Today is Monday, November, 3rd, 2025
Today’s forecast calls for partly cloudy skies, with the possibility of an afternoon shower; high 60 degrees. The rest of the week is a mixed bag; tomorrow and Thursday are expected to be sunny, while there is a possibility of showers on Wednesday and Friday. Temperatures will be in the upper 50s to the low 60s, with the week’s high of 65 degrees expected tomorrow.
On this day in 1956, “The Wizard of Oz” was televised for the first time. The premiere was hosted by actor Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion, and by 10-year-old Liza Minelli, daughter of Judy Garland. Garland played Dorothy in the film. Thirty-five million people tuned in, starting a tradition: “Over the years, ‘Oz’ has captured an average 53% of all sets in use at the time (30% is considered high),” Time reported of the movie’s first decade on TV. According to the magazine, that made it “the most popular single film property in the history of U.S. television.”
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper right-hand corner to check.
Tomorrow is Election Day. For a comprehensive guide to candidates and proposals, as well as to see the ballot and to find your polling place, check out WhosOntheBallot.org, a comprehensive site put together by a team headed by Prof. Esther Fuchs of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs — HERE. The site also includes links to candidates’ policy statements. You also can find your polling place through the Board of Elections website — HERE.
Last week, Community Board 7’s Landmark Preservation Committee voted to deny West-Park Presbyterian Church’s hardship request to revoke the church building’s landmark status; now the matter goes to the full community board, which meets Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at B’nai Jeshurun, 270 West 89th Street. Register to receive a link to the meeting livestream — HERE. The board’s vote is advisory only; the final decision as to the fate of the church will be made by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.
CB7’s Housing & Land Use Committee continues to seek community input on the Extell development planned for the former ABC campus on Columbus Avenue between West 66th and 67th streets. Fill out a survey — HERE.
To find out where leaves are peaking in Central Park, check out the Central Park Conservancy’s fall foliage tracker, which is updated daily by park arborists — HERE. (Hint: As of yesterday, one of the park’s most photogenic locations — The Pool, between West 100th and West 103rd streets — was at the height of its autumn glory.) The Conservancy also publishes a digital guide with a curated list of fall activities, available by request — HERE.
News Roundup
Compiled by Laura Muha
The hot story making the rounds last week stemmed from an investigation by City Councilmember Gale Brewer’s office; after receiving multiple complaints from constituents about the Central Park Bridle Path being used for vehicle parking, her staff headed out to see for themselves. On a single day late last month, they counted 88 vehicles parked along the path, including 24 police cars, five Parks and Recreation Department vehicles and 59 unmarked cars. Brewer’s office included the information in her newsletter, which the New York Post used as the jumping off point for what it labeled an exclusive.
Whereupon Streetsblog reporter David Myer promptly tweeted that he was glad to see the Post covering the story, but was puzzled by the Post’s use of the label “exclusive,” since he’d reported on the issue in 2006, 2018, and 2022.
Regardless of who got it first, there’s no question that the Bridle Path — designed as a recreational trail for joggers, walkers, and horseback riders — has in recent years increasingly been used for parking. “It started out with a very small amount of cars,” a 60-year Manhattan resident who identified herself as “Tamara” told the Post. “Every year, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and now it feels like a parking lot.”
Joggers have complained to Brewer’s office that the parked cars create hiding places for would-be criminals; that the cars often travel faster than is safe, forcing joggers and people with their children in strollers to jump out of the way; and that the weight of all the vehicles on the dirt-and-gravel trail is compressing it.
Brewer has written to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Parks Commissioner Iris Rodriguez-Rosa, requesting an interagency meeting aimed at resolving the issue. “The [Central Park] Precinct Commander is aware and is looking into it,” an NYPD spokesperson told The Post. The story also was picked up by Fox News and noted by Gothamist and Streetsblog NYC.
Read the full story — HERE, watch the Fox News version HERE.
Speaking of Central Park: The fate of carriage horses has been in the news lately, with almost all city officials and candidates for citywide office expressing support for a bill that would eliminate them. The exception? Frontrunner Zorhan Mamdani, who, according to Gothamist, seems to be playing it both ways.
“We have his commitment,” Edita Birnkrant, the head of the animal welfare group NYCLASS, which opposes the carriage horses, told the publication. “It was communicated in writing and in follow-up conversations.”
