Today is Monday, January 19th, 2026.
The forecast calls for partly sunny skies, with a high of 34°F.
The report for the rest of the week is a roller coaster: 25°F tomorrow; back up to 40°F on Thursday, but with the possibility of snow; then dropping back into the 20s on Friday.
It’s Martin Luther King Day, a federal holiday honoring slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. The post office and most banks will be closed.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
Today is the last day to update your address on your voter registration if you’ve moved since the last time you voted and want to cast a ballot in the February 3rd special election for the District 47 State Senate seat vacated by Brad Hoylman-Sigal when he became Manhattan borough president. District 47 includes the West Side up to West 100th Street. Update your address online at e-register.vote.nyc or amiregistered.vote.nyc.
If you live in the district and aren’t registered to vote, but want to cast a ballot in the special election, you have until this coming Saturday, January 24th, to register at e-register.vote.nyc or amiregistered.vote.nyc.
At noon tomorrow (Tuesday, January 20th), a coalition of community groups will hold a demonstration outside the Columbia University gates at West 115th Street and Broadway, to protest the continued closure of the school’s campus to the public. It will feature live music and speakers including local officials, university students, faculty, and alumni. The campus has been closed for nearly two years to anyone without a campus ID card or the university’s permission to be there. The university has said it considered a pilot program to allow access last summer, but postponed it because of increasing ICE presence in the area. More information on the protest — HERE.
News Roundup
Compiled by Laura Muha
The already-crowded field of contenders for ‘s congressional seat has a new entry: longtime New York litigator Patrick Timmins, who last year challenged Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in the Democratic primary.
“This country and the policies flowing from Washington are on a collision course,” Timmins, a Morningside Heights resident, said in a Friday press release announcing his candidacy. “A gridlocked Congress kowtowing to President Trump has all but abandoned their duty as the legislative branch representative of the American people. It is high time that we face today’s challenges head-on, and that’s what I intend to do with my presence in Congress.”
An adjunct law professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in addition to a litigator, Timmins was the lone Democrat to challenge Bragg’s (ultimately successful) re-election bid last year. He joins a flood of other candidates — 10 other Democrats, four Republicans, and four independents, at last count — running for Nadler’s seat in the 12th Congressional District.
Governor Kathy Hochul’s State of the State address last week contained some interesting news for Morningside Heights residents. The governor called on the MTA to continue the 2nd Avenue subway line’s northern extension, currently under construction, across town to terminate at West 125th Street and Broadway. The governor first floated the idea in 2024 but said last week that a feasibility study had confirmed that tunneling under 125th Street was viable and would benefit hundreds of thousands of riders.
Extending the Q train to the West Side would allow riders on the 1 train on the viaduct above 125th Street to transfer for service to the East Side and would allow Manhattan Valley and Morningside Heights residents and Columbia students to more easily access medical facilities along the East River. It would also create interchanges along 125th Street with the A/C/B/D trains under St. Nicholas Avenue, with the 2 and 3 trains at Malcom X Boulevard and with the 4/5/6 trains at Lexington Avenue, as well as with the Metro-North above Park Avenue.
Of course, it will be years and years in the future before anyone boards an eastbound train on Broadway. But you are free to imagine the possibilities today! — Dan Katzive
If there’s anything that generates as much heated discussion among UWSers as parking, it’s got to be pizza, as we noted a couple of weeks ago in this space, when we called attention to a vignette about an UWS pizza taste test in The New York Times’ Metropolitan Diary.
If you’re looking for further proof, check out the same Times column, which a mere two weeks later featured yet another an UWS pizza story. And keep on reading, because it was an UWS twofer: The second item in the column also spotlit our neighborhood.
In the first vignette, author Laura Beattie describes what happened when she ordered pizza as a “lazy-day dinner,” on a day when she hadn’t even gotten out of her pajamas. Her story is followed by Janet L. Schinderman’s tale of what unfolded when she visited a neighborhood fruit stand on West 73rd Street.
