By Claire Davenport
Every Saturday, West Side Rag columnist Yvonne Vávra seems to have uncovered some hiding-in-plain-sight aspect of the Upper West Side that the rest of us have missed — because we were looking at our phones, or down at the sidewalk, or didn’t have Vávra’s sidekick Louie to make us pay close attention to our surroundings.
Vávra’s columns sometimes include long-lost history (there’s the story of the UWS moms who defeated Robert Moses’ plans to expand a parking lot in Central Park) and often are filled with sage advice (abandon your usual path to explore some new things on the UWS).
Rag Radio took a walk with Vávra recently, starting at the Ansonia at Broadway and West 73rd Street. Among our discoveries was a beautiful vintage mail box — the kind of thing you notice, says Vávra, when you walk by yourself and pay attention to the neighborhood. Listen at the link below.
Music courtesy of Blue Dot Sessions. And for earlier installments of Rag Radio segments with West Side Rag contributors, listen to our interviews with artist Robert Beck, Weekend columnist Tracy Zwick, cartoonist Gary Martin, photographer Steve Harmon, the authors of Ruthless Advice, Rag cartoonist Bob Eckstein, and WSR reporter Gus Saltonstall.
Shouldnt this be a podcast?
I live in the building (74th and West End) that is the subject of this recording. We love our mailbox. About 20 years ago, the USPS wanted to take these mailboxes down. They wanted all mailboxes painted blue. It was before ‘easy internet.’ We started a telephone and letter-writing campaign to protest. The compromise- the post office would continue to pick up mail but they would not maintain the box. We polish the bronze regularly and are very proud of ‘our’ mailbox.
Is this writing more delightful or more insightful? IT HAS IT ALL!!!