Monday Bulletin: Best Place to Eat Alone; Dead Fish on the Move; Local Joins War in Israel; Change in Shelter System For Migrant Families

Monday, October 16, 2023
Partly sunny. High 62 degrees.
It has rained for six straight weekends in New York City.

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

NY1 featured the Upper West Side in its “In The Neighborhood” series this past week. The series features a walk with Community Board 7 Chair Beverly Donohue, a spotlight of local artists, the story an artist painting neighborhood brownstones to help pay off her student debt, and more. You can check out all the videos for yourself on NY1’s website — HERE.

Upper West Side News
By Gus Saltonstall

Eater New York recently named an Upper West Side restaurant one of the city’s 15 best places for solo diners. On Eater’s list of “The Best Places to Eat Alone in NYC” is 108 Food Dried Hot Pot, open since 2017 at the corner of West 108th Street and Broadway. It was the only Manhattan restaurant above 42nd Street to earn a spot on the list.

The publication looked for eateries fitting the following criteria: “a dining room or counter, where you can slip right in; other solo diners; and portions fit for an individual, not a group. A bubbling cauldron of Sichuan hot pot is a communal affair, but the dry hot pots at this Upper West Side restaurant are an incendiary pleasure that can be enjoyed alone,” the Eater New York staff wrote. “Chicken gizzards, tofu skins, squid, fish balls, and cabbage are all equally tasty when doused in the custom blend of oil tinted scarlet from dried chiles and medicinal herbs.”

The final pair of the American Museum of Natural History’s 3.2 million specimens of dead fish have been moved over to the museum’s recently finished $465 million Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

For decades, only a small fraction of the iconic museum’s specimens and objects were on display in exhibits. Now, you can see more than 3,000 specimens, including the museum’s zoology branch that deals with fish, on display behind a glass-walled spaced called the Collection Core.

A scientist at the Museum of Natural History described the collection as “the fish-world version of a dinosaur,” as the collection features such things as the teeth of a megalodon — the giant relative of the great white shark — and the footprint of a duck-billed dinosaur, reported the New York Times.

The two fish sent last week were the final members of the collection to get moved to the Collection Core exhibit.

A key feature of the new Collections Core space is its defense mechanisms. The space comes equipped with a new fire suppression system and doors that roll down in case of an emergency, the New York Times reported.

A 26-year-old Upper West Side community member flew to Israel last week to fight alongside the Israel Defense Forces, reported the Daily News. The man, who asked only to be identified as A.G., decided to return to Israel shortly after the Hamas attack last Saturday.

“I knew these borders and how everything worked,” he told the Daily News. “Not even in my wildest dreams could this happen. It was completely shocking.”

A.G. is already a veteran of the IDF, serving for three years as a paratrooper. He also chose to return to the country despite having a student exemption from the military.

You can read the full story on the Daily News’ website.

City officials are expected to announce in the coming week that migrant families with children will have to leave their homeless shelters after 60 days and reapply for shelter, as first reported by the Daily News along with Gothamist.

The expected announcement comes months after the Adams administration put a 30-day limit on the number of consecutive nights adult migrants without kids can stay in a shelter. The change did not affect migrant families with children.

The mayor’s office has not confirmed or denied the expected change in shelter policy.

“This plan will disrupt the lives of homeless students and create chaos for their schools, as parents are forced to choose between re-enrolling or spending the day traveling across the city to their current school,” said Redmond Haskins, a spokesperson for the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless, in a statement.

To receive WSR’s free email newsletter, click here.