Monday Bulletin: Dirty Streets, An Exonerated Candidate, Surely You Joust!
The newly remade path in Riverside Park near 67th Street. Photo by Roberta.
September 6, 2021 Weather: Partly cloudy, with a high of 81 degrees.
Notices:
Our calendar has lots of local events!
There’s a virtual forum about school reopenings on Sept. 9. Learn more here.
News:
In March 2020, Mayor Bill de Blasio “slashed the city’s alternate side parking rules, requiring motorists to move their cars once a week instead of twice to make way for street sweepers,” the Daily News reported. “But nearly 18 months later, the reduction remains in place. Streets are cleaned half as often as before the pandemic — and many notice more loose trash and dirt in their neighborhoods.” This was worsened by Hurricane Ida, who left a lot of the city’s 153,000 drains clogged. The Department of Environmental Protection is asking New Yorkers to help unclog them.
“Foundation work has begun at 1841 Broadway, site of a 24-story residential building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side,” YIMBY announced. “…the 281-foot-tall building will yield 181,319 square feet and 173 units as well as 11,741 square feet of commercial space….” The project will rise at the corner of Broadway and West 60th Street, just north of Columbus Circle and the southwestern corner of Central Park. YIMBY provides great photos of the site.
“Exonerated Five member Yusef Salaam is running for State Senate,” PIX11 confirmed Saturday. “Salaam was one of five teens — then referred to as the Central Park Five — wrongly convicted in the 1989 assault and rape of a jogger in Central Park. He served more than six years in juvenile detention before being released on parole…. He plans to run for the State Senate seat representing Harlem, East Harlem and the Upper West Side, which is being vacated by State Sen. Brian Benjamin, who was nominated to become New York’s lieutenant governor under Gov. Kathy Hochul.”
When actress Kathryn Gallagher‘s burgeoning Broadway career meant a move back east from L.A., she was sure of one thing, she told The New York Times. “I was like, ‘If I’m going to live in New York, it has to be the Upper West Side, which is home, and which is where the best bagels are to be found,’ said Ms. Gallagher, now 28, a current Tony nominee for her performance in the musical ‘Jagged Little Pill’ and a Season 2 cast member of the Amazon series ‘Modern Love’…. ‘This is my neighborhood.’” Her mother, Paula Harwood, was her interior designer, and photos show her place turned out great.
Finally, you decide whether Damion DiGrazia, 40, who founded a medieval fight club that held an exhibition in Central Park on Saturday, has been hit too many times in his helmet with a metal sword. “I’ve had staples in my head, broken my nose multiple times, dislocated both my shoulders uncountable times, dislocated my knee…. broken ribs,” DiGrazia recounted to the New York Post. “It sounds overwhelming, but in actuality, I can say, without a doubt, that whatever I’ve paid in bone and blood has been worth the journey.”
Enjoy the holiday!
“In March 2020, Mayor Bill de Blasio “slashed the city’s alternate side parking rules, requiring motorists to move their cars once a week instead of twice to make way for street sweepers,” the Daily News reported.” And he hints at a run for governor in 2022? New York State deserves better than this failed and disappointing mayor.
Thanks Bill, the once a week alternate side parking rules is a good thing in many ways!
The # 1 thing that should be enforced is property owners and store owners should be fined for not for keeping their properties litter free! As far as 12 inches from the curb! Being a property owner in the Bronx it is my responsibility to make sure my properties are litter free; otherwise I get a fine/ticket!
I encourage my tenants to pick up litter in front of their homes instead of stepping over it! We live here it’s our city we all have to chip in & not expect the city to do it all!
Living on the UWS for 6 yrs. I notice property owners don’t seem to care about litter in front of their stores or residences. Dept. of Sanitation needs to ticket/fine these individuals and our streets would be cleaner!
The new “outdoor” restaurants that have occupied our parking spots & prevent the street sweeper from cleaning. Should sweep/clean around these structures or be fined!
The move to outdoor dining has made a major impact on the amount of garbage in the streets and the parks.
People should take better care and garbage bins need to be emptied far more often.
The number of bins has been cut in half in my neighborhood. It’s been a disaster. The remaining bins overflow with fast food trash and pet waste.
If they actually cleaned the streets on the designated days, it would be fine. But half the time the street sweepers don’t even show up. Ditto traffic police to give tickets to cars that don’t move. Basically, car owners now just sit there on the off change they have to move. Most of the time, nope.
And half the time they do show up, they just drive down the middle of the street, cleaning nothing, just so GPS shows the sweeper went down the street and the city can claim it cleaned.
The mayor’s move to cut in half the street cleaning was excellent and should actually be followed by an once a month cleaning day, with the cleaning actually taking place and with better enforcement of the litter rules.
I’m loathe to even come close to defending BD, but let’s not ever lose sight of the fact that 90% of the garbage in the street is the result of someone’s laziness and arrogance.
Thise are the people who deserve our ire in stories like this.
Adding alternate side days increases drivers’ covid exposure risk while raising emission levels.
I’ve never understood who has the time and ability to be able to move their car for alternate side parking in the middle of the day – don’t people have jobs then?
I just leave my car there. They don’t come every week. And if I get a $65 ticket a couple of times a month, it’s way cheaper than $700/ month garage. Or $40/day at the airports. There is now a $2000 idling fine in effect— not so bad now, but try not idling in January or July. Plus when congestive pricing comes, commuters will just take UWS parking spots (what few there are) and risk a ticket/ take the subway to Wall Street. They need to have resident permits. Most people on UWS who have to have a car are willing and able to pay a couple hundred dollars a month. Would make life much better for people who need a car to commute out where subways are not an option.
“I just break the law because I’m rich enough to pay the fine. Not my problem if someone else needs the space or the streets never get cleaned.”
These drivers who think the law doesn’t apply to them should get three strikes and then have their license taken away. If it’s cheaper to break the law then pay for a garage why would anyone ever obey it?
Your approach (which is pretty common) is a good reason to return to the four day a week system.
Or, they should change the fine structure so the second, third, etc tickets you get in a month each increase in price by $40.
We budget in that once a month we might need to leave the car and get the ticket. We rarely ever have to do it, but it’s good to plan for. We’ve tried to research and confirm that there really truly doesn’t seem to be a limit on the number of tickets you can get – the city seems fine to keep taking your money rather than have it go to a garage, no extra penalties imposed leading a max monthly cost of less than half what a garage costs. So, yeah – assuming people are mostly rational, something needs to change so people don’t have incentive to break the law and lazily hurt the community at large
Thank you for including the announcement regarding Yusef Salaam’s candidacy for State Senate. We have an opportunity to vote for a great man who has overcome many hardships with so much dignity and grace! I think he will be an outstanding representative. I’m definitely voting for him with great enthusiasm and admiration. This is something for all of us to cheer about!
Liz,
He has a high school education and zero experience. If this is our best and brightest this city will continue to decline.
Sorry to inform you but just because someone has a college degree doesn’t make him or her smart or even intelligent to be appointed to city politics! One with a BA or MA may be scholastically smart but doesn’t mean much else! Just sayin’.
The rats and hawks have exploded in this city in the past year and a half. On the other hand, it is way way easier to drive around when 20-30% of the traffic isn’t circling looking for a spot.
Lose/Win?