Monday, November 27, 2023
Partly sunny. High 54 degrees.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
Keeping in the holiday spirit, Cyber Monday is on November 27. You can find a variety of online deals on this day. Giving Tuesday, the annual celebration of generosity, follows on November 28.
Upper West Side News
By Gus Saltonstall
Mayor Eric Adams was accused in a lawsuit last week of sexually assaulting a woman in 1993. Adams adamantly denied the allegation on Thursday — “It absolutely did not happen,” he told reporters. “I don’t recall ever meeting this person. And I would never harm anyone in that magnitude.”
The suit was filed under the New York State Adult Survivors Act, passed in 2022, allowing accusers to sue alleged abusers in civil court, regardless of when the action took place. The lawsuit also names the NYPD’s transit bureau and the Guardian Association of the NYPD, a fraternal organization of Black law enforcement officers.
In 1993, Adams was an officer in the city’s Transit Police Department, when the alleged assault took place.
Publications are withholding the name of the woman who filed the lawsuit due to the sensitive nature of her claims. The lawsuit is seeking $5 million.
You can read more about the lawsuit on the New York Times’ website.
Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl and local celebrity who escaped the Central Park Zoo earlier this year, appears to have returned to the Upper West Side after a multi-day trip to the Lower East Side.
Flaco was heard and recorded Saturday night hooting by multiple people on Central Park West along West 85th and 86th streets, according to Manhattan Bird Alert, a popular X (formerly Twitter) account that tracks bird news in the borough.
There was some anxiety that Flaco might have permanently left the Upper West Side after he vanished from the neighborhood two weeks ago, before being spotted atop an air conditioner on the Lower East Side.
We think Flaco visited the lower east side. pic.twitter.com/kDAqiDZUPn
— RHP (@RobinHerbstPapa) November 9, 2023
Ron Lugo, an avid birdwatcher who has followed Flaco since his escape from the Central Park Zoo in February, told The Guardian that the influx of people into the green space due to the New York City Marathon “might have chased it off.”
A different widely shared theory is that Flaco might have been on the move to find love, as his trip to the Lower East Side corresponded with mating season.
Either way, it appears that Flaco has made his way back to the Upper West Side.
Amy Rutkin, the longtime chief of staff to Congressman Jerry Nadler, is retiring in January after almost 25 years in the position.
Rutkin, who joined the staff in 1999, will be replaced in the new year by Robert Gottheim and John Doty. The pair are also both longtime staffers of Nadler, the Upper West Side resident and representative.
“While any American can sense the heightened political polarization, even hostility, that has taken hold across the country, Rutkin has seen the shift up close, on the level of day-to-day administration of the House of Representatives,” reads the introduction to Rutkin’s recent sit-down interview with City & State about her career and her ascension to a “local politics kingmaker,” according to the political publication.
Rutkin also adamantly denied that her decision to retire has any connection to speculation about the retirement of Nadler, who has already confirmed he is running again in 2024. Still, said City & State, “Already a shadow race to replace him is simmering on the Upper West Side.”
You can check out Rutkin’s entire interview with City & State, which covers political polarization, Israel, and governing in the “Twitter age,” — HERE.
An Upper West Side resident recently wrote into The New York Times asking how they could better help older neighbors who are dealing with serious health issues, including dementia. The questioner lives in a co-op building next to an elderly couple that has lived in a stabilized building for 50 years and doesn’t have a family-support network.
“This morning, one of the occupants, who has advanced dementia, opened my apartment door, which was briefly unlocked, and was standing in my living room!” reads the question. “I was able to gently escort her back to her apartment. Building management said that they have spoken to the city’s adult protective services, which has investigated and declined to act.”
The story includes different advice from experts and social workers on possible resources to use and strategies to help.
You can read it on the New York Times’ website.
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Smart bird
Flaco4Life
Downtown girls aren’t for everyone, Flaco.
.. I’m gonna try for an uptown girl…
Lovely photo by Isabelle Tietbohl. Which street is this?
center, vine-covered building is 143 West 81 Street 10024
Those vines aren’t doing the masonry any good.
Great looking brownstone & over 120 years old, So far so good!!
I think this every time I walk by it. Can’t imagine why they leave those up. It will be quite the project when that building eventually changes hands.
Nadler should retire too. He did a great job but it’s time.
Says who! You? He’s done a great job so you’re going to push him out because he’s getting older?
Regarding the elderly couple where the wife walked into the wrong apartment in error: I think it was an act of kindness that the city’s Department of Adult Protective Services, after investigating, declined to act. I think that was an act of kindness especially since it was investigated first.
It’s better this couple live out their remaining years together without City interference or they would have ended up in some less-than facility and would, no doubt, been forcibly separated which would have killed them emotionally if not physically.
That’s a nice sentiment, but did you read the part about no family support, and have you ever actually been around people with dementia? I have.
Maybe today they are just confusedly wandering into a concerned neighbor’s apartment, but as their brains deteriorate, one or both could leave the building on a sub-zero day, wearing just their underwear, and walk directly into traffic. And then there’s the obvious risk of criminals preying on them, stealing what little they have or worse. Who is making sure their bills are paid on time, or that they are eating and not slowly starving?
I warmly support the idea of people with dementia staying in their own homes, but there needs to be a responsible adult consistently watching out for them.
Exactly this. It’s a sweet-sounding tale they just wandered into a neighbour’s place and were escorted back but do they wander elsewhere? Do they go into stores and pick things up, unaware of what they’re doing? Do they wander onto the train and sit, confused and scared? Do they eat? Do they leave food out and then get ill? Are they warm? These are all basic things they may lack the ability to deal with and it’s sad and dangerous.
Even if they’re only mildly impaired now….