Monday, March 17, 2025
Rainy. High 59 degrees.
Temperatures will be warmer this week, sitting between 36 and 61 degrees. Rain is expected Monday and Friday.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
Monday is St. Patrick’s Day. Thursday is the March Equinox.
Upper West Side News
By Gus Saltonstall
An Upper West Side restaurant owner said that he will have to face the choice of raising his prices or losing out on profits if President Donald Trump imposes his 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, as first reported by THE CITY.
Manny Colon, owner of the popular Manny’s Bistro on Columbus Avenue between West 70th and 71st streets, told THE CITY that “almost a third of the food” he purchases for the restaurant comes from either Canada or Mexico.
“Maybe worse,” THE CITY reported, “he says business is down 20% in recent weeks, which Colon thinks is because his older clientele, living on Social Security and investment income, is cutting back amid the economic storms of the last three months.” .
Later in the story, though, Colon said that he is still unlikely to raise his prices, due to worries that it would result in losing too many customers.
You can read more — HERE.
The price of eggs on the Upper West Side also made the news this week.
On Sunday, the New York Post reported on the Upper West Side Trader Joe’s at West 72nd Street implementing a one-carton-per household purchase policy as the grocery chain has continued to maintain some of the most affordable egg prices in the city.
Currently, eggs are selling between $3.45 and $3.99 at the store, while the average price throughout the city sits somewhere around $8. As West Side Rag reported in our neighborhood egg price investigation in February, the eggs at Trader Joe’s were almost a full $2 cheaper than the next major local grocery store.
Due to the better prices, customers had begun trying to stock up on eggs from the store, which was resulting in a lack of available inventory.
Despite the rule that households can only purchase one carton per day, customers have continued to try to find ways around it, according to the New York Post.
“Some buy a carton, leave the store and come right back — hoping no one notices,” the Post reported. “Married couples swear they don’t live with their significant other to skirt the rule. One family recently tried to have their two elementary-school aged kids buy a carton each, and the parents split up to buy them as well. One kid was successful — but the other was busted.”
A manager at the TJ’s told the publication that its focus was on “trying to be fair.”
You can read the full story — HERE.
Columbia University continues to make national headlines.
First, an update about former graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested last weekend by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, within his Morningside Heights building. As of Sunday, Khalil, a leader of last spring’s pro-Palestinian campus protests, remains in a detention facility in Louisiana, the outcome of his arrest very much up in the air.
Last week, the ACLU also released a video taken by Khalil’s wife of his arrest inside the Columbia University owned building.
Mahmoud Khalil’s attorneys released video of his arrest on March 8 inside his Columbia University-owned residence. The clip shows immigration agents taking Khalil away in handcuffs in front of his wife. pic.twitter.com/GnujvCVvVp
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) March 14, 2025
Last week, ICE arrested a second person who was involved in last year’s protests at Columbia; ICE officials said Leqaa Kordia had overstayed a student visa, which expired in 2022. A Columbia spokesperson told The Spectator, the campus newspaper, that the university had no record indicating Kordia had ever been enrolled there. Meanwhile, a student who was currently in doctoral studies at Columbia had her student visa revoked and self-deported to Canada, the Department of Homeland Security announced on Friday.
Columbia University released a message on Saturday titled “Standing Together for Columbia.”
“Our University is defined by the principles of academic freedom, open inquiry, and respect for all,” the message reads. “These principles are fundamental to Columbia’s broader mandate of advancing the betterment of our community, our city, our country, and the world. We will defend these principles with courage and determination.”
You can read the university’s message in full — HERE.
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Restaurants can avoid tariffs by sourcing local, organic produce. This is more sustainable over the long run and provides resilience to the business as well as a healthier product for customers.
Sourcing local produce is easier said than done. For starters, there is some produce that can’t be grown locally, ie virtually all avocados consumed in the US are imported from Mexico. In fact, Haiti grows more avocados than the US.
Even many citrus products are imported as they are simply too expensive to be grown in Florida.
Furthermore, locally sourced produce is generally more expensive than mass grown produce (oftentimes grown overseas).
Actually there are several avocado ranches in Ventura County, California. Example of such is actor, Tom Selleck’s 63 acre avocado ranch.
Although it’s not the most ideal situation, your guacamole should be safe.
Having eaten at Manny’s on numerous occasions, we’ve always enjoyed ourselves and the food is good, but his prices have never been what one would call “reasonable.”
Didn’t realize Ventura, California counted as locally sourced
That is generally true and I am all for locally sourced, healthfully grown, seasonal foods. But … we will then have to contend with seasonally-only produce (which is how the world managed for millennia and we can probably, too, but we have grown accustomed to having all our produce year round, exactly because a lot of it is imported from places that have different growing seasons) AND we will probably still have to contend with higher prices because labor laws and minimum wages (which I’m all for) locally will translate into costlier produce.
