hard to find a space upon return in the evening.
I agree with you.
Two day a week, though a nuisance for many, frees up parking spots for visitors and reverse commuters. And while we’re at it, now is the time to get rid of that completely unnecessary and seldom used protected electric bike line on Central Park West. This travesty, with its loss of hundreds of parking spaces, doubled or even tripled the pressure on parkers. It was another terrible idea whose time had come and should now be gone.
And, city transportation leaders, have you finished your survey on those “loading zones” on West End Avenue? It’s been a year already. So, tell us, in the past year, have you noticed A SINGLE TRUCK OR VAN OR TAXI OR UBER parked for a SINGLE MOMENT in ANY of the thirty or so loading zones? Or, conversely, have you noticed these “zones” are the ideal place to double park?
As always, we stand in awe of your improvements to the UWS!
Reading the list of cinemas in the Vincent Canby desk piece brought back wonderful memories of those days when Manhattan was a movie goers paradise.
Stringer is a political hack who no one should endorse. He’s used the Comptroller’s Office as a tool for hit jobs to make himself look good. Sorry – Nadler is great EXCEPT for his history of endorsing this type of candidate.
Just say no to Stringer. Vote for Ray McGuire. He’s by far the best candidate that we have.
I would also like to hear what makes him so great. He is mostly unknown and such a statement needs to be qualified.
See above. He runs circles around most of the current names being discussed, particularly given our current needs.
Can you tell a bit about what makes him great? I’m looking for new candidates for the future.
He’s a Harvard educated (business and law) business professional who is one of the highest-ranking and longest-serving Black executives on Wall Street. He is considered a moderate democrat – he cares both about social issues and our looming financial crisis.
William M. Lewis Jr., co-chairman of investment banking at Lazard, said Mr. McGuire had “a unique understanding of why Black lives matter,” but also of the financial crisis the city faces.
Take a look at Catsimatidis.
Time for a change folks.
Vote to the right this time.