Monday Bulletin: Nobel Laureates Honored Locally; Riverside Park Saxophonist; Seminary Snaps Up Morningside Heights Units; De Blasio Moves to the Neighborhood

Monday, October 9, 2023
A mix of sun and clouds. High 60 degrees.

Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.

Monday is Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

The Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group is honoring the work of the Columbus Amsterdam Business Improvement District on Thursday, October 12, at the Bloomingdale Library at 150 West 100th Street. “It is no exaggeration to say that the BNHG could not have accomplished much of what it does without the stalwart backing of the BID,” reads a news release. The program is free to attend.

Upper West Side News
By Gus Saltonstall

The most recent class of American Nobel Laureates was honored in Theodore Roosevelt Park (81st and Columbus) on October 3 and had their names added to the Nobel Monument within the Upper West Side green space.

The Nobel Monument was erected in 2003 as a joint initiative of the Consulate General of Sweden and New York City Parks, with the purpose of honoring American Nobel Laureates, as well as the prize’s founder, Alfred Nobel. The monument was placed within Theodore Roosevelt Park because he was the first recipient of the Nobel Prize from the United States.

“As Parks’ only monument honoring intellectual achievement, it is our hope that the Nobel Monument will continue to inspire New Yorkers and visitors to reflect on these laureates’ vast contributions to society,” NYC Parks Commission Sue Donoghue said in a news release.

Here are the 2022 American Nobel Laureates who had their names inscribed into the statue.

• John Francis Clauser (physics)
• Carolyn Bertozzi (chemistry)
• Karl Barry Sharpless (chemistry)
• Ben S. Bernanke (economics)
• Douglas Diamond (economics)
• Phillip H. Dybvig (economics)

An Upper West Sider, Riverside Park, a saxophone, the pandemic, and a friendly goose were all recently part of a first-person story published in the New York Times Magazine last week. During the second year of the pandemic, 48-year-old Harvey Dickson decided to refurbish his high school saxophone.

After testing out the sound a few times in his apartment, but quickly worrying about the amount of noise, he decided that he would take his re-found hobby along the Hudson River in Riverside Park.

“I was loud. Gloriously, triumphantly loud. Within minutes, bike riders and strolling couples stopped to listen. Some took photos. After that, I took my sax to the park almost every day. Over the next few weeks and on through this summer, paddleboarders, canoers and motorboats on the river hove to the shore to listen for a few minutes. When the traffic on the nearby West Side Highway ground to a halt, I got a round of applause. I had at least two cameos on Instagram.”

You’ll have to read the story to find out more about Dickson’s “most-cherished fan” — Zippy the goose.

The Columbia University-affiliated Union Theological Seminary recently purchased nearly 30 condominium units along Claremont Avenue in Morningside Heights. In total, the Seminary purchased 27 units for $23.5 million from Lendlease at 100 Claremont Avenue, Crain’s reported.

The Seminary’s central hub is located on West 121st Street and Broadway, and the condo transaction is part of a major renovation that has gone on at the theological school over the past few years.

Current presidential candidate Cornel West is a Chair at the Union Theological Seminary, and it is also where the scholar began his teaching career. The Seminary states that its education “develops practices of mind and body that foster intellectual and academic excellence, social justice, and compassionate wisdom.

Bill de Blasio is officially an Upper West Sider. Or, at least he’s renting an apartment in the neighborhood. The former mayor recently signed a one-year lease for an apartment near Lincoln Center, reported multiple publications, including NY1.

De Blasio will be splitting time between his new pad and his Park Slope brownstone that he shares with his wife Chirlane McCray. The pair announced this summer that they had separated but will continue to live together.

The new apartment is near the Empire Rooftop bar on West 63rd Street where he’s been spotted repeatedly recently with a “mystery woman,” as first reported by the New York Post.

It is unclear what price de Blasio is paying for his Upper West Side apartment.

In respect to making our way into the second week of October and the fall season developing around us. Here is how Shakespeare described Autumn in Sonnet 73.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

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