Monday, August 11
The heat is back. After a couple of weeks of slightly cooler temperatures, the high today is once again expected to break 90, and stay there through Wednesday, before dropping into the upper 80s toward the end of the week. Skies should be mostly sunny, with stray thunderstorms forecast for Wednesday and Thursday.
On this day in 1929, Babe Ruth hit his 500th home run, becoming the first Major League Baseball player to achieve that milestone.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
News Roundup
By Laura Muha
City Councilmember Gale Brewer loves ice cream. She just objects to risking injury when she buys it, as is all too often the case, thanks to ice cream trucks that park illegally along Central Park during the warm weather.
In response to complaints from District 6 constituents, Brewer’s staff and interns recently spent three days surveying the locations of all ice cream trucks along Central Park South, as well as those parked between 59th and 96th Streets on Central Park West. They found that 61 percent of them – 19 of the 31 – were illegally blocking bike lanes, buffer zones, fire hydrants, or bus stops. In one of every five cases, lines of customers blocked the bike lanes as they waited to order and pay.
“As every cyclist who has traveled on Central Park West knows, when the bike lane is blocked they must divert into a traffic lane—which can actually be deadly,” Brewer said, noting that In 2019, an Australian cyclist was killed when a livery vehicle pulled into the bike lane, forcing her to swerve into traffic, where she was struck by a garbage truck.
In a letter to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Brewer urged action. “I feel strongly that these ice cream trucks endanger pedestrians and cyclists, and I request that the NYPD do more to make them move,” she wrote. “Many trucks identified in the survey are repeat violators. It is not enough for traffic
enforcement agents to issue parking tickets; officers must regularly require vendors to drive away and not return.”
Read the full story — HERE.
Same name, new owner.
Morton Williams, the family-owned chain of grocery stores that has two locations on the UWS and 15 others throughout the city, will be acquired by the company that took over Fairway in 2020. The deal is expected to close by the end of September.
Avi Kaner, the co-owner of Morton Williams, told the New York Post that the decision to sell to Wakefern Food Corp. was the result of economic pressure. “The companies we compete with like Trader Joe’s, Wegmans and Whole Foods are much larger than we are,” he said. “We didn’t have the [deep pockets] of the larger players to continue growing here.”
Wakefern, a $20 billion wholesaler whose flagship chain is ShopRite, plans to expand Morton Williams throughout the metro region, but plans to keep the name, Kaner said.
“This acquisition is an incredible opportunity to continue the legacy of a storied New York City grocer while building on the business and adding even more product offerings, value, and quality for shoppers,” Wakefern President Mike Stigers said in a statement. “Wakefern is committed to honoring the traditions of Morton Williams by bringing high-quality fresh foods and groceries to residents of one of the greatest cities in the world.”
Morton Williams employs more than 1,000 workers, who are represented by Local 338 of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store union.
Read the full story — HERE.
A bicyclist was injured in a collision with a delivery van on Columbus Avenue at 95th Street on Friday morning, police said.
A post that went viral on X showed police and FDNY personnel tending to the cyclist, who was lying in the street. Police told Patch that preliminary information indicated that the cyclist, who was not identified, has minor head injuries. The driver of the van stayed on the scene of the crash.
Read the full story — HERE.
Even if you weren’t lucky enough to snag a free ticket to the long-awaited return of Shakespeare in the Park last week, you can get a glimpse of the newly renovated Delacorte Theater, thanks to The New York Times, which sent a photographer to document the renovations.
They include a new canopy encircling the entire theater, new redwood siding made from reclaimed city water towers, new (and better) signage, more comfortable seats, better dressing rooms, better lighting and sound systems, and, perhaps nearest and dearest to the hearts of female theater-goers, double the number of stalls in the women’s bathroom.
See the photos — HERE.
And you’ll find actors’ favorite memories of performing in the old theater (many of which involve things such as weather and raccoons, which couldn’t be renovated) — HERE.
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“Brewer’s staff and interns recently spent three days surveying the locations of all ice cream trucks”
This just speaks to itself about the trouble we are in. and that his headed our way.
