Monday Bulletin: Teen’s Death Deemed a Homicide, Scaffolding Protest, Statue Vandalized
The aftermath of a crash earlier this month on 92nd and Broadway. Photo by Scott Matthews.
October 11, 2021 Weather: Cloudy, with a high of 71 degrees.
Notices:
Our calendar has lots of local events!
News:
The death of a 15-year-old boy found in an Upper West Side apartment has been deemed a homicide more than three months after it happened, according to pix11. “Police had arrested 32-year-old Mitchaux Booker two days later, and he was charged with assault, endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person and acting in a manner injurious to a child, according to authorities.” The youth was found on June 28, unresponsive in a bathtub, at the Wise Houses on West 94th Street. His relationship to Booker is not known.
The tenants of 51 West 86th Street threw an anniversary party on Sunday for the building’s 15-year-old sidewalk shed and scaffolding, as reported in Patch.
Mock anniversary for 15-year sidewalk shed in full swing on the Upper West Side (86th Street) – featuring Silly Billy.
Gale Brewer and Ben Kallos both gave remarks.
Chant is worth listening too. pic.twitter.com/xJrfZxwSW4
— Gus Saltonstall (@GusSaltonstall) October 9, 2021
The statue of Theodore Roosevelt in front of the Museum of Natural History on CPW and 81st Street was vandalized [again] last week with red spray paint, requiring a police car to be stationed to guard it, abc7ny reported. “The statue, depicting Roosevelt on a horse with a Native American man on one side and a Black man on the other, has…been interpreted as a symbol of colonialism and is now slated to be removed. It will be relocated on a long-term loan to a cultural institution dedicated to Roosevelt. The removal was supported by Mayor de Blasio and Roosevelt’s family.”
In this week’s How they spend their Sundays, The New York Times interviewed Kassandra Frederique. “Last year, Ms. Frederique was named the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which focuses on human rights issues as they pertain to drug culture and current regulations across the country….[including] working toward reparations for those who have served or are serving prison sentences because of drug laws. Ms. Frederique, 35, is a first-generation American. She lives with her parents, who immigrated from Haiti in the early 1970s, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.”
Goalie Henrik Lundqvist “was the face of the Rangers and the face of hockey in New York throughout his career,” wrote the Washington Post, when Lundqvist, 39, retired in August, 2021, after open-heart surgery, with the prospect of more. The Rangers will retire his number 30 jersey, even though Lundqvist has moved to the Washington Capitals. Now, the star goalie is moving from his UWS apartment, the New York Post reported. “[It] sold six weeks after it listed,” and offers “sunsets in every room.”
Steve Coll will step down as dean of Columbia Journalism School in June 2022 after nine years in the role, the Columbia Spectator reported. “As dean, Coll raised over $150 million to fund large initiatives, including $50 million to expand financial aid and student access….Before his appointment in 2013, Coll served as a reporter, foreign correspondent, senior editor, managing editor of the Washington Post, and the president of the New America Foundation think tank. A current staff writer for The New Yorker, Coll has written eight nonfiction books and is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize.” He will remain on the journalism school faculty.
The response to WSR’s new Here’s the Dish column has been terrific, lots of readers. Writers are a little harder to come by. For the love of local restaurants, please send a review and photograph of your favorite UWS dish to westsiderag@gmail.com. Surely getting a byline in the West Side Rag is on your bucket list! As last week’s Dish-er, Janis Corsair wrote, “I can finally say I’m published!”
Finally, Happy Columbus and Indigenous People’s Day, which are being celebrated simultaneously this year. Columbus Day has been a federal holiday since 1937. This month, “President Biden issued the first-ever presidential proclamation of Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” U.S. News reported. He also issued a proclamation praising the role of Italian-Americans, but acknowledging the harm explorers did.
Editor’s note: After twice misspelling Henrik Lundqvist’s name, we have finally gotten it right. It is Henrik, not Eric nor Hendrik!
*Henrik* Lundqvist, not Eric. Greatest goalie in the NHL who never got to hoist the cup. I blame James Dolan.
Please forgive. Fixed.
Not quite. It’s Henrik, not Hendrik.
Really fixed!
As a Democrat, I wish my fellow Democrats would focus more of their attention on the threat to the future of our Democracy that Trump and his followers pose and less on having their feelings hurt by statues built ages ago when norms of behavior were different.
Perhaps spend a few minutes more than 50 miles west of the UWS echo chamber and realize that reading about progressive obsession with cultural issues like this is a rallying cry for Republicans and makes it hard for more moderate Republicans to vote Democrat.
Re: “progressive obsession with cultural issues like this … makes it hard for more moderate Republicans to vote Democrat.
EXACTLY!
As proof, read Ezra Klein’s frightening 2-page essay in the NYT’s “Sunday Review”
Remember, mid-term elections are often a boost to the party out-of-power!
I also agree. So many Dems think they know what is best for everyone but don’t ask the people they are trying to help what really bothers them. The time, money and political capital spent on things like this could be much better spent elsewhere.
The Democratic leadership should spend less time in DC and NY and more time in the states that matter. It is unfortunate that politics work this way but those are the current rules of the game so we have to play by the rules and play to win. The Republicans have gotten really good at this.
What’s the story behind the crash in the stunning lead photo?
It is absolutely insane that scaffolding would be up for 15 years. What is really going on there?
Unfortunately, like everything else in this world, it’s about the money.
It’s cheaper to keep the scaffolding up and/or pay some fines than it is to actually fix the issues in the building.
Just my hunch though…
I think you are correct. At some point one would think that word would get out and people would not be willing to pay market rates to live in a building with perpetual scaffolding and that might eventually motivate change. Though I guess if it hasn’t happened yet, it might never happen…
One quibble with the Lundqvist mention…
The NY Rangers are planning to retire his jersey – it’s not officially done yet. Friday night game, Jan 28, 2022. Tickets on the secondary markets are going for the high-four-figures. Talk about a bucket list event…
Tough Monday! Fixed.
The Wise Houses are on 90th-91st Streets, not 94th street. Did the crime take place on 94th St. or in one of the Four addresses of the Wise Towers?
Checked with the NYPD. The crime took place at 120 West 94th Street. WPIX mistakenly called it the “Wise Houses.”
“Happy Columbus and Indigenious People’s Day”
Really, WSR? Who’s proofreading these days?