Monday, August 18th
Variably cloudy, with highs in the upper 70s through Wednesday. Clouds should break and temperatures rise into the lower 80s on Thursday and Friday.
On this day in 1896, a Tennessee newspaper publisher named Adolph Ochs plunked down $75,000 in borrowed money to gain a controlling interest in the financially struggling New York Times; in the process, he founded a family newspaper dynasty that continues to the present day.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
Forgive the humble brag; we can’t help ourselves. The Rag hit a milestone recently, when the 25,000th subscriber signed up for our free daily newsletter. Given that the population of the UWS is an estimated 250,000, that means the equivalent of 1 in every 10 UWSers is part of the Rag family. (And yes, we know not all of our readers are based in the neighborhood — but it’s still pretty impressive.) Thanks, everybody — we appreciate you!
News Roundup
By Laura Muha
When the outside temperatures soar and the city’s power grid groans under the demand of thousands of air conditioning units, Con Edison typically sends out alerts asking residents to cut back on power usage.
UWSer Addy Spiller doesn’t pay attention to them. She doesn’t have to.
As first reported by The City, Spiller’s household is one of 65 across the city participating in a pilot program called Responsible Grid, which is run by the company Standard Potential in partnership with Con Ed. Participants received standalone batteries roughly the size of small microwave ovens, which can be recharged by plugging them into a wall outlet. When demand for energy threatens to exceed what ConEd can provide, the company switches the participants’ air conditioning units to the battery to take some of the stress off the system.
“[I]nstead of powering a whole building, they power a single device and take it off the grid,” Andrew Wang, Standard Potential’s CEO, told The City. “Because we have the battery, it allows folks to participate in the program without having to adjust their comfort levels.”
Spiller, the founder of a product-management business, told The City that the battery came in handy on a hot day earlier this summer, when her building shut off the power for four hours to do a planned upgrade.
“With the battery, I was able to continue working. My AC worked, my WiFi worked,” Spiller said. “It was such a relief to realize I had a little bit of a buffer and didn’t have to leave my house — I was able to continue just living.”
Read the full story — HERE.
Information on signing up for the program is — HERE.
This year marks the 200th anniversary of the founding of Seneca Village, a community of free Blacks that lay, roughly, between West 82nd and 86th streets. Though it was razed in the late 1850s to make way for Central Park, and no known images of the village exist, it is often inaccurately depicted as a collection of falling-down shanties.
Now, a group of university researchers is attempting to set the record straight with a 3D recreation of Seneca Village, developed using archival documents and objects found during an excavation of the site in 2011. Called Envisioning Seneca Village, the recreation shows a thriving village, with three churches, a school, and homes that were far from shanties, occupied by residents who deeply valued education and community. The project also delves into the lives of some of the families that lived in Seneca Village.
“[D]rawings and photographs of shed-like shanties in varying states of disrepair … depict neither the village nor the community that it fostered,” the researchers Gergely Baics, Meredith Linn, Leah Meisterlin, and Myles Zhang wrote in Urban Omnibus, the online publication of the Architectural League of New York.
“These images, often created by well-meaning people who have a genuine interest in the village’s history, can have profoundly negative effects on how the village is understood in our culture that relies so heavily on visual evidence,” the researchers wrote. “These misconceptions are not just inaccurate or misleading; they replicate 19th-century media sources that slandered the pre-park inhabitants and landscape in disparaging terms to justify the park’s creation and the village’s destruction.”
Read the full story — HERE.
The 3D project itself is — HERE.
Police are continuing to search for a man who pushed an UWSer onto the subway tracks at West 50th Street and Seventh Avenue last week.
The victim, described by the New York Post as a 44-year-old emergency room physician, was waiting for the No. 1 train a little before 8 p.m. when the attack occurred. Witnesses said the attacker had been talking to himself, then randomly approached the man and shoved him onto the tracks. Other people on the platform were able to pull him to safety before a train entered the station.
The Post said it was withholding the name of the victim but included photos of him sitting in a wheelchair, surrounded by emergency workers, with blood running down his face. He was treated at Bellevue Hospital for injuries to his face and knee and released.
Police ask that anyone with information on this incident call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS or submit a tip via crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, or send a message to @NYPDTips on X (formerly Twitter). All tips will be kept confidential.
Read the full story — HERE.
ICYMI: A few of our favorite stories from last week
Here are a few stories we think are worth a look if you missed them last week — or a second look if you saw them. (Note that our comments stay open for six days after publication, so you may not be able to comment on all of them.)
Commenting on the Comments: WSR Has a New Moderator and Guidelines for Comments
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I hope that the victim recuperates and that the police are able to catch the criminal who pushed him and try him for attempted murder.
Congratulations to the Rag on reaching the 25,000 milestone. And thanks to the owners, editors, writers and even the commenters who make it a vibrant part of life on the UWS.
Applause also from those (many) of us who can’t stand the thought of one more email, but happily check the WSR several times a week when in town!!
One can easily reduce A/C usage by taking cold baths and showers. Knocks the heat right out of you.
You can also sign up for Con Ed’s “ohm hour” program in which they just ask you to refrain from use for one (or sometimes more) hours to lessen peak load. They give you credits on your bill, ot for Amazon, or whatever you choose. Good progrram – even if you are home and using a/c you don’t actually notice turning it off for an hour (assuming shades down, fans on etc.) Feels like a worthwhile program.