We’re not going to give either story away, but you can read both — HERE.
In Other UWS News:
- Two young Brooklyn-born swans who spent 29 days recovering at the Wild Bird Fund’s UWS rehabilitation center on Columbus Avenue after an apparent dog attack are now back home in Prospect Park, where volunteers are watching over them to make sure they safely reintegrate into their flock. Read about it in the New York Post — HERE.
- The aforementioned Streetsblog recently analyzed City Council Speaker Julie Menin’s appointments and what they mean for the city’s car culture; the article especially singled out the UWS’s City Councilmember Shaun Abreu, who was appointed to head the transportation committee. (He also was appointed majority leader.) Read it — HERE.
- Democratic state Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, who represents the UWS, recently appeared on NY1’s Inside City Hall to discuss Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal to include technology on all 3D printers sold in New York that would prevent them from creating guns or gun parts. Watch the interview — 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.)
Dozens of Trees Removed From UWS Lincoln Center Plaza: Here’s Why
A Wine Shop Thrives for Decades in its Upper West Side Terroir
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I voted for Timmins as DA, but his campaign got almost no recognition. He was a gnat to Bragg’s elephant. Hard to see how he’s going to assemble a successful campaign for the congressional primary.
Run Pat Timmons Run!
If buildings want loading zones at their entrances, they should have them. Why is free car storage so sacrosanct? All it does is encourage car ownership and usage, which is the last thing this city should be subsidizing. .
What you and the Streetsblog people left out is the fact that the developer of the Astor wants this as an amenity for the buyers of their 11 million dollar condos.
The developer or the Henry on 84th asked for this too.
Why should public space be allocated to developers of luxury condos?
This is the problem with eliminating parking minimums. You can eliminate parking minimums, but the reality is that public transportation has its limits and always will have its limits. The urbanists ultimately want a society where people don’t venture more than 15-30 minutes away from their homes, basically a feudal manor and gated community without calling it that.
I agree with Cohen as quited above “The reality is every building has children, every building has senior citizens, every building has people that live there that have cars that drop off their stuff. This building is not more special or less special than any other building, they’re all the same”.
Should every residential buikding have a loading zone instead of parking spaces in front of it?
Not mentioned here is why the double and triple parking is allowed with no penalties. Do they ticket for this anymore or is considered something modern society just has to accept?
“The reality is every building has children, every building has senior citizens, every building has people that live there that have cars that drop off their stuff. This building is not more special or less special than any other building, they’re all the same”.
This is a very good argument for loading zones, yes! A loading zone lets street space be used by more people, and people who need the space more. People really slide directly from “these two parking spaces could be used by more people as loading zones than as a parking lot” to “you are going to ban my car!” The vast majority (95%?) of curb space on the UWS is parking spaces! But parkers are perpetual victims who will never be happy as long as any space is used for anything other than parking.
I say urbanists will never be happy as long as individual people own cars and use them.
It’s not a battle of cars versus everyone else. People drive cars. When you push anti-car advocates hard enough, they have this obsession with “efficiency” and not people. I will also add if every building has a loading zone, what is the likelihood that doormen and building service workers will end up parking there anyways and put a placard on their car and the traffic agent will not ticket them as a courtesy? This already happens with other loading zones in front of buildings and happens with other loading zones in front of the hotels on the UWS.
Seems that traffic enforcement should just ticket the double parking and parking in loading zones. Not sure why its so difficult to expect public employees to do their jobs without favor.
Then that creates other political issues. Then they will try to codify courtesy. That has already happened with alternate side parking. This never passed but there was legislation in the city council in 2014 which got a hearing where they wanted to codify that if you are in your car and as long as you move for the sweeper, you could park in a spot during the alternate side window.
Who is running for the vacant seat in 74th Assembly District? I cannot find a sample ballot or the names any candidates for the special election on Feb 3.
I thought former City Council Rep Keith Powers was running for 74th Assembly?
I think Erik Bottcher is running to fill Brad Hoylman’s State Senate vacancy?
