Monday, July 15, 2024
Cloudy. High 91 degrees.
Expect another scorcher of a week. Temperatures are forecast to hit 93 and 98 degrees on Monday and Tuesday, before hopefully cooling off slightly with rain on Thursday.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
Upper West Side News
By Gus Saltonstall
In a recent article, Eater New York food critic Robert Sietsema singled out his favorite Upper West Side bagel spot.
Sietsema’s goal was to visit 12 NYC food stops over 24 hours that would cost a total of $150, and he chose Bagels & Co. as his place in the five boroughs to get his morning bagel.
Here’s what he had to say about the Upper West Side eatery at 391 Amsterdam Avenue, near West 79th Street.
“Pick the plain bagel with a schmear of plain cream cheese (about $5),” Sietsema wrote. “When bagels are this good, you don’t need [them] to be toasted or dressed with flavored cream cheeses.”
We’ve recently had plenty of debate over the best bagel spot on the Upper West Side, but what about the second part of Sietsema’s statement? Do the best bagels not need to be toasted? Or does toasting make them even better?
Hank Azaria, an actor best known for his role in “Friends” and as the voice of multiple characters on “The Simpsons,” is also a longtime Upper West Sider.
Azaria recently sat down with Rolling Stone to talk about his latest project, which fans might have a tough time guessing.
Azaria, who has won six Emmy awards, is currently training to be the frontman of a Bruce Springsteen cover band.
“My whole life is about sharing vocal impressions,” Azaria told Rolling Stone, while sitting in his Central Park West apartment. “This, in some ways, is the ultimate of that to me.”
The group will be named Hank Azaria and the EZ Street Band, and they will have their first official performance on August 1 — the proceeds of which will all go to charity.
You can check out a preview of what the performance will look like below.
The festival for the return of the Riverside Park goats has been postponed from its original date on July 12 to July 19.
The Goatham Festival, which will be jam-packed with “goat-filled fun,” will take place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on July 19 at the Ten Mile River Playground at West 151st Street.
For the past four years, the goats have been deployed in a Morningside Heights section of Riverside Park near West 120th Street. This year, they’ll be stationed further uptown at West 143rd Street.
You can find out more details about the goats — HERE.
New York City Fire Department Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, who was the first woman to serve in the role, announced her resignation over the weekend.
Kavanagh has held the position for the last three years, and was Deputy Commissioner for the five years prior.
“My dedication to the FDNY has never and will never waver,” she said in a statement.
Kavanagh made no mention of the rumors circulating about a meeting that recently took place between Mayor Eric Adams and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks about the possibility of Kavanagh stepping down because of tension between her and high-ranking FDNY chiefs, the Daily News reported.
The tension arose over her choice of a new FDNY chief. “After ostracizing several seasoned chiefs she often disagreed with, many speculated Kavanagh would choose a younger, recently promoted chief who had been loyal to her, which would cause a mass retirement among the higher ranks,” the Daily News wrote.
You can read more of the details — HERE.
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Our family are fans of Pick a Bagel
🙂
Flavored cream cheese is evil. Case closed. Not as bad as scooped bagels, but close. And toasted bagels slow down the line. If you want it toasted, bring it home and do it yourself. And when you get to the front of the line, if there is a line, be ready to order quickly. And get off my lawn!
Not sure what the piece about the fire department has to do with the UWS? Obviously she is the Fire Commissioner for all of NYC so is for the UWS, but usually things posted here are particularly relevant to the UWS?
Happy Monday!
Carlos, I like your style (of thinking and of writing)! You’re one of the “regulars” who I regularly enjoy. Just a bit of upbeat, sincere praise that I hope merits publishing!
Thanks! I appreciate the kind words. Glad I can provide some joy.
Not when it has lox mixed into it, or scallions, etc. But fruit flavors, yes.
Scallion cream cheese is the only acceptable variant.
I stand corrected. I am OK with scallion cream cheese. Thank you. The rest are ridiculous.
A good and fresh NYC bagel need not be toasted!
