Sunrise through the El Dorado. Photo by Jeff French Segall.
November 22, 2021 Weather: Cloudy, with a high of 50 degrees.
Notices:
Our calendar has lots of local events!
News:
The Landmarks Preservation Commission sent Bill Ackman and Neri Oxman back to the drawing board to “trim” the Norman Foster-designed glass penthouse they want to build on top of 6-16 West 77th Street, Crain’s reported. This followed criticism by building residents. “’It’s almost mocking us,’ [Belle Horwitz] said of the design, which she described as ‘a deliberately discordant project whose sole objective is to call attention to itself.’” This is “upper-class warfare…most riveting and frequently delicious….” Ginia Bellafante wrote in The New York Times. To round things out, the existing penthouse — made of pink stucco — was previously owned by Nancy Friday, the feminist author of My Mother/My Self.
The far-right Proud Boys paid a visit to Trump International Hotel and Tower, at 1 CPW, on Saturday, and proceeded to march in circles around its sign, as anti-vaxxers protested across the street in Central Park, the Hill Reporter and Raw Story reported.
“A racially-charged revolt has erupted at a high-performing Upper West Side public school, with embattled Principal Claire Lowenstein hit with her second no-confidence vote in just two years,” the New York Post reported. “Of a total 154 staffers and parents polled last week, 132 — about 86 percent — voted no confidence in Lowenstein’s leadership of PS 333 on West 93rd Street.” The main issues are discriminatory hiring practices and treatment of paraprofessionals, most of whom are people of color. “Many paraprofessionals express to me they feel as though they are being treated like ‘the help’ in a nearly all-white school, a PS 333 teacher said.” A DOE spokesperson said that “.”
As a first-term candidate for mayor, Bill de Blasio pledged to ban horse-drawn carriages on his first day in office. “Eight years later, with just six weeks left in office, Mr. de Blasio is trying one last time to fulfill that pledge. His administration is developing legislation that would phase out the use of the carriages in Central Park and replace them with [electric] ‘show cars,’ according to a series of internal City Hall emails marked ‘confidential’ that were sent between late October and last week and reviewed by The New York Times.” Maybe he meant his first day as governor.
In the entire city, only one religious-based homeless shelter has reopened since Covid shut them all down — Church of the Ascension, on 107th Street, between Amsterdam and Broadway. “Before COVID, there were dozens of shelters like Ascension’s in places of worship,” Curbed reported. “When they were all up and running, unhoused people might have stayed at an Upper West Side church one night, a Park Slope synagogue the next, and so on. But in March of last year, as the pandemic began devastating New York, every one closed its doors….Only the one at Ascension has reopened.”
What really happened at Carmine’s Restaurant (91st and Broadway), back in September, between a hostess and a group of tourists from Texas with proof of vaccination problems? A Carmine’s employee, who was there, shared his experience with The Cut. “Matt was shaken. Little did he know the initial incident was about to escalate to a new level of clusterfuck: By Monday…he would find himself showing up to his shift in the middle of a Black Lives Matter protest. Bill O’Reilly would do a segment about the event. The restaurant would become a mayoral campaign stop….A host of competing parties with competing agendas would have something to say about what happened at Carmine’s, each seeing exactly what they wanted to see.”
Take a tour of an available $10 million duplex in the Apthorp, a New York City landmark on Broadway between 78th and 79th, built by William Waldorf Astor in 1908. “The Apthorp is recognizable by its Italian Renaissance Revival architectural details and grand landscaped courtyard and driveway,” writes 6ftsq. Read WSR’s story about what it’s really like to live at the Apthorp here.
The Rag honors the memory of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on the day he was killed in 1963. “As we express our gratitude,” he said, one Thanksgiving long ago, “we must never forget that the highest form of appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
It’s kind of hilarious that BdB is scrambling to do something about his first time promises as he’s running out of time at the end of the second term. Suppose anything is better than sitting around twiddling his thumbs as a lame duck.
I am sorry to hear about the mess at Manhattan School for Children. Could any current parents at the school provide more specifics about what is happening?
This has been known for a while – I’m surprised parents are still sending their kids to this school given the level of unhappiness. From what I have heard it generally sounds like a good place with a strong mission that could thrive under the right leadership.
Former MSC parent here. The school was a progressive school with deeply committed parents and typical UWS political strife. Right when Claire came, the city really changed its focus to testing, and Claire was eager to take a blowtorch to the progressive learning model. She was hyper-focused on analytics to the detriment of actual learning. Couple that with her undying support of some really piss-poor teachers and a distain for parental feedback, and you just sort of saw the whole thing rot.
How pathetic do you have to be to gather at Trump International Hotel and Tower to celebrate the right wing cause of the day. These guys are almost like a parody of themselves. Shouldn’t they be in federal court squealing on each other and crying about how their hero con man TV star sold them all out?
What a world we’re living in! Cariminical cluster fucking, pink stucco building extensions, no more horsies, Boys who are overly Proud of themselves, hungry homeless, homeless hungry, and JFK! Thank you, Rag, for compiling and informing.
Well, it’s better than reading all the gloomy articles in The NY Times — climate change, protests, imminent invasion of Ukraine, new Chinese missiles, takeover of Taiwan, right wing autocrats around the world, all the people who still believe the 2020 election was stolen, white supremacy, and the list goes on.
There are people protesting who have taken this vaccine and many others. These marches, rallies and protests have always been about the right to choose and not to have an experimental therapy forced on you.
Consider that last year healthcare workers, NYPD, DSNY, FDNY were heroes. Now they are villains. They worked last year without the vaccine.