I am very excited about the extension of the 2nd Avenue subway down. 125th Street. What I am curious about is what happens as it approaches Broadway, which is a huge Valley, will it be above ground there.
The other reality that urbanists refuse to accept in their zeal to make NYC “just like Europe” is how Europe has a tougher time integrating immigrants into their society compared to the US. Unlike America where anyone can come from anywhere in the world and become American, it is much harder to do that in Europe. In Denmark, the Social Democrats are an nativist, anti-immigrant, Islamophobic political party that is center left.
In the US, the reason why FDR was so successful pushing his New Deal policies is that in order to get the support of Southern Democrats, he had to throw minorities under the bus. Had JFK survived, civil rights would have been much harder to achieve and would be more watered down than what we currently have. LBJ got civil rights done, but at the expense of losing a lot of Democrats and allowing Nixon to pursue the Southern Strategy that has brought us the GOP we know today. In sum, the Open Plans and TransAlt crowd could get their anti-car utopia in a society where Plessy v. Ferguson and the Separate but Equal doctrine was still good law, or if we passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VI excluded transportation, which would not have been truly sustainable.
Better public transit is possible, but there are limits to that and having cars in cities and giving people their personal space when it comes to transportation is the price that we have to pay for civil rights for all and urbanists need to sober up and accept that.
Uh, during FDR’s era, most American cities had expansive transit systems. Cars were a distinct luxury.
I’m not gonna bother with the George Wallace elements of what you wrote but clearly you never paid attention on King Day or during history class
American cities had more expansive transit systems, but it was a time when very few people traveled as far as they do now. It was a time when there was more overt discrimination while using transit and with transit company hiring procedures.
During FDR’s era, Democrats had to tolerate racial segregation and horrible things in order to get support for New Deal programs. In order to have the transit utopia urbanists dream of, you will need to get New Deal sized majorities in Congress, and that is going to mean throwing vulnerable people under the bus. Transportation policy has become a culture war and it is the EASIEST culture war to give ground on in order to win other culture wars in a reality where Democrats are unwilling and morally should not have to do what it takes to get New Deal sized Congressional majorities and have a resurgent Southern Democrat flank that will provide those majorities.
Even though its only January, “Cars are pro integration” has to be an early frontrunner for most unhinged & ahistorical comment this year.
One thing we learned in 2021 and 2022 is that progressive Democrats want to replace right wing authoritarianism with left wing authoritarianism. Pushing stuff like vaccine mandates for COVID and firing people showed this. Democrats will push people to sacrifice beyond their limits, while Republicans will force people to accept being less than everyone else. This is a zero sum game of dominance and control.
Forced vaccination goes back to a guy named George Washington.
The hyperbole over public health is absurd.
Free Typhoid Mary!
Yes but COVID has weakened significantly. Yes that is due in part to the amount of people vaccinated, but you destroyed political capital and emboldened a movement that supports getting rid of vaccinations for worse sicknesses and it is the founder of bike bro group Open Plans Mark Gorton also funding these causes.
This is simply about adopting best practices in urban planning. Providing incentives for people to not drive into the densest part of the country is not authoritarianism.
NYC is not dense to the point that this is a life or death emergency. NYC is a part of the US, which doesn’t have the same traditions that Europe or China or Japan have. Bloomberg spends a lot of capital both financial and political to fulfill his vision of NYC becoming a luxury product. A lot of NYC officials and the political class support this although not nearly as explicit as Bloomberg was in a 2003 New York Times article. Seeing what I have seen as someone who does not have the privilege of living on the UWS, this isn’t about “providing incentives”, rather this is an all sticks approach because they know if people like me left NYC and stopped even coming here to visit, there are a bunch of childless young professionals who are looking to move to NYC temporarily to live a dream for a few years and to take my place and they know it.
The spokesperson of Riders Alliance openly calling the LIRR a luxury service on social media, is not the tone of someone “providing incentives”, it is the tone of someone using transit as a proxy to fight a culture war.