Ick. More Shop Rite quality in our grocery stores. I stopped shopping at Fairway since the degradation of quality ensued. Hopefully, the rumor of Westside Market returning to Broadway in the 70s will come to fruition.
A classy store, excellent produce and prepared foods you won’t find elsewhere. Best of all, the most helpful staff I’ve ever encountered in any UWS grocery store. A real loss, and they only opened recently.
Wegman’s is coming and that’s all you need to know.
Shop Rite has destroyed Fairway. It is no longer a market but now more like a big suburban store with lots of frozen food.
I started going to Morton Williams for the prepared foods because the quality was better than Fairway’s “Gourmet Garage” stuff. Now I hope Shop Rite doesn’t destroy this too.
I live near the WSM on 98th and Broadway. They’re overpriced. And if you don’t want to buy their cooked food, there’s no reason to go in there. Morton Williams is a similar type of store. ( I pass the one at 68th St.Bway on the way to work daily). Talking about “bringing quality, adding even more product offerings, value, and quality for shoppers, committed to honoring the traditions of Morton Williams by bringing high-quality fresh foods and groceries…….” but says nothing about controlling prices or offering BETTER prices, which means that they’ll probably continue the high price regime of the stores already here. Lots of folks can’t afford their inflated prices and there are few more economical options.
With WSM, you’re paying for 24/7 hours and cleanliness. I wouldn’t make it my main store, but I’d be sad if it went away.
Things are not all that great at WSM on 97th.
I went in there today. I saw old and rank meat and other items that were expired that should have been pulled from the shelves already. This store is really bad about that and has been for a long time.
Also you really have to check the fruit in the crates like Strawberries because they are constantly full of mold where you cannot necessarily see it if you don’t.
I don’t always trust the cleanliness of this store or the freshness of their food. You can tell they don’t keep up that store as well as they should.
If you know what you’re doing Morton Williams is cheaper than Fairway, and if you like supermarket sushi, M-W is better than Fairway.
Fairway is better for vegetables (usually, and it’s not good) and things like laundry and dishsoap.
Fairway is no longer what is used to be before it was bought. The meat and vegetables now seem remarkably like what you would find in a Shop Rite v. what you used to find in Fairway.
It seems to me that Fairway has bounced back from its lows before the acquisition by Wakefern. The produce is much better and their sale prices can be very good. I feared for the fishmonger when they consolidated that section, but it has worked out fine. The aoo checkout is fantastic when even self-checkout is backed up. Maybe you should try it again.
Both fish and meat departments significantly deteriorated in both quality and selection and never bounced back.
I am sick and tired of hearing Gail Brewer moan and groan about the poor cyclists. They are the biggest menace on the UWS, not the ice cream trucks or the cars. They go at high speeds, don’t stop for red lights, and go the wrong way on one-way streets. I spent seven hours in the emergency room with two broken ribs after being hit by one. And it is not just the delivery people on e-bikes. It is normal people on regular bikes who seem to feel that the laws apply to everyone but them. Why doesn’t Ms. Brewer do something about them?!
Universal 15 MPH speed limits, speed limits and red lights enforced by cameras, if you don’t have a readable license plate your vehicle gets seized, and if you keep breaking the law you go to jail. Make this apply to cars and bikes both and we would have much safer streets. 200 people killed every year!
Very sorry to hear you got hit.
Vehicular accidents and fatalities are far higher. We should get the NYPD to reinforce traffic laws for cars too
It’s a shanda that you would use someone’s tragic accident to deflect from its very cause. Bike riders are lawless by nature.
The data is clear that cars are a much greater menace to pedestrians than cyclists. This *doesn’t* mean that the way cyclists conduct themselves now doesn’t erode pedestrian quality of life–it really does. But let’s not go crazy here.
Totally untrue. It just means there isn’t any relevant data.
There is “data” and reality.
Sometimes the two don’t match.
It is amazing how so many people feel that their reality, or their perception thereof, is the real reality. In science, we understand that to find the truth, i.e., the actual reality, you must separate opinion, preconceived notions, purely anecdotal evidence, and other biases, from actual empirical evidence. But comments here in the Rag argue the exact opposite approach, throwing out empirical evidence in favor of bias. Empirical evidence can have limits, but the way to address those limits is to make the data sets better with even more data, not to dismiss them in favor of even less reliable evidence.
