Monday, February 10, 2025
Sunny. High 34 degrees.
Following the snow on Saturday night, there is another chance of a flurry on Tuesday. Temperatures will warm slightly over the week, and rain is forecast for Thursday and Sunday.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
On Thursday newly elected Assemblymember Micah Lasher will have his community swearing in. Friday is Valentine’s Day.
Upper West Side News
By Gus Saltonstall
At least one person who frequents the Upper West Side had one of the better days of their life last week, as a neighborhood shop sold them a $1 million lottery ticket, according to PIX11.
Lucky Corner, at 200 West 96th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, sold a $1 million lottery ticket for the Mega Millions drawing that took place on Tuesday. The amount was the second-highest total a person could win from the drawing. The top jackpot prize remains up for grabs at $110 million for this upcoming Tuesday.
At this point, the winner of the $1 million remains anonymous, so it is unclear if an Upper West Sider took home the prize, or someone who works in the neighborhood, or someone just passing through.
A pair of Manhattan elected officials are calling for residential parking permits to be put into effect across the city following the start of congestion pricing, as first reported by Gothamist.
Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, who used to represent a chunk of the Upper West Side as the councilmember for District 7, along with Upper Manhattan Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa, are pushing the city to approve a pilot program that would restrict parking in certain neighborhoods to drivers who pay for a permit.
“A well-designed residential parking permit system could help regulate street space to improve parking access for local residents, integrate efforts to reduce air pollution and emissions from circling cars, reduce congestion on residential streets, and address economic and racial equity concerns,” reads a bill in the state Senate that would enact neighborhood parking permits.
The Gothamist article mentioned that then Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer conducted a study in 2019 that found 53 percent of New Yorkers would pay for parking permits, but her office eventually concluded that the city was not ready for the program.
New York City currently has around 3 million free parking spaces on the streets.
You can read more about the issue — HERE.
Last week, The New York Times followed along on the journey of two first-time home buyers looking for a $700,000 one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side.
After years of renting, Gaby Hernandez and Josh Gordon wanted to purchase a home with a maximum budget of $700,000. They hoped to land an apartment on the Upper West Side, which “Hernandez had come to love while attending AMDA [a musical and dramatic academy].”
Their wishlists for their new apartment included a doorman and elevator, in-unit laundry machines, sunlight, minimal renovations, a nearby subway stop, and a dog-friendly building. The couple ended up with three options, a Lincoln Center co-op, a Theater District co-op, or an Upper West Side prewar building.
Each address came with its own set of conditions and monthly maintenance fees. You can read more about their process of finding and selecting an Upper West Side home — HERE.
As each day passes we get closer to the 2025 Democratic and Republican primaries in New York City this June, which will include the race for mayor, along with positions in the City Council, as well as Borough President, Comptroller, and more.
While the Upper West Side and Morningside Heights have just one local election this cycle — the City Council District 7 race in which incumbent Shaun Abreu is facing off against multiple challengers — we wanted to give you a quick update on other local political developments.
There will be a community swearing in for new District 69 Assemblymember Micah Lasher on Thursday. The event will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Booker T. Washington Middle School on West 108th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues, and will include light refreshments.
You can reserve a spot — HERE.
In some Upper West Side mayoral endorsement news, West Side Democrats, which was named the most powerful political club in New York state in 2024, endorsed Scott Stringer for mayor. Stringer is a former assemblymember on the Upper West Side.
In other local mayoral endorsement news, Brad Lander received an endorsement from the Upper West Side Action Group, which you can learn more about — HERE.
In the race for Manhattan Borough President, State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who represents a portion of the Upper West Side, recently received a slew of endorsements, including from the West Side Democrats, the Village Independent Democrats, and the Downtown Independent Democrats.
Current Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine also received an endorsement from West Side Democrats in his bid for Comptroller.
We will cover the City Council District 7 race in more detail, including the different endorsements candidates have received, in the coming months.
Subscribe to West Side Rag’s FREE email newsletter here. And you can Support the Rag here.