Of course because integration is most successful when you give people their personal space and not force people atop one another. That is why crime is such a concern even if crime is statistically down.
The more density, the more people get sick of each other over time. The pandemic showed that. Look at how many roommate breakups, relationship breakups occurred during COVID.
What about phase 3 or 4, what about extending the second avenue subway into the bronx along 3rd avenue? Hochul is the most pro gentrification governor this state has ever had. If she were a millennial, she would be the gentrifier transplant living her that a lot of people would complain about. She is here to fulfill Mike Bloomberg’s wish to turn NYC into a luxury product. This isn’t about transit improvements, it is about completing the gentrification of Harlem!
It’s a good question, and they haven’t published any specific details like that. The one train runs along the top of the Morningside and Hamilton Heights so it is elevated when it is exposed above 125th Street. But the Q train would run along the bottom of that valley and the elevation of 125th and Broadway is not much different than 125th and 2nd Avenue so I don’t think the station would have to be above ground there.
They can probably dig deep enough to keep it underground.
There is a fault around 125th Street.
I am a pedestrian and bus-subway user.
I was sorry to see Streetsblog’s opinion given such weight.
Streetsblog is part of the bike lobby group with Transportation Alternative and Open Plans.
As a pedestrian, it is bicycles that endanger me and my family. Additionally “open streets” supported by Streetsblog cause bus re-routes which is a problem.
I don’t drive and parking/no parking at that location does not impact me.
But Streetsblog does not represent or speak for me in any way.
As a pedestrian and subway rider (and not a cyclist), I find Streetsblog provides the most relevant perspective to my experience on NYC streets and I’m glad they are extensively quoted here. Cars are far more dangerous to pedestrians than bikes are.
It is very clear based on the profile picture that you are a cyclist or at the very least someone using an e-scooter regularly and then “but cars” anyone who dares question the safety of e-vehicles.
With respect – the photo seems to show people with bike helmets?
Ha there are other reasons to wear helmets, that is from a long ago family trip which involved go karting
The sleight of hand they use is linking the bike riders with pedestrians & transit users. That way they can claim to be part of the 75% as opposed to the 25% in cars.
(sadly, Mamdani does that too).
Most pedestrians I know feel more anger towards bike riders than drivers and deny any form of common kinship with the bike crowd. And the reason is simple.
Pedestrians can predict and therefore adjust to driver behavior far more regularly and with far more accuracy than we can predict bike rider behavior (except for the prediction that they’ll break the rules at some point, we know they will).
(for what it’s worth, I’m an all of the above, and I never lump either drivers or riders with pedestrians).
The biggest thing is that so few people other than anti-car pro bike urbanists pay attention to transportation issues day in and day out, so since people do not care about transportation as much, urbanists dominate the discussion, get well funded lobbies and then dominate policy. Big real estate also likes this because they get a certain kind of person that lives the culture they want, a college dorm for 21+ year olds. Not only that but since urbanists dominate the conversation so much because no one else really cares to, they claim to speak for all transit riders and all people who do not have a car when they really don’t. Basically they manufacture consent.
I don’t agree with all your points or characterizations but I emphatically agree that people need to pay closer attention to this.
The sleight of hand I referred to is only possible if most people aren’t paying attention.
The people who pay attention to transportation want the streets all to themselves even if they say streets are for people or even if they hate the bike lobby
I asked Grok: why is nyc the only major city to not have residential parking permits?
“This is a quirk of New York State law — Albany has routinely authorized RPP systems for other cities and towns across the state (e.g., Buffalo, Albany, New Rochelle, and even smaller places like the Hamptons), but it has repeatedly declined or failed to grant the same power to New York City itself.”
It cites lobbying from suburban car commuters and Streetsblog for why we can’t have the nice things other cities have. So that’s who’s controlling our public policy.