Local organic produce has many virtues, but low cost is not one of them.
Local organic produce is very expensive.
It’s true, definitely sustainable and healthier. Would love for this to happen, but due to economies of scale and the desire to make higher and higher margins across the board, it is unfortunate that this won’t happen unless there are subsidies. At the end of the day it’s all about money.
Ummm….Manny’s Bistro is going to raise its prices??? Are you kidding me? I just took a look at the menu and prices there. They are already SKY-HIGH!!. Take a look for yourself. I don’t think I will be dining there anytime soon.
You’re not their target market.
i wish i had the energy and confidence of people who get on the internet just to yell and advertise their abhorrent lack of reading comprehension.
it LITERALLY SAYS the following: “Later in the story, though, Colon said that he is still unlikely to raise his prices, due to worries that it would result in losing too many customers.”
somehow i don’t think anyone is going to care that someone like you won’t darken the doorstep of manny’s.
When will UWSers start kvetching about “greedy restauranteurs” like they do about “greedy landlords” ?
According to the sourced article, Colon never said that he will have to face the choice of raising his prices or losing out on profits. That was assumed to be the scenario he faced.
The doctoral student who fled to Canada didn’t “self deport.” She ran to Canada because she was being wrongly targeted by ICE. She had been swept up in arrests last summer while trying to get to her apartment, but eventually released without charges.
Today we read about a Lebanese organ transplant doctor, a professor at Brown, who has been deported to Venezuela. There is apparently a shortage of transplant doctors in the US, but, hey, let’s deport one on a valid visa, in defiance of a court order.
Foreign students are an enormous cash boon to US universities. Foreign-born doctors and other medical workers are critical to our medical system. How many of them will want to come here now that they are being targeted by this administration?
I have no problem curtailing illegal immigration and going after criminals. But like much of what we see happening now, the chain-saw approach is really harming our country.
The Lebanese transplant doctor was refused reentry (not sent to Venezuela) when she came back from Lebanon after attending the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah, which violated her pledge not to support terrorists. Her own lawyers withdrew after they had all the facts. We don’t need doctors that badly.
The Canadian woman overstayed her visa, for more than two years, so was not here legally.
These are exactly the type of people who should be deported. Query why it didn’t happen earlier.
Trump said it himself: “I love the poorly educated.” The fantasy this man has of leading the world stage with goons and idiots is so deranged. No education means no world leadership. The man should be in a mental institution.
No, he should be in prison. Solitary confinement.
Careful who you defend: https://nypost.com/2025/03/17/us-news/deported-brown-university-doctor-had-sympathetic-photos-of-hezbollah-leaders-on-her-phone-doj-says/
It is all part of Trump’s/Project 2025’s plan to destroy higher (and all) education. Foreign students are 12% of university students but pay 28% of university operating budgets. Ergo international students subsidize U.S. students and keep universities afloat.
Education is being destroyed, not helped, by foreign money. Look up how much money comes in directly from Qatar and China, and look how the lesson plans reflect that, not to mention the technology China steals. On that last part, don’t trust me, Scott Galloway of NYU did a podcast on it.
Umm, that doctoral student wasn’t attending class and overstayed her visa.
There was a story about the marquee for a Broadway show called Operation Mincemeat not being able to be lit because the bulbs were being delayed coming from China due to tarrifs. The idea that you could not purchase these bulbs in the US to make the deadline for the opening is nit only absurd but points to the problem. The same goes with food. Manufacture local, grow local, source local. It is better for the economy, the environment and your fellow citizens.
You can’t FORCE someone to manufacture something they’re not. However, feel free to raise some chickens in your New York apartment and serve your own eggs. I get mine from the farmers’ market, but they don’t sell light bulbs there. You can get flower bulbs, however.
chuckle….
Sorry, no chickens allowed in your NY apartment! It’s not legal.
This is a terrific sentiment, but building manufacturing facilities is a long game and people need things now. We should absolutely invest in US-based manufacturing, but it requires building new facilities, generating enough energy to power them, and training a workforce to fill them, none of which we have right now.
A third of Manny’s ingredients come from Mexico and Canada? That’s absurd! I would rather eat in a restaurant that sources it’s ingredients more locally.
I don’t think Marie understands how seasons and farming works. Good luck sourcing half of the menu locally.
Enjoy eating nothing but root vegetables half the year. You do realize that the ability to import food transformed our diets, right? Go to a farm market in the winter and eat nothing but what’s there and get back to me.
Perhaps this was the administration’s plans all along….
Manny’s has already raised prices! I ate there last night (and it was jam packed!) and a dish I had there last Fall for $34 was now $42. But it’s a wonderful restaurant and I hope he’s able to maintain it.
Seconding this comment from Steph – Manny’s is a wonderful restaurant – excellent food, lovely ambiance, good service – it is my number one choice for a festive lunch or dinner out. Yes it’s expensive. It’s fine French food. In that context, it’s pretty moderate. My personal favorites are the trout almondine and the steak-frites, and a glass of French champagne (few restaurants offer this).