But John Samuelsen, head of the Transport Workers Union, which represents the city’s roughly 200 carriage horse drivers, told Gothamist that Mamdani promised the union he would keep an open mind. “He has made commitments that he will not go into his four years as mayor predisposed to believing that the horses are treated inhumanely,” Samuelsen said.
In a questionnaire that all candidates were asked to fill out over the summer, Mamdani said he opposed carriage horses. But at a campaign event last week, he appeared to have backed off that slightly. “I echo the concerns of many New Yorkers for whom this is a significant issue,” Gothamist quoted him as saying. “I believe one of the first orders of business would be for me to visit the stables myself, [and] convene an independent panel of medical experts to assess the health of these horses.”
Matt Wing, a Democratic consultant who worked for Mayor Bill de Blasio, told Gothamist that Mamdani would be smart to avoid talking about the carriage horses because “there’s no winning.” While NYCLASS and the union have dug into their positions, he said, “the majority of New Yorkers do not care about it.”
Read the full story — HERE.
Here’s another less-controversial animal story out of Central Park; this one also involving the New York Post, which this time did, inarguably, get the scoop:
For almost three months, birdwatchers have been keeping an eye on a female parakeet, which apparently either escaped or was set free by its owner, and took up residence with a flock of swallows living near Seneca Village. Though the bird was doing well, and the swallows seemed to have accepted it, birdwatchers knew something the bird did not: Cold weather was coming, and as a species that’s native to Australia, it was unlikely to survive once freezing temperatures set in.
Birders JP Borum and Sean Mintz spent hours trying to trap the tiny green bird, whom they dubbed Mei Mei — Chinese for “little sister” — but even though she was becoming slower and weaker from the cold, she always managed to escape.
Finally, last Wednesday, Borum managed to drop a net around the parakeet as it foraged near the Winterdale Arch. “It was kind of like a ring toss, but it landed all around her and I immediately secured her so she couldn’t crawl out,” Borum said.
The bird, who appears to have mites and may also need antibiotics, will spend 30 days quarantining in Borum’s apartment before she can go to a new home, which Borum said she hopes will be the Bronx Zoo’s Budgie Landing.
“New York City is a tough place for any wild creature: predators, poison, and cold weather that a budgie can’t survive,” said Mintz, who chronicled the hunt for Mei Mei on his X account. “Yet for more than two months, Mei Mei beat the odds. She adapted, bonded with a flock of sparrows, persevered, and inspired countless New Yorkers who followed her story. Her rescue today is a relief and a reminder of the city’s capacity for care. Here’s to a long, happy life ahead in a new aviary home.”
Read the full story and see photos — HERE.
ICYMI
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.)
80 Vacant Storefronts Blight 51 Upper West Side Broadway Blocks
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May sane voters protect America from socialism.
socialism /sō′shə-lĭz″əm/
Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
Jane,
No internet for you, no fire department, no city water and sewer, no social security or Medicare, no public parks, no public roads and bridges. I could go on.
Wait, we have those things now and we aren’t a socialist society.
What is your point?
Thank you for making my point.
You’re utterly unaware of what Mamdani proposes, and what the socialism you detest already provides to you and your kin.
So those things only exist in socialist societies?
I fear our nation and it’s apparent failure at educating its citizens.
No, but government programs provided all of them, except in some cases privatized city water.
May sane commenters protect the West Side Rag from hyperbole
Make sane voters protect America from fascism in the guise of religion.
Yep, socialism – social security, medicare, SNAP, unemployment insurance, etc are all socialism. Insane MAGA voters are trying to protect us from all that.
You are confusing social programs with a socialist government.
May sane voters protect America from people who react only to labels such as “socialism” and don’t have a rational argument pro or con to support such positions.
May diets high in fiber save voters from Bircherism.
And from the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property.
Ah, yes. Sweden and Norway are such hellholes
Those are not socialist countries.
And yet, that’s the model Mamdani and Sanders propose.
Keep posting.
Sweden is…but what would you know.
I was there this summer and it was glorious. Beautiful and well run country.
This comparison simply doesn’t hold. The social support structures in Sweden and Norway are shaped by longstanding cultural values of work ethic, integrity, and personal responsibility. This is totally different from Mamdani’s harebrained ideas of giving out handouts without any fiscal plan.
It’s nothing but opportunism and populism, not genuine concern for people’s welfare.
Besides, how is socialism supposed to work in just one city within such a large country? Are we planning to give these freebies to everyone in the country—or even the world?
