Monday, April 1, 2024
Rainy. High 54 degrees. Rain expected through Thursday.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
Today is Easter Monday. Today is also April Fools’ Day, so be on the lookout for plenty of mischief and misdirection.
Upper West Side News
By Gus Saltonstall
“Is Sam a Dangerous Dog?” asks a recent New York Times headline about a lawsuit that claims an emotional support dog is terrorizing an Upper West Side building.
The suit comes from Joe Venafro, a resident of a building at West 79th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, who says his neighbor’s dog attacked him in the elevator in September, and that the animal has a history of lunging at other residents, building workers, and people delivering food.
The debate over Sam, the mixed-breed rescue dog, has reportedly divided loyalties between the people who live and work in the building. After a different neighbor was reportedly attacked in the building, the owners gave her “an expensive box of cookies from Levain Bakery” in return for not mentioning it to the landlord, according to the lawsuit.
The owners of the dog did not respond to the Times’ request for comment.
“Out of the woodwork, people started approaching me,” Venafro told the Times. “It was alarming that a lot of people had had incidents with this dog, and I wanted to know why the dog was still in the building.”
You can read the full story — HERE.
Long-lost friends who grew up on the Upper West Side together were reconnected recently after 30 years with the help of a neighborhood Facebook group.
Jennifer Calcano, who was raised on West 90th Street during the 1990s, found an old scrapbook that held a photo of an older girl who used to walk her to school every day until the 3rd grade, as first reported by ILoveTheUpperWestSide.
Calcano knew that the girl’s first name was Kimberly and that she had also grown up on West 90th Street, but she hadn’t seen her since 1995. “She treated me like I was cool,” Calcano told the Post. “We would just walk and talk and then she would drop me off at my class and she would go to hers.”
The photo prompted a year-long search for where Kimberly might be.
She tried reaching out to old teachers and posting on social media, but the search wasn’t making progress. Unfortunately, her mother, who would have known Kimberly’s last name, died 10 years ago.
Calcano’s luck changed, though, when she posted a photo of Kimberly on the “Upper West Side Together” Facebook group in February, which has more than 15,000 members. In a matter of hours, somebody responded to the photo saying they knew the woman. Shortly after, Kimberly Mendez, 42, who lives in Connecticut, reached out to her old friend and the two Upper West Side natives were reconnected.
You can read the full story — HERE.
Amid a string of women reporting they were randomly punched in Lower Manhattan last week, reality TV star Bethenny Frankel from “Real Housewives of New York City” commented on a social media post that she was also punched out of nowhere by a man on the Upper West Side.
“This is insane because this happened to me a few months ago but I was embarrassed to say,” Frankel said in a since-deleted comment on a TikTok of a different woman sharing her experience getting attacked. “I was on the Upper West Side. Insane. I was taking a video of a bakery.”
Frankel’s comment came after more than 20 women shared stories last week on TikTok about randomly getting hit while walking down the street in Manhattan.
Despite speculation, police have said there is no evidence that these attacks are connected. Two men have been arrested in the past few days in connection to two of the assaults.
You can read more about the situation — HERE.
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The dog story is frightening (and I am a dog lover and former dog owner). The vast majority of dog owners are good people and kind, considerate neighbors, but there are too many who aren’t.
I have had several other encounters with owners of “support dogs” who are entitled and show no concern for others. I was recently in a restaurant where a support dog was being a nuisance and the manager of the restaurant was unwilling to say anything to the dog owner (or move the dog and owner to a less crowded part of the restaurant) because it was a support dog (I don’t blame the manager given the nature of the law). So several other tables interrupted their meals to move away.
It is the height of irony that people who need emotional support from an animal (which I completely understand and appreciate) show zero compassion for the mental and physical health of others. Of all people, they should be the most understanding.
We’re SO tired of the fake “service” dogs and “emotional support” dogs (what dogs AREN’T emotional support?!) . We’re dog owners and would never lie to gain access for our dog. First of all, service dogs are HIGHLY trained to ignore distractions (like other dogs barking, people, etc). There are several fake “service” dogs in our building and they bark at our dog all the time (in all fairness, our dog barks at them too, but we don’t claim ours is a service dog!)
By diluting the meaning of ‘service’ dog, we’re doing a major disservice to the all the REAL service dogs that provide critical help to their owners in real ways. Shame on all the fakers!