Thank you, had never heard of this
https://www.coned.com/en/save-money/rebates-incentives-tax-credits/smart-usage-rewards-form
My spouse picked the OhmConnect option out of several incentive partners listed who work with Con Ed to reward turning off appliances during peak use periods. Really quite simple – at least it looks that way. I haven’t looked it up but would love to read an article about how it is working and whether Con Ed will publicize it more. But it has the feel of a Biden era green incentive that might suffer if subsidy is lost. Or maybe local users could keep it going?
Just donated $25 to celebrate 25K readers! Who’s next?!
I donate my wit and insight.
Commenting drives traffic and increase ad revenue.
Proud to be a supporter,
The Seneca Village images are amazing, but I wish there was a phone app so I could see where each building stood as I walked through Central Park!
From what I’ve read, Seneca Village was an integrated neighborhood of African Americans, Irish, and others.
Yes, there’s a great series of plaques in Central Park describing the community. It was destroyed by the creation of the park.
Congrats on your increased readership! Keep up the good work. The team does a great job in pulling together interesting and informative local news. The moderators do a terrific job in creating a space where readers can engage and be exposed to different views. Whether they agree is less important. But a space where people can be heard. Thank you!!
Very interesting about the batteries. How long of a charge do they hold? How long do they take to charge? Is there any cost benefit offered for using this?
The cost benefit goes to the vendor who got this contract.
AC Battery disaster waiting to happen.
Not sure this is the greatest idea.
OPOD,
There’s no such thing as an AC battery. These are batteries with inverter created AC.
They are almost certainly the fire safe LFP batteries.
The bigger problem is that they just won’t run a normal medium sized air conditioner for more an a few hours.
They’re more for running lights and perhaps a laptop, but not things with sizable electric motors.
I should have been more specific.
AC in this sense meant Air Conditioner, not Alternating Current.
( the article mentions an AC ( Air Conditioner) being run.
A battery storing that amount of power can due some damage if it meets adverse conditions.
(eg, fire in building/apartment)
Correct me if I am wrong, but the fire safe rating is just for the internal heat that the battery could generate if it malfunctions.
I don’t think it speaks to external high temperature exposure.
Not worth the risk in my opinion.
Also, I am OPOE not OPOD.
I do share some of the same opinions as OPOD but we are 2 different people.
OPOE,
LFP batteries are used on wooden boats because they don’t catch fire.
Worse, lith-ion batteries self oxidize in a fire; that’s why they should be banned for scooters in NYC–they should also be banned from e-cars.
All sorts of household items, mostly plastics, release toxins in a fire.
These batteries aren’t just for air conditioners. You can find examples at Lowes in Brooklyn, under the brand name “Bluetti”; The 2700 what one will only run an AC unit for perhaps an hour and half — there are bigger batteries by Bluetti and others, but they’re quite expensive.
Valid points.
I was not aware of the difference.
Not a fan of people storing energy locally in an urban environment.
That would best be left to Con-ed, so there could be greater efficencies, safety and proper storage of batteries.
You can subscribe to WSR? Is that the Get it Free in Your Inbox thing?
https://westsiderag.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=5772ebf2a0a585445f1188785&id=f50755d5f9
Considering the interesting articles and high standards of journalism and writing, there should be even more subscribers! Not just current residents of the UWS , but also among the vast diaspora of those that have left or grew up there.
A description of the assailant might help.
Horribly uninformative Con Edison page about the batteries. Never mentions what the wattage capacity is and what voltages it can handle.
I think if a dangerous subway pushing on the UWS is mentioned, then we should have the rest of the violent incidents mentioned for the past week.
From the same article: “The attack was one of a slew of recent violent incidents on the rails.
Police also are looking for the man who stabbed another subway rider in the neck during a dispute at an East Village subway station Saturday night.
In addition, a masked stranger slashed a 29-year-old woman on a Lower Manhattan train late Wednesday when she refused to hand him her bag — and he is still in the wind, too.”
That’s 3 major dangerous life threatening incidents on our subways. 2 of them are definitely with strangers.
Until this city does SOMETHING real to help and handle the mentally ill, there is no true safety or quality of life. Yet, NO elected officials in our city or state do anything about it in real terms that can help imminently. It’s been going on since before COVID, no excuses.
To be fair, only the original story was clearly a mental health issue. The other two – could be a simple criminal. And if I think back to 2020/21 – the city has clearly dealt stepped up mental health interventions. Back then it was every subway car. Not perfect but as the other reader said – what’s the solution unless we go back to asylums
Do you have suggested strategies to help and handle the [unhoused?] mentally ill? From what I can see, the rub is, how much coercion can be applied.
That first photo of the building glowing along with its glowing ACs is gorgeous
Hearing aids can be passed on to others who can’t afford to buy them.
Wonder if there can be some emergency button or something to alert the oncoming train that there’s an emergency ahead. This is so horrifying. Hope he recovers quickly.
A man was pushed on the track on the UES and a group of people turned on their iphone flashlights and waved them to get the drivers attention. Not saying it’s always effective but it worked that time.
So that every wahoo can now endanger an entire train by pushing these buttons for no reason, triggering emergency braking?
MTA doesn’t need more avenues to screw up. They already excel at that.
Not a problem, none of them would work anyway.
You go WSR!! All love to you. You are a treasure and a precious gem. Not much great real local reporting left like this anymore, as well as the much needed lighter stuff. No, you truly are extraordinary. A well-deserved congrats to you.