“This comparison simply doesn’t hold. The social support structures in Sweden and Norway are shaped by longstanding cultural values of work ethic, integrity, and personal responsibility.”
This is the same [racist] prevarication we read when people in the USA point out that Canada is a place.
Both are less socialist than the US
May sane voters protect America from oligarchy and fascism.
Please define fascism.
Corporate state + imposed religious family values.
Also, there’s usually a racist tinge to the policies advocated.
That was easy.
This
May sane voters protect us from the scourge of religious fanatics like the “American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property” and their “God”
Because capitalism is working out so well for everyone?
Have you ever lived in a socialist country – USSR, Cuba, North Korea, East Germany, Venezuela? Capitalism for all its flaws is a miracle vs the rest! I remember my childhood in a socialist country, no toilet paper, no meat/fish/sausage in the stores, empty shelves, no books other than party literature. University students forced every fall to interrupt their studies and spend two months picking vegetables or working in the fields, with no hot water, no hygiene, etc… No antibiotics or medicines in the drug stores.
Sweden, France, and Germany are places.
They have lower tax rates than people pay in NYC (fed+state+nyc) and government spending is lower as a % of GDP than in the NYC (fed+state+city)
They also have much smaller military budgets and don’t constantly bail out high finance.
They are not socialist countries.
And Mamdani is simply proposing policies akin to those in Sweden, etc.
The people who pine for a socialist society have never experienced one.
Ignorance is bliss.
So you don’t think that City owned grocery store will be successful?
Pretty Good.
Oh, yes, most assuredly: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-billionaires-oxfam-elizabeth-warren-b2857535.html
Hmmmm, think we really need sane voters to protect us from Trumpism — and Cuomo and Sliwa, who are truly terrible options!!
May sane voters vote for democratic socialism
That term is a contradiction
May sane voters protect America from Reich-wingers.
Parking abuse and placard abuse by city employees is a disgrace. The way you stop it is with enforcement and then firing them.
Spot on! Wow might be the first time I agree with Bill.
I concur. It’s a strange feeling.
So you support firing NYPD Cops for a parking violation? UWS Dad is this REALLY what you want?
I support NYPD cops following the law. The police are not above the law and their behavior as if it were otherwise enables petty corruption. As you like to point out around here, people need incentives.
I personally know Cops who will retire before the Ball drops if Mamdani gets elected. Police Departments from around the country will be shopping for NYPD officers like it’s a Blue light special.
I’m sure they are highly regarded, and not playing candycrush 24/7
Realistically speaking if we aren’t going to pay our cops, teachers, firefighters etc enough to afford the central parts of our cities AND preserve the right to reassign them as we need? A disproportionate number of them will use cars. Because any given assignment will put them in a position where driving takes half the time or less and yeah, their kids want them home after work.
The City agrees to parking privileges in collective bargaining because it costs us less than denial of those benefits.
The bridle path above the 86 street transverse is perhaps the least attractive thing in Central Park and that won’t change if no car is parked there. Meanwhile pedestrians aren’t “vying” for the space, there’s plenty.
Its intended use is gone. It’s simply a conduit for people getting from one side to the other.
I agree, and if the Metro North could cross the river Cops would use it
As a frequent user of that path, I actually appreciate that police cars and officers personal cars are parked there. There is a regular police presence on that stretch which is unlit in the evening hours. Let’s be careful what we wish for it may have unintended consequences.
“Stop Socialism!” people who voted for Trump, a self described (and now proven) fascist dictator. 🙄
So many UWSers throw around the term fascism without understanding the definition
You make the mistake of believing in the existence of only two extremes.
Fascist dictator? Ok, don’t pearl clutch when we call the mayor a commie terrorist supporter.
don’t pearl clutch when I use his own words back at you. his own words, not mine.
It was 10-year-old Judy Garland who played Dorothy -in the Wizard of Oz in 1956 – NOT her daughter Liza Minelli.
It doesn’t say that. It says Liza cohosted the television premiere. And Judy was 16 in the movie.
Yes, the article says Minelli HOSTED the broadcast, and [Judy] Garland played Dorothy. It does take careful reading.; I had to reread it, too.
The article said Liza Minelli was on TV, not that she played Dorothy. Also Judy Garland was a lot older than 10 when she was in the film.
Judy was 16 years old when she played Dorothy. Liza was at the first televised event.
“The premiere was hosted by actor Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion, and by 10-year-old Liza Minelli, daughter of Judy Garland. Garland played Dorothy in the film.”