What has changed?
You realize you’re defending a white supremacist terrorist group here, right?
You have feelings.
Please don’t pretend your feelings are arguments that have any chance of convincing anyone.
And “what has changed”?
Before there was a vaccine, the brave men and women you refer to were helping everyone.
Now that there is a vaccine, those who refuse to take it, including a small percentage of those brave men and women, are hurting everyone.
That is what “has changed.”
Your ‘experimental therapy’ phrase is an alternative fact.
— “They worked last year without the vaccine.
What has changed?”
Now we have the vaccine.
I work for NYC H+H. I believe we are at 95% vaccinated, or more. Very few people refused. It is the same in every single city govt department, with small variances.
Don’t make it seem like public sector workers are against being vaccinated, or against mandates. It is a small minority who are.
Btw, we have mandates on all sorts of vaccines in order to work here. Nothing new. And it is not an “experimental treatment.”
I’ve worked at NYCHHC too. There’s a giant list of vaccines you have to take to work there.
I am sorry, but your statement about the vaccines as not being EUA is not yet accurate.
For marketing purposes web sites for drugs/vaccines are set-up with their own TLD (top level domain) six months to a year before their anticipated approval and launch.
Comirnaty, the Pfizer brand named vaccine, still does not have its own TLD or web site (eg comirnaty.com) therefore, it is not yet being marketed. If you do a search you will see many hits down, only the Pfizer web site.
Drugs/vaccines can only be marketed once they are approved. That includes DTC (direct to consumer) advertising on television.
Page three of the FDA letter regarding the Pfizer BLA will help explain where the application is in the approval process:
https://www.fda.gov/media/151710/download
The FDA letter for Moderna EUA is here:
https://www.fda.gov/media/144636/download
You know someone has no idea what Emergency Use Authorization is and when a vaccine has been approved when they use “but there’s no Top Level Domain Name associated with Pfizer’s drug!” – they don’t need a domain name you rube.
Pfizer’s is the best selling vaccine in the world. They’ve sold more than Moderna has. They don’t need to waste money on a domain name that only anti-vaxxers are worried about.
The countries buying Pfizer vaccine don’t need to visit a website to make their decision to save millions of lives.
Stop being taken for a ride and made to look like a fool by whoever is filling your head with these ridiculous and easily debunked notions about domain names you are proffering as some sort of “proof”.
Ugh… none of this is based on reality. Stop your anti-vax nonsense. The Covid vaccines are not experimental. They are safe and effective.
Nothing’s forced on them. They don’t HAVE to get vaccinated. Just like noone HAS to employ them, allow them in a venue, etc. It’s a free country.
Heroes? Yes. And in most cases 85%+ of these groups have been vaccinated. We couldn’t and shouldn’t care for the remainder anyway – every organization probably has 10-15% of underperformers which should be trimmed on an annual basis. If they can’t think thru the simple decisions of getting vaccinated, I doubt they’re the top performers.
Happy to see potentially higher salaries and more negotiating leverage for the remaining heroes.
The one good thing de Blasio was going to do on day 1 was eliminate the horse carriages in Central Park.
That was the one and only reason that made me vote for him.
He has had almost 8 years to do it, but he has not.
Now he has 8 weeks left to fulfill his promise.
Do it de Blasio, but know that even if you will, you’ll still go down in history as the worst mayor this city ever had.
@ Babarus, just so you know that the only reason why you voted for de Blasio was an obvious quid pro quo.
From NY Times:
“This April, New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets, the leading advocates for the ban, retained the lobbying firm Blue Suit Strategies to push Mr. de Blasio to pursue a similar plan, city lobbying records indicate. The organization is paying the firm $7,000 per month.
The group, known as NYCLASS, helped fund a campaign to topple the 2013 mayoral candidacy of Christine Quinn, then the City Council speaker and Mr. de Blasio’s rival, in part because she did not support a ban on horse carriages. The campaign was credited with helping to undermine the candidacy of Ms. Quinn, who was considered the early front-runner.
In the ensuing years, NYCLASS pushed Mr. de Blasio to fulfill his promise. But efforts to pass legislation went nowhere, including in 2016, when the mayor failed to push through a bill that would have reduced the number of horses on city streets and confined them to Central Park.”
de Blasio owed NYCLASS big time. Who else but a small minority of people like you thought this was a major issue facing the city at that time? This was de Blasio’s first piece of legislation after getting elected? Glad the city council saw right through this charade.
Pathetic!
In what world does it make sense to have horses alongside cars and buses? It’s barbaric.
Central Park is the city’s lungs. It’s supposed to be a place where New Yorkers can briefly escape the crowded city for a little fresh air. Unfortunately, the horses ensure that the entire south half of the park smells like a barnyard. Close your eyes and take a deep breath and you’re overwhelmed by the smell of horsesh-t. We’ve had pooper scooper laws for dogs for years. I have no idea why the residents of this city put up with this – so a few tourists can take a $65 selfie?
The first and only public mention of the anniversary of this tragedy that I heard or came across, one which ushered in so many others.
I was thinking I was the only one who remembered… thanks.
“The Rag honors the memory of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on the day he was killed in 1963. “As we express our gratitude,” he said, one Thanksgiving long ago, “we must never forget that the highest form of appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” “
We lived at the Apthorp for 18 glorious months in the 80’s. It was a sublet of a sublet – only in NY! Nonetheless we loved every minute and actually had our wedding in the beautiful living room in front of the fireplace. Shabby chic? Yup, with all it’s “issues” it was wonderful
What happened last Thursday Nov. 18 when the three Carmine’s attackers were due in court?