Re random punching: are we allowed to post links to other sites? Gothamist says domestic violence deaths were up 30% betw 2021 and 2022:
https://gothamist.com/news/domestic-violence-deaths-are-rising-in-nyc-especially-among-women-of-color
People seem to be becoming more cruel to those around them.
For pity’s sake, get the dog trained properly.
And do not let it out of the apartment without a muzzle.
Need more lighting, more cameras, more cops patrolling .
Oh how I wish Bethany Frankel would just go away. She is so obnoxious – she makes everything about her.
Thank you! Glad it’s not just me. I curse Andy Cohen for unleashing her (and ALL the “Real Housewives”) on us.
Yes the dog Sam is a very dangerous Dog. He tried to attack my dog and me at the dog run on West 81 Street and his owner is threatening people with the dog. Actually, that dog should be “put down” from what I’ve heard of the attacks in the past. The owner says he’s “a service dog” …who granted him “a service dog”, show me the certificate and the license!!! He is no service dog, but a menace to West 79Th St.
I will contact my attorney today as well to start a lawsuit against him.
That’s a lot of BS “emotional support dog”.
There should be some type of government agency to authorize “a service dog” of its authenticity. Just because you say you have a service dog doesn’t mean it’s a “real” service dog. It’s a lot of crap like the owner!
RE the photo you included above of Trader Joe’s street front: does TJ pay the city for free use of the street as their loading dock? The design of the Columbus Ave store is so poorly thought out, with inadequate space for loading and with the same door functioning as both entrance and exit. It causes a mess on the street, and this UWSer is not a fan. Tangentially…I would love to see the WSR do an exposé on all the delivery companies taking up street parking spots as their loading docks. Amazon trucks blocking off half a street with orange cones to unpack their trucks for hours on end. Do they pay the city for this privilege, or are our streets free warehouse space for them?
The worst part is that the parking lane in front of the store is reserved for commercial vehicles loading/unloading – ie the trucks delivering to TJ. But, they have the truck park and take up a travel lane so that they can offload the pallets into the parking lane and the sidewalk before bringing them into the loading bay. And if there is no delivery truck there, they are at least blocking off the parking lane with their cones and typically blocking the travel lane as well, for when the truck comes. Love the store but hate their delivery setup. It drops the 3 travel lanes to 2 at that intersection for no reason.
I’ve saved so much money since Trader Joe’s opened that I’d them have the whole block for free if they wanted. You’re paying the same prices there that they charge everywhere else in the country.
How about all the restaurants that block a lane permanently with their shacks? Do they pay the city? Trader Joe serves many more people and at low prices. They are an asset to the city.
It seems every few days there’s another thing in the newspaper about a recall on a product the trader Joe carries
All of the delivery companies should not be allowed to stop forever in a location and use half a block as their sorting zone. It has been said here before – they should rent empty storefronts and be encouraged to drop off to those locations overnight, with minimal time to unload the truck, then they can do their sorting within the store.
The downside of this is that we would then be charged more for deliveries as the cost will just get passed through.
Supermarkets using the streets as a loading zone is unfortunately a fact of life in NYC. I don’t have a better solution. This is a different situation than FedEx, Amazon, etc. I am actually more troubled by the 72nd St. TJ’s location as that is a much busier intersection. I am not often on the bus but it drives me nuts when the bus is trying to stop there and someone is loading a cab at the pace of a snail at the bus stop.
Re: have the companies rent storefronts. Then we will get a bunch of people complaining on WSR that:
“We need neighborhood stores, not places you can’t see into or use for the community.”
Here is real advice. If you don’t want delivery trucks then STOP ordering things online. Buy from a local merchant.
Let the delivery trucks park on the streets. If you want to drive a car in the city then THAT is the price you pay. Unless you are picking something up from a local merchant.
How is a delivery truck for TJ’s different from delivery trucks for any other entity that must get their product to a destination? Think about how local merchants get their products on the shelves when you seek to favor them. I don’t understand the irrational justification for only select companies like TJ’s to be able to deliver in the City.
I would love to know what happens with the dog lawsuit. Maybe there can be an update posted here in the future.
So to be clear, all I have to do is go on Amazon and buy a florescent vest for my dog, proclaim it’s a “service dog”, and take him into any grocery store or restaurant or any other establishing selling food to people?
Fairways uses the Broadway storefront for its loading dock many days.