Ten? She was born in 1922. The film came out in 1939 — she was 17.
A film’s release date or as you put it- “came out” is different than the date the film was made. Two different things.
No, Judy was born in 1922. Liza was born in 1946.
Read the article again. Liza Minnelli was there for the TV broadcast in 1956
No way Judy was 10 in ’56! The implication is that 10-yr-old Liza co-hosted with Bert.
Yes, not just implied — stated ĺwell, the sentence was hard to parse, if one didn’t read the names carefully] .
That’s what it said
Liza was 10 in 1956, Not Judy. Judy was 16 when Wizard of oz was filmed but was 17 in 1939 when the picture was released.
Judy Garland (b. 1922) was not 10 when she made The Wizard or Oz (1939). She was 16 or 17.
Read it again.
Judy Garland played Dorothy in the film, released in 1939. Apparently (I didn’t know this because I wasn’t born yet)., Liza Minelli introduced the film with Bert Lahr when the film premiered on television in 1956.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Conservative values vs. Liberal values, an American juxtaposition.
Adding some context to the caption of the photo at the top of the page, here’s the Web site of The American TPF. https://www.tfp.org/
And this, from their website, is what they oppose:
“contraception; abortion; euthanasia; human cloning; the social acceptance of homosexual practice; anti-discrimination laws that give homosexuals a privileged status; the lifting of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in our military; homosexual adoption; domestic partnerships, civil unions, and same-sex “marriage”; transgenderism; homosexual films, theater plays, events, and pro-homosexual clubs on Catholic college campuses; public blasphemy; nudism; socialist childcare; socialist healthcare; socialist allocation of federal waters; death taxes; self-managing socialism; international communism; President Carter’s human rights policy; the policy of détente with communist regimes pursued by the American and Western governments; progressivism; liberation theology; the Vatican’s policy of Ostpolitik with communist governments; the retroactive lifting of statutes of limitations for civil cases involving sexual abuse; the enactment of State laws forcing clergy to violate the seal of Confession in cases of child abuse; the removal of beauty from and the democratization of the Catholic Church; “frenetic intemperance” in the economy; the ecological movement; pacifism; imprudent nuclear disarmament; and the Occupy Wall Street movement.”
So even the Catholic Church isn’t conservative enough for this group.
Wait, what about fluoridation?? Shall we sit back and allow our precious bodily fluids to be sapped and impurified?
If nazis ever take over, I have no doubt that the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property will be right there helping them.
I don’t think they support Mamdani.
The mirror seems turned the wrong way.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/17/gas-them-how-a-leaked-pro-nazi-young-republicans-chat-sparked-gop-storm
Sorry, I don’t read state media propaganda from the actual Qatari dictatorship any more than Pravda but it sounds like they still have a future running for attorney general in Virginia on the Democrat ticket.
“an interagency meeting aimed at resolving the issue” – What’s there to discuss? They’re parked illegally. Tow them.
May God bestow sensible democratic socialism upon America, and especially upon New York City tomorrow!
Socialism is always authoritarian. It is never democratic. It cannot be. Pick up a book!
The 2nd Amendment ensures Communists will NEVER take America
What??
Why do random protesters that have absolutely nothing to do with the university always use Columbia University as their backdrop? This is annoying. There should be more police there.
We’ve already seen the Zohran movie. De Blasio, another outsider and Red Sox fan with no roots in NYC, said he would address the rich-poor divide. What that meant in practice was not addressing anything while steering taxpayer dollars to friends and cronies. Zohran will implement this graft-a-palooza on steroids and we deserve it if we let this grinning mountebank in.
Yep. IDK why anyone believes a word that man says. He’s a liar, and not even a good one, with that ever-present smirk on his face. Sometimes called a “duper’s delight” smile, this is the face people make when they know they are lying, and are very pleased with themselves about it.
Mamdani is the political equivalent of a carny running a rigged carnival game. He thinks we’re rubes. He thinks we’re so gullible that we can’t spot a scam artist even when they’re smirking right to our faces.
Unfortunately, it seems he’s right. I always assumed other NYers were good at spotting scammers, considering where we live, but evidently I was wrong.