And then there’s “my random grievances” and reality. Those *rarely* match.
Well put.
Even if you are against cyclists, the positioning of the ice cream trucks is a a danger to the customers, especially the kids. Think about it, if you were against cars in NYC, would you then be ok with an ice cream truck parking in the center lane of Amsterdam Avenue and kids having to step into traffic in the right lane to get their ice cream? This is the car equivalent of the ice cream trucks in the bike lane. Think of safety for the kids.
Both ice cream trucks, which constantly block crosswalks all over Manhattan, and bicycles + e-bikers are significant dangers to pedestrians.
I too wish Brewer would take complaints about e-bikes seriously. But ice cream trucks is a place to start.
The trucks block traffic, which is a problem. But the e-bikes are RIDICULOUS. The people on them, whether riding for work or fun, flagrantly disregard traffic lights. I cannot count the number of times. I have started crossing the street because I, you know, have the light, and some guy on an e Citibike comes whizzing past me..
And they are NEVER ashamed.
And I’ve complained to various council members about ice cream trucks, bike lanes, and e-bike drivers. Once in while I complain about normal bicyclists too.
Right, Lyftbike is setting itself up for a massive liability judgement against it, because Lyftbike rents to teenagers who can’t sign liability waivers.
Ice cream trucks parked in the buffer zone encourage children/families/strollers to blindly walk into the bike lane, creating a very dangerous situation for the families and for all cyclists. This particular issue is more about a situation that specifically endangers pedestrians — and puts them in the path of even rule-abiding cyclists.
Um, this is psychopathic.
What about a cyclist who behaves perfectly? Because other people getting around the city this way behave in a manner you don’t like, that cyclist doesn’t deserve to get around safely?
Um, no. He’s absolutely correct. And his story is far from uncommon. Accept reality and move on.
you do not define what is reality.
Amen
2 things are possible. The bikes need to follow traffic rules and the ice cream trucks pose a risk the way they park.
agreed!
Agreed. “Normal people” ride bikes on paths in Central Park all the time. Normal people ride on the sidewalk all the time. No effort to enforce. A bad scene tolerated.
the icre cream trucks are the reason people ride recklessly. they need to be made to go away. they put both peds and cyclists in danger.,
and cars kill people everyday.
your hyperbole about bikes is nonsense.
Ice cream trucks don’t cause e-bike drivers and bicyclists to run reds through crowded crosswalks going the wrong way.
yeah that would be the awful infrastructure for bikes and peds thats designed 100% around cars. maybe our infra should not be car centric.
deegee,
No, it’s almost always the bicyclist choosing to ride or drive illegally and endanger pedestrians who are obeying the rules.
I’ve lived here 30+ years, it’s very very rare that I’m nearly hit by a car, but that’s a weekly occurrence with bicycles and e-bikes.
Then, I’ve never, so far, been hit by a car, but an e-bike driver hit me on the sidewalk, because he chose to illegally enter the sidewalk after he made a legal right turn and didn’t like that the crosswalk in front of him was full of pedestrians who had the walk light and right of way.
You’ve reinforced how out of touch many bicyclists and e-bike drivers are. Stop with the clichéd ideas about the fault always being someone else’s.
the article with brewer was from two weeks ago in gothamist. nothing has changed yet. the vultures are out there putting people in danger and ripping off customers with garbage ice cream at twice the price every day still.
The ice cream trucks literally smell. Why are they always parked on corners with their exhaust going down our lungs as we await green lights. Cough cough choke choke. When we have poor air quality days why are they allowed out there contributing to the toxic mess. All that so people can don’t have to walk a few blocks to get their sugar fix!
I completely agree — that exhaust is both unhealthy and unnecessary. I’ve started a petition to ban fossil fuel–powered generators on ice cream trucks in NYC so they stop polluting our air, especially on poor air quality days. Please take a moment to read and sign: https://chng.it/zjVmkPqMnB
Agree the ice cream trucks are a menace
UWS Dad,
Just ice cream trucks?