Resident parking permits will not solve the problem. In fact, they will only ensure that people who drive cars and live on the UWS have no leverage when it comes to pushing back against Open Plans. Only 24% of UWS households own cars, many of that 24% don’t even use their cars enough to justify it. Non-resident workers, business owners and visitors add to the 24% of UWS households who use cars. Not only that, there’s a high likelihood of legal challenges to resident parking permits especially since New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania are integral parts of the NYC metro area. The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of resident permits under the equal protection clause where an in state non-resident (Virginia) brought suit against a town in the same state (Virginia) but it has never ruled on whether these permit systems violate the commerce clause and the dormant commerce clause, given the high amount of out of state drivers on the UWS, this could be a big legal issue.
The idea that residential parking permits on the UWS would violate interstate commerce is absurd.
I do agree that most car owners don’t even use their cars very often – this is made clear in the days after snow storm and it becomes obvious how many cars leave the windshield covered with snow for days afterwards.
Residential parking permits on the UWS violating interstate commerce is not absurd when you consider that if permits existed, a sizable amount of people who garage their cars will now park it on the street, all while the people who work or own businesses on the UWS or visit regularly who live out of state cannot afford the garages and then those garages close down and get sold to developers. We already have that happening on the UWS. Given how extensive the amount of people we have on the UWS who drive and are from out of state, there is an interstate commerce argument here. Other cities have more reasonably priced garages and don’t have the extent of out of state drivers that we do. Basically exclusionary zoning that excludes people who don’t have the privilege of living on the UWS. You can’t have a double standard where those lucky enough to have a rent stabilized apartment or the privilege to afford a market rate apartment on the UWS can use whatever mode of transportation at their leisure, but those without the privilege of being on the UWS have to deal with the limits of public transportation UWSers want to opt out of whenever they feel like it, or be like Gale Brewer who’s pet peeve is leaving Manhattan.
NYC residents pay significant property taxes as well as income tax to the state and city. Visitors from CT might pay a toll or 2. The car-addicted entitled suburban SUV crowd who would support exclusionary parking in their towns want New Yorkers to give away their streets for free. Amazingly, we’re doing it.
The big selling point of living in NYC is low property taxes!
If you live in CT and work and do business in NY, there is no tax reciprocity. You pretty much pay all your income taxes to NY. Same case with NJ. Also NYC property taxes are much lower than the suburbs. You can park in your community but not anyone else’s defeats the purpose of a car.
So tell me, if this is such a constitutional can of worms, how did major cities all over the country institute RPPs without any issues whatsoever? Why are the residents of those cities happy with it?
How many of those other major cities are so joined at the hip with other states the way we are? There is a reason why we have a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, to iron out transportation problems and coordinate. Maybe Port Authority should have control over streets in NYC, we have a port district for a reason. We lease them our airports for a reason. Dare I even say that congestion pricing would be less controversial if the Port Authority was administering the funding, program and the revenue was then sent to the MTA. Port Authority has assisted the MTA with capital projects before.
Residents of New Hampshire and Rhode Island commute to Boston where residential permits have been used for years.
So no, we are not unique.
Yes and how much bigger is NYC compared to Boston? Boston has parking minimums the UWS does not have and has not had since 1982. On the UWS to build parking you have to get a special permit as per the zoning. What is the point of owning a car if resident permits allow you to park in your neighborhood but no one else’s? Most UWS residents who own cars use their cars a lot less than the non-resident worker, business owner or visitor. At that point, Zipcar is probably cheaper for pretty much every UWS resident who is not a reverse commuter. So why not give the overwhelming majority of parking spaces to Zipcar then and nudge the overwhelming majority of UWS residents to get a Zipcar membership?
It does not change the fact that the Supreme Court has not ruled on whether resident parking permits and NYC’s implementation of it would violate the dormant commerce clause. Also parking is relatively cheaper and more available in Boston. UWS residents just want the streets for themselves and everyone they perceive as beneath them to use transit they want to easily opt out from the moment it is no longer convenient or comfortable enough.
