Monday, December 4, 2023
Cloudy. High 51 degrees.

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

Hanukkah will begin on Thursday, December 7, this week and will last for eight days and eight nights. The last day of the holiday is on Friday, December 15.

Upper West Side News
By Gus Saltonstall

Rep. George Santos was expelled from the House of Representatives on Friday following a vote by his colleagues.

Santos, who represented parts of Long Island and Queens, was voted out by a tally of 311 to 114, which cleared the two-thirds majority required. He becomes just the third House member since the Civil War to be removed by their peers.

The vote to expel came after a House ethics report released earlier in November found “overwhelming evidence” that Santos had broken the law. Shortly after the release of the report, he announced he would not be seeking reelection.

A total of 105 House Republicans voted to expel Santos, along with nearly every Democrat, AP News reported. Santos’ future is a murky one as he now faces trial and a 23-count indictment that accuses him of “duping donors, stealing from his campaign, and lying to Congress,” the AP added.

You can read more of the details on the AP’s website — HERE.

It has been a long time since New York City was blanketed with snow — so long, in fact, a new record has been set in Central Park.

Central Park has not recorded an inch of snow for 653 days, as first reported by the New York Times. The number means there hasn’t been a major snowfall at the iconic Manhattan green space since February 13, 2022.

The no-snow streak is nearly double the previous record of 383 days that ended in March 1998, the Times added.

Only 2.3 inches of snow fell in Central Park during the entirety of last winter, and while there was the slightest of flakey flurries last week on the Upper West Side, it wasn’t nearly enough to produce anything that stuck.

Central Park typically sees closer to 24 inches of snow in a given winter.

A trio of Upper West Side eateries recently earned a spot on a list of the best restaurants for kids in New York City.

Eater NY, a food news and review website, published its list on December 1 of “The Most Kid-Friendly Restaurants in NYC.”

Here were the three local eateries to make the ranking.

• Good Enough To Eat: 520 Columbus Avenue (85th)
• Parm: 235 Columbus Avenue (72nd)
• Old John’s Luncheonette: 148 West 67th Street

“Dining out with kids doesn’t have to feel like a chore when a restaurant ticks off all the right boxes: high chairs and booster seats (call ahead for availability), a set of crayons, a menu with options for picky eaters, and perhaps even space to run around,” authors of the Eater NY ranking wrote about the selection process. “It’s also a lot more pleasurable when an establishment actually welcomes babies, toddlers, kids, and even tweens.”

Good Enough To Eat, which has been serving the Upper West Side since 1981, got credited for its affordable burger options, while Parm was shouted out for its comfort-food familiarity and kids-menu options. When it came to Old John’s Luncheonette, which recently reopened at its refurbished 67th Street location, the ranking pointed to the simple explanation that diners are great spots for kids’ tastebuds.

A total of 15 New York City-area synagogues received fake bomb threats on Friday, including on the Upper West Side, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the New York Post reported.

The Upper West Side synagogues to receive threats were the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on West 68th Street near Central Park West, the Congregation Rodeph Sholom on West 83rd Street near Central Park West, and Congregation Ohab Zedek on West 95th Street near Columbus Avenue, according to the Post.

The majority of the threats were received through contact forms on the synagogues’ websites.

Mitch Silber, the director of the Community Security Initiative, which oversees security for Jewish institutions throughout the city, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the fake threats were meant to disrupt the worship and operations of the day.

You can read more about it — HERE.

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