Are other food trucks ok?
Nope. At least in my part of the UWS, food trucks, including Halal food, Mexican food, breakfast carts, water ice vendors, and fruit stands all operate on the sidewalk, not out in the bike lanes.
The emissions from other food trucks like those in front of the AMNH are annoying too.
While all the cars, trucks and even lawn mowers are strictly regulated for exhaust emissions, no one is looking at the fumes coming from these small generators.
Unfortunately it is bicyclists (chiefly Ciibike and racing bicyclists) who endanger my family as pedestrians.
Daily.
This weekend grazed by a Citibiker going the wrong way and through a red light.
BTW zero cars on the road.
You’re absolutely right. A friend’s mother was killed by a cyclist on 57th Street. When I cross the streets each day, i am so fearful of being hit by a cyclist running a red.
What’s it going to take to drop this insanity? I suspect someone famous –or deep pocketed — will have to be killed before the city even entertains ticketing cyclists and enforcement of basic laws.
Or the small child of someone famous.
Ah gee, the poor snowflake bikers. . . . They, of course, NEVER endanger pedestrians by zooming right through red lights. And they NEVER go the wrong way on one-way streets.
Poor bikers.
I’m a lifelong Democrat, but if Trump promised to abolish bike lanes, I might reconsider. . . .
Here’s one for Gale. Why don’;t you do something about the recent surge of Amazon mini-trucks traveling at high speeds in the bike lanes, ignoring traffic lights, and ignoring pedestrians trying to cross. They are the newest menace to New Yorkers. That’s alright, dear. Take a few months to study them.
There shouldn’t be bike lanes on CPW to begin with. The Park is right there.. Remove them Long live Mister Softee
Eh, the bike lane in Central Park only goes one way on the west side (south), and the CPW bike lane goes in the opposite direction (north). They should just put parking back on the east side of CPW where the giant buffer zone is (it works on the stretch by the AMNH) and add a couple of loading zones that the ice cream trucks can use so they don’t block the bike lanes.
Yeah, they should have painted a big yellow stripe down the park drive and made it two way! But they actually just want to get rid of cars except for themselves
Also. A radical idea. How about everybody try walking without texting? Like in the old days before so many accidents.
How about driving without texting, and I mean driving e-bikes and cars.
It is only a matter of time before a child gets killed by a cyclist riding up the bike lane, which is legally a travel lane on the roadway but limited to bicycles.
The worst part of this whole thing is these trucks (almost all those purple ones) are parking as they are to maximize profits while minimizing costs. They are allowed to park inside the park itself, but only if they buy a permit from the Dept of Parks and Rec. But these trucks are trying to make the money based on being IN Central Park without paying the FEE to be in Central Park. Their greed is maximizing profits over the safety of our children.
And when a police officer tells them to move, they drive around the block and just come back to the spot. The answer to this is the trucks need to be towed and confiscated costing the business money in fines and lost business EVERY time they are parked in the bike lane or illegally adjacent to it.
They can park against the curb across the street legally, or they can buy a permit and park INSIDE the park.
So Shoprite/Wakefern destroyed Fairway. And now they’re going to destroy all the Morton-Williams’. Just great.
Shoplifting not Shoprite is destroying our retail food stores.
It’s not just bikes and bike lanes. At least two of the ice cream trucks that park along 59th Street are causing massive traffic back-ups. The truck parked next to Starbucks makes it near impossible for vehicles to merge and turn from the Circle onto 59th Street, often backing up traffic completely around the Circle. And the one that parks on 59th near Merchants Gate makes it impossible for buses to turn into that stop, often causing traffic to back up to 7th, or even 6th, Avenue.
Those two trucks absolutely need to be removed.
Before the Delacorte Theater was built, Shakespear in the Park had a smaller, less elegant home. I remember going to a performance of Macbeth there. Just as the first witch intoned “When shall we three meet again, in thunder lightning and in rain,” there was a flash of lightening, a crash of thunder, and the rain came pouring down. Great stage effects, but the end of that night’s performance.