I don’t understand the obsession with in-unit laundry. Lots of us live in buildings with laundry rooms. Laundry apps make it easy; many have alerts when machines are free or your load is done. You take the elevator down (in your flip flops), and it’s a great chance to meet your neighbors. I get it if it’s a walk-up and you’re on the fourth floor, but sheesh: it’s not a must-have.
You all must have nicer neighbors than I do.
Also, with an in-unit washer/dryer, you don’t have to compete with the housekeepers of your well-to-do neighbors who monopolize all of the machines from 8 AM to 6 PM Monday through Friday. However much you may enjoy doing laundry in the basement, there are other ways I’d rather spend my evenings and weekends.
Maybe if you are a single person, as a woman with a family and pets, our in-unit washerdryer is a life saver. We do multiple loads a week. I remember the days of schlepping laundry to a cockroach filled basement or in a nicer building one with a lending library, but nothing beats the comfort and convenience of your own home and it’s a time saver too.
What about when your baby throws up in the bed (or worse) at 2am? Or your kid comes home caked in mud and you’re on your way out the door? Or you have a major kitchen disaster and you have to get up early in the morning? Does anyone remember laundry rooms during the pandemic (and be assured, that is not the last pandemic we will face)? I have lived through all of this without a washer/dryer in my apt and it was not pleasant. It was a major priority when we bought our place, but ultimately we did sacrifice the washer/dryer for more space.. I have honestly regretted it ever since. The meeting/seeing people is nice, but I’d give that up to have my own washer/dryer in a min. Our building will not allow it. And I think it lowers our resale value by quite a lot.
When your kid poops or throws up on the sheets is the perfect time to use someone else’s big industrial strength machine. Downstairs.
Did your wife take care of the kid upstairs, put him/her back to bed, cleaned them up, changed the sheets, etc, while you went down to the laundry room?
Or you took care of the baby and your wife went down to the laundry room?
Bc it’s not always that easy.
But how nice to always have had someone around to help.
For a few fleeting months some decades ago I had an in unit washer and dryer and a small baby. Yes the washer was running every day or so, but that was fine – I was living a very irregular home/work life along with. I totally get loving giant machines and five loads of at once, but it was delish getting a fresh load dried while I fed the baby and put her to sleep. Or whatever. Just easier when you have little one(s).
I agree. I lived on 86th and Columbus for 20 year. Our laundry room had shelves of books that people filled to share their old books. Going there to do my laundry allowed me to meet all my neighbors and made some special friends. Now I live in bougie apartment in Nashville TN. I have, besides a real adult kitchen, a full size washer and dryer. Yes, it’s great not to have to go to the corner bodega to get quarters, and I feel less icky putting sheets and towels in the community machines, but I have lost the human contact benefit. I have very little opportunity to meet my neighbors. The grass is not always greener.
When I renovated in 2004-2005, I put in a small, Italian Malber washer/dryer. It washed well, but dried terribly. You had either to take everything out wet or run it several times to dry, and everything would be crinkled if you did. I finally gave it up for the space back in my studio’s kitchen for pots and pans, and went back to using the big machines in the basement, which I don’t mind at all. I do understand people being phobic about germs, timing, etc., but when you live in small digs, it’s no big deal.
A couple in my building met in the laundry room 🙂
How many UWS residents meet on the subway?
Maybe WSR should do an article on UWS subway couples?
Although the LIRR and Metro-North and the express buses were more social pre COVID. Actually it can be good and very very bad. Having used express buses and the LIRR, I know of couples that have met on there, I know of people who have made “train friends” or “bus friends”. But the drama and the BS can be bad, very bad. I know of people from Riverdale who drive to Manhattan to avoid the drama on the express buses. I know of people from Long Island who drive to avoid the drama on the LIRR. There is definitely a social dynamic on these modes of transit the subway does not have. You see a whack job on the subway, you may never see that person again. You see a whack job on the LIRR or Metro-North, chances are you will encounter that person again and there will be an eye on you that was not there before.