This is the definition of NIMBYism right here. UWS residents want everyone else to share and for them to be able to drive and park wherever they feel like it, but don’t want those who don’t have the privilege of living on the UWS to do so. Same thing with housing, UWS residents have no problem wanting to upzone my community, but dare we have a discussion about historic districts and 71% of the UWS being a historic district, it is a sacred cow. If most UWS residents who own cars pretty much use their cars to go away and all the long term parking is to be residents only, why not give all the parking spots away to zipcar then? The majority of UWS residents who own a car can either save money or break even with a zipcar membership.
Boston parking garages are cheaper than UWS parking garages and Boston has parking minimums in zoning that the UWS has not had since 1982. Also to build a new parking garage on the UWS, you need a special permit and have to go through lengthy process to get it. How many special permits for new parking garages has CB7 approved? If non resident demand for parking is high enough, how many would CB7 approve then? Does Boston allow new parking garages? All while UWS residents who can afford the privilege of living in a place I cannot, can ditch the garage monthly rates to park in front of their homes where a worker, business owner or visitor once parked.
Oh, and none of this changes the fact that the commerce clause and dormant commerce clause can be an issue. There’s a reason why we have a bi-state Port Authority with New Jersey.
You don’t live here and you feel entitled to the street space in front of the buildings that we live in. Why shouldn’t the streets right outside our front doors primarily be used for the benefit of the people who live here?
Imagine putting a 24/7 parking meter on every curb space in your neighborhood and then having all of the money raised given to UWSers.
Get your bus depot that benefits NYC residents out of Yonkers! Yonkers residents lose out on property tax revenue by virtue of NYC owning a bus depot it refuses to sell for redevelopment at 59 Babcock Place!
UWSers feel entitled to UWS Doorman’s services? Maybe UWSers are not deserving of building service workers and should do it all themselves! We have triple net leases for commercial properties, maybe wealthy UWSers should have triple net leases for their properties and do everything themselves! Maybe we should take all the parking meter revenue and have it benefit those outside the five boroughs!
Maybe the issue is drivers are a minority in NYC and we’ve all been hostage to their whims? There is no good argument against residential permits for parking.
SCOTUS is not going to overturn a system that is in effect in Chicago, LA, Houston, SF, etc. If you get out of the city & see more of the rest of the country…
And no, NJ, PA, and CT residents are not afforded the same status as NYC or NY residents. They’re different states. Taxation=representation, remember?
How many out of state commuters and visitors do these cities have? How accessible and affordable are parking garages in these cities relative to NYC? Right now, with Cea Weaver having the influence she does, there’s a push for SCOTUS to overturn rent stabilization. Other cities have that as well.
Get out of the city and see the rest of the country? Maybe there is a thing or two NYC does right, we don’t have to align everything with what everyone else does. If I work on the UWS and want to live here affordably? Then you’d complain about how my car is evil, oh and want to have a discussion about historic district landmarking to make sure there is enough housing for everyone who wants to live here?
NJ, PA and CT are integral parts of our metropolitan area. The same people that want to force those who don’t live on the UWS or Manhattan to take the train and deal with a lengthy trip are the same people that don’t want to have that same commute for themselves. Like you have people who own cars on the UWS who only use it to leave the city on weekends occasionally where there is transit service. Like why doesn’t that person use transit. Manhattanites wanting people like me to do as they say and not as they do is really bad for the city and really bad for Democrats.
Speaking of taxation=representation. NY does not have tax reciprocity with NJ or CT, so when you live in NJ and work in NY, you pay your state income taxes to NY and not NJ and NJ issues a credit for the state income taxes you pay to NY. Every time someone lives in NJ or CT and works in NY, these states lose money.
Yes we should have a conversation about landmarking so we can build more housing throughout the UWS and NYC & Manhattanites who own weekend cars should be paying garage rates to park them.
Commuters from other areas (yourself included) are welcome to come to NYC, and driving may be the most convenient option but it imposes externalities in the form of of pollution, street safety and use of public space that should be compensated by paying for tolls and parking that they consume, which is why congestion pricing has been such a success. Not that complicated.
