Monday, February 27, 2023
A 40 percent chance of snow after 1 p.m. Increasing clouds, with a high near 40. The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Weather Advsiory in our area from 6 p.m. this evening to 1 p.m. Tuesday.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events! Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to look.
The Community Board 7 Health & Human Services Committee is meeting on Tuesday, February 28th at 7:00 p.m. On the agenda is discussion of a Safe Haven (a type of homeless shelter) coming to 106-108 West 83rd Street. You can register for the meeting here.
News
By Carol Tannenhauser
As I updated Monday Bulletin, I flashed on days flying off a calendar as they did in old movies to denote the passage of time. Are we really on the verge of March? What will spring bring after this mostly mild, snowless winter? My friend wrote me that it hailed in Los Angeles last week.
Rupert Murdoch is moving to our side of town. The media mogul is buying a place in Hampshire House on Central Park South for around $30 million, according to the Wall Street Journal (which Murdoch owns). The apartment belonged to the late hedge-fund founder, Julian H. Robertson Jr., and, before him, philanthropist Alice Tully, for whom a concert hall at Lincoln Center is named. “The full-floor co-op spans about 6,500 square feet,” the Journal wrote, “and has a 38-foot-long living room with roughly 18-foot ceilings, and three arched doors that open onto a terrace overlooking Central Park.”
Murdoch will be able to see the Dakota on W. 72nd Street and Central Park West, but not one of its most famous residents, Yoko Ono. According to the New York Post, Ono is “the latest to say she’s done with New York City.” More accurately, she is ailing and “choosing to spend the rest of her life on a rural upstate New York farm that she and her late husband, John Lennon, purchased together in 1978,” according to the Daily Mail. Two weeks ago, to commemorate her 90th birthday, more than 50 artists and fans gathered at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park “to take part in ‘Morning Piece for Yoko Ono,’ a 1960s-style art happening that doubled as a celebration,” wrote The New York Times. “Many of those who showed up said they had become aware of Ms. Ono decades ago, around the time when she was newly married to John Lennon and the Beatles were breaking up.”
I had, too, but she reentered my consciousness in 2018, when she designed six mosaics for the subway station at W. 72nd Street and Central Park West. They cover the walls with 973 square feet of blue, cloud-filled sky, embedded with hopeful messages, such as “Imagine Peace” and “Dream.” The first time I saw them, I was so grateful to Ono, who had also helped create Strawberry Fields in Central Park at 72nd Street as a memorial to John Lennon, who was killed in front of the Dakota in December 1980. “She invited countries from all over the world to contribute plants as well as stones to create an international garden of peace,” wrote the Central Park Conservancy. “Ono’s idea was shaped by her own work as a conceptual artist as well as her knowledge that Lennon would not have wanted a traditional memorial in the form of a statue.”
Perceptions change with time, along with days, months, seasons, and climates. I admire Yoko Ono’s fortitude, generosity, and grace. She will always be a New Yorker and Upper West Sider to me.
See you in March.
We are losing a great artist and humanitarian and gaining a dreadful propagandist who clearly doesn’t care about the state of the world only about lining his already deep pockets.
Murdoch seems to buy real estate to distract himself from his mortality.
I wish he’d hurry it up already. He’s done enough damage.
That is kind of mean George. You don’t know why he is buying that property.
While Murdoch’s print and broadcast outlets gin up fear of life in this city he spends 30 million for a penthouse AND signs a 20 year lease renewal on 1.2 million square feet of office space right here.
What does that tell the chicken littles?
Of course the Post says “Ono is “the latest to say she’s done with New York City.” I am sick of their bashing the city that buys their newspaper.
Typical Post crap journalism. The woman is 90! Yes, she’s moving but using the word “done” is demagogic. Populations ebb & flow.
That’s what we call a “net negative”
John Lennon was killed in December 1980, not October. (Same week I moved to NYC.)
R.I.P.
Thanks. Fixed.
speaking of which, one of the ultimate Breslin columns:
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/archives-jimmy-breslin-tells-aided-john-lennon-article-1.2039625
Masterful writing by Breslin. So powerful in its understatement. Thank you for linking to it.
Thanks for posting this, Dannyb. It is so classic Breslin to interview the cops who responded to the call. It’s in the same league as his column on JFK’s death and burial. When every other journalist was collecting quotes from senators, ambassadors and other blowhards, Jimmy interviewed the man who dug the president’s grave.
For all the seeds he sown in fascism, outright lies and general agida & sleepless nights in this country — he should be deported.
While Yoko may be planning to spend most of her time at the Upstate farm, she has not “left” NYC. Firstly, her apartments at the Dakota are not being listed, or even pre-listed, yet. Second, there is no way she will get the medical care she needs in a rural community. She will need to be in the City at any time that such care is required.
So let’s not write her off as a NY-er yet. She has been an UWSer for decades, and will remain so until she joins John again.
Oh wow. We country folk haven’t figured out how to seek and receive medical care .
You know, when you are 90 years old, maybe the best medical care is not that important. I’m hoping the
night sky and a fox in the yard will bring Yoko the everlasting joy we are all seeking. I remember seeing skywriting many years ago that read “Remember Love”. It was mystical and magical.
Right. so right.
Oh joy! The founder of a media empire based on propaganda, provocation and outright lies is changing NYC residences. Given that this unrepentant fascist has had an apartment here for decades, I’m not sure why this matters. I guess it’s just a way of giving an even bigger “f— you” to his readers and viewers, who can barely afford to live here at all, much less in a $30 million, 6500-sq-ft mansion in the sky.
Good to know that Murdoch is coming here. The closer he is, the easier to protest him and his vilest of empires.
After months of Trump-supporting, poverty-bashing, and fear-mongering comments, these are so appreciated. The old UWS re-emerges in its proud progressivism. May March come in traditionally — like a lion!
Thanks, Carol, for the tribute to Yoko Ono, who will always be a consummate New York no matter where she resides. About Rupert Murdoch, the less said the better.
lovely tribute to Yono Ono
She’s not done with NYC, she’s leaving obviously because she is very sick. No privacy with people taking photos of her in a frail state. She seems to want to keep her illness private and values her privacy/
Excellent piece about Yoko. Yes, she’ll always be a New Yorker, very well-loved and admired. There’s no harm in wanting to relocate to a more peaceful setting vs. the hustle and bustle of NYC. As far as the NY Post, do you expect anything more?
This horrible excuse of a human living in my city is revolting. Murdoch was tossed out of England for tapping phones of reporters and he has found a home in my city, he is responsible for Fox News contributing to the death of our citizens, pushes against health care and quality of life for everyone but billionaires. Let’s make sure he understands he is not wanted in this city.
New York (City) was never the same without John. Once again, that feeling is back without having Yoko. We always hoped that one day we would run into them.