OT: what place on the UWS sells the best pies?
neighbor785:
IMO the best bakeries (bread, pastry, cake etc) in general are Silver Moon and Epices.
But our favorite pie (not cheap) is on the East Side – apple pie and peach pie (lattice crust top) at Eli’s
Thanks. Do you think they have the same pies at Zabar’s on Bway?
The restaurant “ Good Enought. To Eat”, has delicious pies, I would love to name of place they get them, or if made there.
Thanks, I’ll look into it.
I hope his Springsteen gig is a one-off. There are better uses for his talents.
As a native NYer, toasted bagels (no matter how you serve them) are the work of the devil–and not in a good way. Nope, nope and nope.
I’ll take my fresh any day of the week and I still mourn Lenny’s, to me, the (formerly) best bagel place on earth.
Yes, Lenny’s was the best!
Toasting is an okay way to extend the life of a stale bagel or to add a little favor and texture to a doughy, flabby, mediocre supermarket bagel. It’s sacrilegious to subject a high-quality, deliciously fresh bagel to the torture of the toaster. Tantamount to frying filet mignon in Crisco.
Good riddance Laura Kavanagh. This is what happens when appointments are not based on the merits/qualifications, but rather on the need to meet certain identity group goals!
Please elaborate. What leads you to conclude that Ms. Kavanaugh was unfit?
NY Post on 9/6/23:
“NYC response times to fires, medical emergencies soaring — along with fire deaths”
For a second consecutive year, New York City first responders took longer to get to fires and other medical emergencies — and more people died in blazes.
Combined response times by FDNY ambulances and fire companies to “life-threatening medical emergencies” were up 20 seconds on average during the fiscal year ending June 30 – or 3.5% — to 9 minutes and 50 seconds compared to the previous 12 months, according to the Fiscal 2023 Mayor’s Management Report, released Friday.
Fire deaths involving civilians jumped by 10.8%, from 92 to 102, the report found.
Fire companies responded on average in 9 minutes and 23 seconds while agency ambulances took 10 minutes and 43 seconds — both up from the previous year, the agency said.
The thing is, it’s always hard to determine whether this is because of something she did herself, or something that others are doing because they don’t like her and are “quiet protesting”. Or something having other causes altogether. Those are not good statistics – but I’d want more data before laying the blame entirely at her feet, given the number of people just aching to prove that she was no good before she even began.
Fresh bagels should not be toasted. If I may share a story: many years ago my family was out for breakfast in a Boston-area restaurant. My other ordered a bagel and asked that it not be toasted. The server looked at her in horror and asked, “you want it raw????”
Good one – thanks for the laugh!
Laura Kavanagh was a political hack with no business in the Fire Department. She destroyed morale with her political correctness obsession and like to pal around with AG James then attempted to punish firefighters who booed James during a speech. She was loathed across the board by the rank and file to senior chiefs. A poster child case for the dangers of hiring based on how many demographic boxes you can check off rather than merit.
Where will Azaria’s charity performance take place?
Kossar’s just opened near me, on 72nd/WEA. Great bialys, but bagels too doughy and too expensive. Zabar’s still the best, IMHO.
I like Davidovich bagels. I contacted them and asked where I can get Davidovich bagels on the UWS. I got a response saying at Barney Greengrass and at Zabars. I get D bagels now at both those places.
Larry N below says Zabar’s was making their own bagels, so I don’t know whether they still sell Davidovich.
Zabar’s doesn’t make bagels.
They certainly do. Recently they were out of onion bagels. I was told to wait, they were in the midst of making another batch.. 1/2 hour later, a guy came out with a huge tray of hot, delicious onion bagels.
Hank does a mean Bruce! Wouldn’t have guessed it.
In other news annual fund raising traffic jam for team blue may be omitted next year.
I’m old enough to remember when bagel stores did not have toasters. I brought an out of town friend to Bagel Boss in the late 80s, and when he asked for his bagel to be toasted the man behind the counter stared in shock and said something like, “how insulting! Our bagels are fresh!”