Monday, April 29, 2024
Sunny. High 81 degrees.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
Tuesday is the last day of Passover. Sunday is Cinco de Mayo.
On Sunday, May 5, Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal is hosting a shred day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in front of 230 West 72nd Street, between Broadway and West End Avenue. Each person can bring up to three boxes of documents.
Also on Sunday, Councilmember Gale Brewer will host a graffiti sweep and removal across the neighborhood. You can take part by signing up HERE, which will also come with a free t-shirt as supplies last.
Upper West Side News
By Gus Saltonstall
A stretch of West End Avenue has nearly 60 scaffolding sheds across 35 continuous blocks, according to a recent report from the New York Post.
There are 57 sidewalk sheds on West End Avenue from West 72nd to 107th streets, with only one block within that span — between 73rd and 74th streets — completely free of scaffolding.
The Post also found that along the entire 48 blocks of West End Avenue, which runs from West 59th to 107th streets, there are a total of 85 scaffolding sheds. There are only three other avenues in the city with more sheds, and those are each more than three times the length of West End Avenue.
“I see it every day, and I hate it,” one Upper West Sider told the Post.
You can find out more — HERE.
Continuing on the housing-related front, according to two new interactive map tools released by the New York City Department of City Planning last week, the Upper West Side built the least amount of new housing in 2023 of any neighborhood in New York City.
In fact, our neighborhood lost overall homes last year.
The Upper West Side had a net loss of 38 housing units, which came from 177 homes in Council District 6 either being demolished or lost to an alteration last year, as reported by 6sqft.
Compare that to East Harlem and the South Bronx, comprising District 8, which had a net gain of almost 3,600 homes in 2023, the most of the city’s 51 Council districts.
“New York City is producing far less housing than needed, and the housing that is being built is concentrated in just a few neighborhoods,” DCP Director Dan Garodnick said in a news release about the new maps. “This imbalance is at the root of much of our housing crisis, and is driving up the cost of rent, exacerbating the imbalance of power between landlords and tenants, and forcing working New Yorkers out of our city.”
You can check out the housing data for yourself — HERE.
The Central Park police precinct is upping its presence in the park following three more robberies on Thursday and Friday within the iconic green space.
Even before the most recent incidents, robberies within Central Park had already jumped from three to 15 as of last Sunday for the first part of the year, compared to the same time period in 2023.
This trend continued on Thursday night when a woman was punched and sexually threatened by a mugger inside of the park near West 97th Street. Hours later on Friday morning, three young men with a gun robbed a 42-year-old man who was taking photos near East 59th Street and East Drive, the Daily News reported. A gun was pointed to the man’s head as the two other attackers punched him, the Daily News added.
That night, a group of teenagers tried to grab a cell phone from a man near East 109th Street and East Drive, and also held a gun to his face, this time pulling the trigger, but the weapon only clicked, the victim told the Daily News.
A former CNN anchor posted on social media last week that she was headed to Israel “where my two sons will be safer and feel more welcomed than they would be today on the Upper West Side.”
Campbell Brown, who used to work for CNN and Meta, took the trip to Israel with her family to celebrate Passover. The social media post garnered significant attention online and also spawned stories from the Daily Beast and Fox News.
Initially, it was unclear whether Brown meant she was moving permanently to Israel.
Brown had previously shared multiple videos showing the protests at Columbia University in Morningside Heights, which she called “outrageous.”
You can read more — HERE.
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In more positive news – the West95th Street Neighborhood Group planted the bike lane tree beds this weekend at the intersection of 95th street and Amsterdam Avenue. The plantings look beautiful and are a huge positive for the block. Thank you to all the volunteers and people who donated!
Am I the only one who likes those scaffolding sheds? I appreciate the shade on hot sunny days and the shelter on rainy days. I also find that the support pillars down the middle produce de facto “lanes” that help with foot traffic flow.
Haven’t we all appreciated them during an unexpected rainstorm?
More scaffolding, more crime, higher prices, higher rents, more pot shops, more homeless.
Yes, it’s the scaffolding. 🙄🙄🙄
We just need Warhol back and a nightclub like Area! Those were the days..
I miss Area. Also Limelight, Palladium, CBGB, affordable apartments for artists and writers in the East Village, Brooklyn, and Queens, second-hand bookstores everywhere, Canal Jeans and Charivari, the fascinating, creative fashion parade that NYC used to be (street fashion is SO BORING now), outsider arts events happening everywhere (because artists didn’t have to spend every waking moment just making rent).
About the only things that are better now are the parks – they used to be really scraggly and sad looking – and the fact that poor artists now have health insurance (many, anyway).
I’m a NIMBY but comparing housing built should be weighted by existing density. NY has massive housing density in neighborhoods like the UWS. Other neighborhoods are far less dense.
When you suggest building more housing in lower density areas, they say that adding housing would change the low density character of their neighborhood, and if they wanted to live some place like the UWS. Everyone always has an excuse about why housing should go somewhere else, and then they never specify where exactly they want to see housing built and why the people who live there won’t have the same objections they have. The only fair solution is to build more everywhere.
You raise such an interesting topic that I had to look it up. On most websites, the UES (Yorkville in particular) is the the most densely populated neighborhood in NYC as of 2023, followed by that East Village-Stuytown-Cooper Union swath and then the UWS. The problem is that the least dense areas with great construction potential are in areas poorly served by mass transit.
You nailed it!! I live on the FAR West Side= @ 60th street and West End AVe… Horrendous situation to get to the nearest subway.. Only bus on 11th ave/ West End Ave is the M57 which arrives every 10 to 15 minutes during the day to get you to the nearest subways… On weekends and at night fergedaboudit! You have to take a cab which these days costs a fortune!
The UWS vetoes every building and housing project, that is why so few things are built.
About Israel being “safer” than NYC. I was in Israel recently, nearly all of February, and was scolded by a Manhattan resident for risking my safety. I never felt in danger during my years in Manhattan – but neither did I feel like I was taking a chance in Israel. I ALWAYS felt safe in Israel!
Ok, Campbell, move to Israel where it is “so safe.” lol
The scaffolding will continue to be a blight until Landmarks and the Department of Buildings streamline their requirements. Complying with Local Law 11 this cycle will cost my co-op 3 years and $80,000 per apartment. I estimate that at least half that expense, and up to 3/4, is due to onerous and frankly ridiculous requirements by the Landmarks Commission
Remember when Mayor Adams gave a triumphant press conference about how the scourge of scaffolding was finally going to be a thing of the past? As with everything he does, it was a press conference and nothing more.
Given the statistic that there was less building in 2023 which I will check out, how about the building in 2022, 2021 and 2020! There has been an incredible amount of housing built on the UWS in the past several years-about 6 or 8 big buildings that I can count on Broadway-one monstrous tower at around 800 feet at 66th. Then 200 Amsterdam. A Naftali building coming in on Bway and 85th. Almost ALL luxury housing-squash courts, gyms, lounges, etc. etc. And naturally all at enormous costs to those who may venture to live there. What has all this building done? Raised the prices of housing which is the opposite of what all those YIMBYS and REBNY folks love to say about building more housing! There’s such a thing as fake news and plenty of it around when it comes to real estate!
You can see at the link that since 2019 there has been a net addition of 842 homes in Manhattan CB7. We’ve added less than 1,000 homes in five years – less than 200 homes per year in a neighborhood of 200,000 people!
There is not an incredible amount of housing being added to the Upper West Side, which is why housing is getting more expensive, which is exactly what all the YIMBY folks said would happen.