LOL!!! It’s “fine French” food …. straight from Mexico.
I’m sorry but you are the exact clientele that Mannys gets.
Few restaurants offer a glass of “French champagne”. You’ve got to be joking
$55 for steak frites, sans tax/tip, you’re joking right? “Fine dining?!”
It’s the same price at the Shangri La in Paris.
Can somebody tell me why you’re allowed to stay in Columbia-owned housing, as Khalil was, when you’re no longer a student there?
He is a student not yet graduated. He has a lease. These are apartments not dorms. Columbia owns the apartments and so can do whatever they want with them.
“Our University is defined by … respect for all…”
I have a feeling that the Jewish students whose lives were threatened while Columbia University leadership stood by and watched didn’t feel terribly respected.
I know that what happened to the Jewish students was awful. At the same time, protest of Israel’s response is not beyond acceptable. I don’t actually know the role this guy played, and perhaps he should have been prosecuted. The fact that he was deported without being charged makes me doubt the Administration’s motives here.
He was not deported, he is in custody while the process plays out. Also, this is a civil matter, not a criminal one, so he does not need to be charged with a crime.
What, exactly, happened to the Jewish students? Would you please expand on your comment and source it?
The Atlantic today has a big story about anti-Semitism at Columbia:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/columbia-antisemitism-israel-palestine-trump/682054/
Anyone who still thinks Jewish students weren’t targeted should read it.
Columbia brought this on themselves: https://www.city-journal.org/article/trump-columbia-funding-anti-semitism-bias-universities?utm_source=virtuous&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cjdaily&vcrmeid=hwfUVme700uvg75KKlUrew&vcrmiid=vggP4PrVeU2LpeB35rM6kw
So only one group of students were threatened? Please – the door swings both ways. Open your eyes beyond the propaganda you consume.
I must have missed all of the so-called Zionists breaking into college buildings while holding workers hostage and committing vandalism
Including those doxed for expressing an opinion. People seem to think that is just fine
Noone has any idea if and what other students may have been threatened because they’re all wearing masks 24/7 and there’s not even definitive proof they were students. Open your eyes and try to see anything that doesn’t resemble Hamas commandos.
Just another mealy mouthed garbage statement from an institution that doesn’t know what it’s doing.
Trump continues to destroy our economy and universities.
This weekend and today, online access to Columbia’s library computer system has been “restricted” due to “technical issues.” Did they suffer a cyber attack, or they’re trying to forestall one?
The decaf coffee I usually buy for $12.99 a pound had a big “ON SALE” sign at Fairway for $16.99! The staff member told me it comes from Colombia and the tariffs caused the increase. I asked what caused the deceptive sign since it’s been $4 less for years? He just shrugged since, understandably, he couldn’t answer for his bosses decisions to deceive the customers.
Open the gates, Columbia! And open your pockets, you should be funding Kahlil’s legal team.
Two thoughts: First, the obvious: Trump is ruining the economy; this is all so unnecessary. Second, Manny’s is a treasure, a terrific restaurant.
I am confused about Kordoa. So they mean she was involved in the protests at Columbia, but had never been a student there. And her student visa expired on 2022, so I am guessing she was enrolled elsewhere.
Typing as your friendly local Republican: I’m not aware of any effort on the right to do away with colleges and universities. There is, however, a big push to reduce their influence. So many kids feel pressured to go to college and take out loans for useless degrees like Creative Writing and Gender Studies that they’ll never be able to repay. And come for me in the comments all you like. Yes education is important, but do we really need creative writing majors as much as doctors?
Seriously? My nephew studied history – he is now a top wealth fund manager – guess that was useless degree in your eyes. Ever heard of critical thinking skills _ albeit they seem to be lacking in GOP
That’s not the reason they’re attacking higher ed, because they’re worried about loans for useless degrees.
“So many kids feel pressured to go to college and take out loans for useless degrees like Creative Writing and Gender Studies that they’ll never be able to repay. ”
I see you went to MIU: Make It Up…
If people want to be Creative Writing majors, let them be so. Who are we to judge, or assess “need”? Separate demand curve, separate department, separate budget. Doesn’t affect the current or potential seats for MD degrees.
But there’s equally no need to cancel their student debt if/when they end up unemployed. Choices come with responsibilities.
A hamburger at Manny’s is 25 bucks!
Here in the heartland a hamburger, not fast food, running between $16-$18. Eggs yesterday in my rural area $5.99 for a dozen one place and $6.99 the other store. Only have 2 places to buy groceries, both major chains.
Whoever opined on shutting down Columbia U might have been on to something!
https://nypost.com/2025/03/18/us-news/chilling-step-by-step-manual-for-anti-israel-radicals-to-sow-violent-chaos-is-circulated-among-columbia-students/