The best thing about a big community laundry room is you can do all your laundry at once. I use 3 or 4 big washers then 3 or 4 dryers, all running simultaneously, and can wash and dry everything for me and the family in one hour. If all I had was one small machine I’d be doing laundry all the time. Also no worries about maintenance or repairs or the electric bill, it’s great.
I hope we can get laundry apps too!!!!!
Parking permits are a great idea. Hopefully they will only give them to folks with cars registered in the city, as my street has mostly out of state plates.
Completely agree. It will make the state a lot of money by forcing all those who register their cars at the home of their second cousin six times removed in Boise to register it here. Plus the permits will make money. The fee should not be excessive – maybe $100 or $200 a year. But enough to have meaning.
There should also be a way to make them available for those who can show documents proving they work in the neighborhood.
And yes, people still need cars – not everyone can take public transportation. Please save the childish car bashing for another thread.
They are not a great idea.
If they are available to people who work and live in the neighborhood, who will it exclude? Visitors and people shopping here? People don’t just park in the neighborhood for no reason.
We can solve illegally registered vehicles the same way we crack down on every other crime – more enforcement and harsher penalties. Confiscate illegal cars, auction them off, and use the funds to pay for more cops to enforce the law. I don’t understand the people who think that the way to end illegal registration is to bribe the criminals committing it with a cheap parking spot.
It is about excluding a certain kind of person from the neighborhood. Just like how urbanists can indirectly do it, so are those opposed to urbanists like Renee Baruch who was pushing resident permits are capable for it. For the record, if there was a hypothetical Democratic primary and my two choices were Sara Lind or Renee Baruch, I would go with Sara Lind even though I despise the bike lobby. That is how off putting the resident permit proponents are.
There would be widespread fraud in documenting that you work in the area.
If they’re available to people who only work in the neighborhood, then they’re not resident permits.
Fine. Then call them resident/worker permits. Or something else similar. I’m sure there are countless people here with opinions on the best name.
Also, responding to other posts, not every spot will be permitted. There can still be plenty of metered spots. There are currently metered spots.
And I was just throwing out a fee number to start with. If I had gone too high, I would have gotten complaints that we are pricing people out. Too low is clearly a problem for people too. This is why I have never won for office – you can never win. And all of this nitpicking is why nothing gets done. Perfect is the enemy of the good.
A few weeks ago during the evening I counted off out of state plates on west 92. Over a half of them! Maybe one belonging to a doorman was working!
$100-200 a year is absurdly low, it needs to be priced high enough so that it’s not worth it for people who don’t really need to keep a car.
Then NYPD would actually need to enforce and ticket violators.
Resident parking permits do not do anything but make neighborhoods more of a gated community. If you want to force outsiders to use public transportation to come to the UWS, then UWS residents should use public transportation to go to transit deserts. Something many UWS residents are clearly unwilling to do in many cases.
I keep hearing this statistic that New York City has three million free parking spaces, but this includes parking spaces citywide from Little Neck to Staten Island. It’s totally disingenuous and misleading to use this number. How many free (excluding metered and short term) parking spaces are there in Manhattan? On the UWS?
Parking is free on every cross street from 87th to 110th. It’s free from on every cross street from CPW to Amsterdam from 75th to 87th. It’s free on CPW, West End and Riverside from 72nd to 110th. There are (conservatively) thousands of free spots in the neighborhood.
https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/motorist/parking-rates.shtml
Why not charge for all of them and use the proceeds to fund local government services that benefit everyone?
They already pay fees to the city and state. Even if you see it as a subsidy, it is a subsidy for transportation the MTA does not want to or cannot provide.
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what about all the Uber and Lyft drivers are we eliminating their ability to drive around the city ? Right someone will benefit from having fewer personal cars on the streets. Hmmmm let me see would that be those companies Uber/Lyft Mark Levine and other special interests who lobby for such things and will ultimately reap the benefits of such permits. This will limit parking for the disabled too. How many more parking spots can the city do away with? We already have fewer on my street 2 parking places were eliminated and a fake sidewalk extended at the corner for “safer” streets. Pedestrians now go out and stand on the fake extended sidewalk and are even less safe in doing so. But “safer streets” have eliminatd parking again!!
