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!