UWS Dad,
Not to be rude, but as for opinions on who may live, visit or methods of transportation……perhaps lifelong/born & raised New Yorkers should get the priority?
Rather than transplants?
The thing is many lifelong and born and raised New Yorkers end up moving to New Jersey, Connecticut and other suburbs.
Why should someone get special privileges because they were born in a hospital here? They did literally nothing to earn that?
There are native New Yorkers that are aligned with urbanists and are culturally similar to them. Plenty of them grew up in Manhattan too. The experiences of a UWS resident growing up here is vastly different than a resident who grew up in an outer borough.
I am confused, you would like a Chinese style hukou system? Now *that* would be authoritarian. I much prefer the free market.
I think it is the urbanists and those opposed to urbanists wanting resident parking permits who want a Chinese style hukou system without actually calling it one.
Uber and Lyft trips have gone up with congestion pricing! Not only that, the same urbanists who complain about the externalities of driving, complain about high subsidies of public transit services that they do not like. When subway crime and reliability was much worse than it is now, Manhattanites fought express bus franchises for routes between the Bronx and Manhattan, yet the express bus services the UES and PCV/Stuytown had (the X90 and X92) was the most politically difficult route to discontinue until Jay Walder finally did it in 2010. They say streets are for people, not cars. But press urbanists enough and they are all about “efficiency” not people.
Oh and what UWS Dad insists is good for me, should be good for every UWS resident who uses their cars to leave Manhattan, especially where there is a transit option available, no matter how bad or sparse it is. It’s like tariffs, you want to raise tariffs on us, we should raise them on you. Other areas in NYC suburbs have booming downtowns, look at White Plains and Stamford as examples.
I don’t own a car. How easy is it for me to get to your neighborhood? Are you subsidizing UWSers who want to visit? Why should UWSers subsidize Eugene so you can have free parking when you don’t provide free bus service for us? Subsidized car rentals to visit you? It’s very one way!
Do you even want to visit? Gale Brewer’s biggest pet peeve I hear is leaving Manhattan. So much so that people even grab pictures of her and note it is the rare time she leaves Manhattan!
There are free transfers between the subways and Nassau and Westchester buses, those trips even count towards the OMNY fare cap! You can’t have it both ways where you complain about “subsidizing” outsider drivers and then complain about higher subsides for transit outside Manhattan. Not only that, you all have the guts to charter a private bus to Bayside, Queens in order to canvass for Tom Suozzi in a special election determining the balance of power in the House instead of taking the 7 train and using a free transfer to take a bus to a transit desert in Queens. Manhattan Democrats even encourage people to drive to swing districts in order to canvass for Democrats where transit is available, no matter how limited it is. Manhattanites are unwilling to suffer what those who do not have the privilege of being able to afford living in Manhattan have to suffer.
You could afford to live in Manhattan, but you chose lower rent and more space in the suburbs. The cost of that is a longer commute. The entitlement of suburbanites who think they deserve everything with zero tradeoffs is insane. Then they project their own selfishness onto UWSers and insist that the suburabnites are somehow being taken advantage of. Locals have less space, higher costs, and we have to breathe your car exhaust, listen to your honking, and suffer the injuries and deaths from reckless drivers. And you lose your mind when people who live here want to use the curb space in front of our own homes so we can access the front doors of our own buildings instead of using it to provide a free parking space to outsiders!
No people like myself cannot afford to live in Manhattan. 40x the monthly rent on the UWS would not get me and my family too far. You need a six figure annual salary to qualify for a shoebox UWS studio. All while some the leadership of anti-car advocacy groups on the UWS live in $10,000+ a month rental apartments and garage their cars on the UWS (I heard a rumor one of them lives in a $16,000 a month rental as well). The same argument can be made about UWSers and Manhattanites in general given the amount of historic districts the UWS and Manhattan in general has, actually Manhattan has a disproportionate amount of historic districts compared to the other boroughs. The deal with the UWS should be this, you get to keep the historic districts, you let us park on the street and we let you park on the street when you come visit us. Historic district landmarking would be a political third rail in Manhattan.