Residential Parking Permits are good idea would force vehicles to be registered and insured in NYC and remove the out of state plates of actual NYC residents
NYCHA non-reserved parking rate is $85/yr
NY should end the NYCHA subsidy or charge the same as the NYCHA rates for the permits.
Residential Parking is like putting a bandaid on any open sore. It means my friends & relatives can’t park. This is what Tranaportation Alternatives, a multimillion dollar lobby group for Uber & Lyft wants. We have to get rid of the bus lanes & bike corrals. My permit won’t guarantee parking.
E-bikes belong in the street with cars. Less than 1% bikers use them for work. Get rid of the Ubers, Lyfts & car shares and give us light rail on all our highways & tunnels and there will be plenty of parking for everyone.
I use public transportation and only use my car to get in & out of the city or go to the Humane Society on 59th Street for my 70lb dog that is not allowed on our subways & buses. Europe allows this and has an excellent public transit system. I am a life long biker, My famiy has lived here for 5 generations. We all bike, but need our cars to leave the city.
With Congestion Pricing we are a gated community for the wealthy.
Plus you seem to be one of the few dog owners that doesn’t bring it on the subway. Free for all these days
Your friends and relatives can park at meters. They can park in lots and garages. Let’s get rid of bus lanes so people you know can park for free, sure thing.
You haven’t made a case for why you should be entitled to hog a parking spot for multiple days just so you can use a car to leave the City. You should garage your car so that your street spot can be used by more vehicles who come and go over the same number of days that your car sits on the street.
But you all support getting rid of parking garages and ending parking minimums as well.
Getting rid of bus lanes to make it easier to store private cars for free on public streets isn’t the solution. Our streets should prioritize people over parked cars, which means safer walking and biking, faster buses, and more reliable subways.
If I want to leave the city, I take a train, a bus, or rent a car.
“…the winner of the $1 million remains anonymous…”
Actually, no. The winner doubtlessly has a name — you just don’t know what it is. He or she therefore is not “anonymous”; rather, the identity of the winner is “unknown”.
RESIDENTIAL PARKING PERMITS:
I have mixed feelings on them. On the one hand, it would hopefully cut down on all of the NYC residents committing insurance fraud with out of state plates. There are several of these vehicles on my block and I can say with certainty that many of the cars have not left NYC for at least a year. On the other hand, There are 36 units in my building with 66 feet of curb lane, 30 of which is hydrant. So who decides which of the 36 units should get the permits? Yes, I know they are good for more than just the immediate spots in front of my building. But do the math…many car owners on the UWS already feel that they are entitled to free parking on their street but the math doesn’t math and the entitlement mentality will likely only get worse when that person has an “official permit”. Not to mention how bad placard abuse already is. Additionally, there is no actual data to support the claim that free street parking above 60th Street has become harder to find as a result of Congestion Pricing. Now that the toll was lowered to $9, if that person also has to take transit to get to their final destination, they are paying $5.80. I highly doubt a substantial number of people are looking for parking in the 60s only to still have to take the subway for the remainder of the commute all to save $3.20.
Parking permits are too complicated to administer, will have too few spaces to be fairly allocated, and will punish non-car owning residents who occasionally rent cars and who would be forced to drive around for an hour+ looking for parking, even though they live here too. Ultimately to be fairly distributed, all residents, not just car owners, should be able to get a resident parking permit, in case they want to park. Which brings us back to too few spaces and too complicated administration. It baffles me that NYC is not instead doing what many other cities with limited parking do, which is paid parking, via app, for all spots, during peak parking times. Drivers willing to pay for permits should be willing to pay for timed app parking instead. NYC already has this technology for metered spots, so it could be readily expanded throughout a neighborhood. This is what should be piloted, not residential permits. P.S. It would also resolve the alleged congestion zone parker problem, by elimnating the economic advantage to parking outside the zone.