Kind of a ridiculous comment from Brewer. Nobody has to swerve into traffic. You can just slow down and proceed when safe, or walk the bike around any obstacles.
Similarly, if you’re in a car and something is blocking your lane, you can slow down and change lanes when safe, not just swerve blindly into the next lane.
In the case of the Australian tourist, she had only been in NYC and was unfamiliar with the city.
I had to swerve into traffic *just yesterday* to avoid an illegally parked ice cream truck AND the customers standing in the bike lane
The issue is moving into traffic theoretically could be safe, but drivers are not expecting bicycles, on a road with a large bike lane, to be in the motor vehicle lanes. Drivers also treat CPW as a drag strip racing from one red light to another, often ignoring the lights (yes, I am talking about drivers in cars running lights in this post and not talking about cyclists doing the same since the latter has no bearing on this comment). So even if a cyclist thinks they are merging safely, drivers often have other ideas. If they are thinking at all. Cyclists are supposed to be separated from motorists keeping both from needing to interact with each other. The ice cream trucks BREAKING THE LAW force this to not be the case.
Fairway is a wreck post-sale. I will not shop there
Thank you for writing about the danger that the ice cream trucks pose to cyclists. Old ladies on your website may have nothing better to do than rage about us, but we are humans too and the trucks on CPW and all around the American Museum of Natural History are a serious danger. Blocking or obstructing the bike lane (specifically parking where children will run out into the bike line) needs to be treated as a serious offense.
Old ladies are humans too, kiddo. And are just as incensed about blocked bike lanes as you are. Mind the speed limit, don’t swerve around obstacles into traffic, gain a little humility and you’ll be fine.
How come his old ladies remark doesn’t violate the rules WSR posted recently about being civil? This is hilarious!
Maybe WSR should report “Jeff” to his mother and grandmother?
Or not allow a clearly derogatory comment to be posted
“Old ladies” ?
My kids have been hit by bicyclists
I have to imagine that Wakefern will ruin Morton Williams the way Wakefern nearly ruined Fairway.
Can’t wait for real people to be replaced by self-checkout stations that don’t work at Morton Willams. /s
Update: this afternoon, the ice cream truck perennially parked in the bike lane at 93rd and CPW was legally parked across the street on the west side of CPW.
However, it was back in the bike lane today.
As a regular cyclist along Central Park West, I am glad that something is being done about the ice cream trucks’ chronic obstructions of the CPW bike lane. For whatever it’s worth, I bet these trucks also are in violation of emission laws because their exhaust is terrible.
I’d rather have the ice cream trucks than the cyclists.
Could WSR report on the new meal delivery service Feast and Fettle?
Personally I am curious about a new company that uses vans to deliver meals.
With Congestion Pricing and the City trying to reduce vehicles, I am curious about a new business that results in more vans on the streets.
Apparently not discouraged by anti-car efforts?
So now it is ice cream trucks. Will Gale Brewer or Sean Abreau ever do ANYTHING to get hospital beds for the mentally ill and drug addicted so we can have a normal safe neighborhood again? Any chance I can walk by a Popeye’s or other chain and not get preyed upon or worse? If not that, how about a Chase bank where someone is not laying in front of the door while his friend his opening the door asking me for money when I am making a deposit. This happened yesterday. That’s safe?
It’s OK to shelter people who need help, but to have them stand all day coming up to people, all hyped up on whatever they are on, in front of small stores and banks is not OK. And I know they are living in the local shelter as they have come out of them when I have walked past. I know it Yet, we have allowed this to proceed and those who REALLY DO need help don’t get it because we allow this to go on.
And we are worrying about ice cream trucks and the poor e-bike riders (who have no accountability). Isn’t anyone angry over this?
Try mobile deposit
I think what you described is unacceptable. I don’t want to be harassed daily either. But Brewer is not going to do anything about it, it doesn’t benefit her career. She couldn’t care less about her constituents. In fact she even gaslights us when we ask inconvenient questions.
Fairway is a far-more storied name to me than Morton Williams. When I lived there the stores were all Red (Bad) Apple, Dagostino’s, Gristede’s, Sloan’s, Fairway, Key Food and Food Emporium.