You’re describing Trump’s presidency to a “tee,” right down to steering the money to the family. The very right wing Forbes magazine already clocked his first presidency as having netted the Trumps more than two billion bucks in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. It’s worse now. Sneakers? Bibles (held upside down?). A cabinet of unqualified crazies? Pardons for millionaire rip off artists who have greased his palm. Wresting on the White House lawn, along with Teslas. Graft is Donald’s middle name. Or maybe you think he earned that $250 million he is demanding from the Justice Department for investigating the kind of criminal activity that earned him 34 felony counts of business fraud and sent his CEO to prison. Spend some more on tax breaks for the 1%. You’re killing me with your comedy.
Why jump to Trump? The commentator said nothing about him. It seems to be a knee-jerk reaction from many on the far left when it comes to criticism of anyone or anything.
Stay on topic.
If Trump is a crook, that doesn’t mean Mamdani isn’t.
So both parties do it. Why are you defending one and berating the other?
I watched 60 Minutes yesterday and President Trump said in no uncertain terms that if NYC elects a Communist, he is going to have a very hard time sending money to a city run by a Communist. Mamdani is a lightweight and Trump will spank him like a naughty child, New Yorkers will lose Big.
As a self-respecting American citizen, and more importantly, New Yorker, it’s enraging to see how Trump has threatened to punish the city. Cutting 180 million in ANTI-TERROR funding and halting the LARGEST NYC infrastructure project in history should
1. enrage you
2. make you want to vote against this insanity
So we should all just give in and follow the instructions of the orange dictator? That’s how New York “wins?”
Ignoring the right wing calling Mamdani a communist constantly (he is not)
In principal it is so staggeringly unAmerican for the president to be conditioning federal spending on local election results. It’s as if Biden had said FL you better not vote for Desantis or no more FEMA for you
I completely agree with UWS Dad on this point.
It’s important not to excuse this kind of behavior, no matter which side you support.
Without fairness and strict adherence to due process in our elections, the whole system is at risk.
Ah, but then Biden, like his predecessors, was constrained by the rule of law.
It’s a good thing then that no Communists are on the ballot.
Quite true! I would certainly not be inclined to vote for one.
Please encourage city workers to take public transportation!! Yes, it may be inconvenient but it is the respectful and responsible thing to do. It is wrong to use this portion of Central Park as a parking lot.
Make the subway safe first.
“Subway crime hit a record low in October, NYPD says” (https://www.amny.com/police-fire/subway-crime-drops-nypd-october-2025/)
Next?
Didn’t expect anything other than meaningless “statistics “.
“there are lies, damned lies, and statistics”. Especially pertinent to now when crime is regularly downgraded and underreported.
Next?
Good for Gail Brewer. Bring back the horses and kick the cars off the bridal path.
The WSR’s lead photo of “May God Protect America From Socialism” is a nuanced political endorsement. I cannot read it in any other way. This is out of place for the WSR especially without article or explanation of the organization, and given the diversity of views of our UWS residents,
Thank you for adding some form of explanation.
The best that can be said of the decision to run it is that it was perverse.
so happy the parakeet was captured! in the picture the cere (colored portion above the beak) appears to be blue which means it’s a boy.
The horses look happy enough to me— and I grew up with horses. I love them. You are getting rid of any remaining soul of nyc by banning them. They are beautiful. Please do everything you can to keep them . We don’t need more e-carriages…
Just sanitize nyc— take away anything nostalgic— sounds like a great plan.
If it could be 100% restricted to Central Park, I’d feel a lot better. I do not believe they belong in NYC traffic.
Olden-days practices are not automatically good just because they are nostalgic for some people. It’s obvious that 21st-century midtown Manhattan is no place for horses. It is not safe for them or for the rest of us — which is why even the Central Park Conservancy wants to ban them now. The ban of this outdated practice will happen, and the sooner the better, before we have to see another accident unfold in the headlines.
Socialism is the fire department showing up when your house is burning….Capitalism is the insurance company denying your claim.
Clearly you have never lived in a socialist country!
And Trumponomics is demolishing your house while you’re inside it and billing, shooting, and/or deporting your survivors, while claiming ignorance of the deed.
Socialism is what happened in California, fire department had no water because of mismanagement.
What an absurd claim.
The issue about parked cars on the bridle path has one upside. For bicyclists, if a path is being used by motor vehicles as a road, I take it as an assumption that you can bike across it. Very carefully, respecting the pedestrians and runners and strollers. Because there is no safe mid-park cross path. Use a good lamp in the dark. Mind the puddles.
For the record, the eminent Professor Fuchs of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs spells her first name “Ester.”