I’m happy to get rid of the historic district. Not sure why you think nobody would support this – there is a large and growing YIMBY movement nationally (Ezra Klein) and locally (Zohran!).
If you want anyone to take you seriously you really need to dial down the black and white conspiratorial thinking. You need to try to understand that you pay less money for more space and you get to have a car. Then you demand to have priority over the space in front of the buildings where we actually live – and you call us irrational elitists.
As for your deal – the only thing you offer is street parking in your neighborhood when 75% of UWSers don’t have cars. You’re asking for a lot and offering literally nothing but accusations and name calling! Why would anyone take that?
Eugene has a point! You all pay more than the mortgages of people living in the suburbs in rent to be in the center of a four state metro area. That does not entitle you to a loading zone in front of your building. We had a Manhattan without vehicles, it wasn’t pretty, during the first several decades of post consolidation NYC, people were living in tenements without adequate sanitary facilities on the Lower East Side, where no new immigrant can afford to live today. NYC was in charge of miles of open country. The 19th century isn’t coming back as much as urbanists want a high tech version of it to.
Many UWSers may not own cars but benefit from cars. Sara Lind was the YIMBY candidate in 2021 and she got third place behind Maria Danzilo. Melissa Rosenberg was the YIMBY candidate in 2024 and I don’t even think she got more than 1,000 votes in her assembly primary and couldn’t even get the backing of Open New York of which she is a member of. YIMBYism is unpopular on the UWS. Even the Soho rezoning did not dare touch the historic districts and Chris Marte won twice over the lack of enthusiasm for YIMBYism.
I’ve been reading with keen interest over the past 10 days about the ongoing massive protests and sprawling tent city at Columbia against the indiscriminate slaughter of likely over 20,000 Iranian youth by the fascist regime there. To be clear, this is not anti-Persian protest. One can be against the policies of the government of Iran, without being anti-Persian, right?
It’s great to see our young, keffiyeh-clad people take such a strong, progressive stance against this genocide. Disrupting classes, breaking doors, attacking janitors, intimidating anyone with a beard is totally justified and a small price to pay in this righteous fight. It’s been heartwarming to observe our young people on the right side of history again. I cannot help but be immensely proud by the commendable actions of Queers for Iranian Women, who are valiantly fighting against the slaughter, rape and mutilation of thousands of innocent Iranians.
In light of this, the protestors against the closed campus can just join this righteous fight.
You might consider adding “/s” after posts like this.
I realize you think this is clever criticism. The obvious difference is the Gaza genocide protestors were petitioning the US government to stop funding/supporting the country perpetrating the massacre.
Good news, this time around our government is already against the slaughter in Iran, so what would they even be protesting?
So the deaths of Muslim civilians only really matters when issues of funding are involved.
It’s not really about human rights. Thanks for the clarification. I definitely understand our students and professors better now.
Please read it again, nowhere did I say it didn’t matter. Just that protesting the Iranian regime lacks a plausible path to change the situation.
I want them to be ever more … inclusive… in their honorable quest. This kind of organic, spontaneous, totally-not-outside-agitator-led, absolutely-not-paid-by-Teheran-and-Qatar kind of political engagement needs to be fully supported.
I didn’t realize the US government seat was at Columbia University, or that protesting at Columbia was meant to sway governments hundreds and thousands of miles away. All the more reason to step it up – I’m sure they’re watching in distant Iran, as much as they were watching at the Hamas offices in those only-for-humanitarian-use hospitals in Gaza.
Students have a right to peacefully protest even if their demands for Columbia to divest were unlikely to get the desired effect.
It seems we both agree the Columbia protests were ineffective, but this line of argument that the students are therefore obligated to protest every international incident seems to be pretty clearly in bad faith.
I thought it was “genocide.” Now it’s an “international incident”.
The Queen, may she rest in peace, did not drop a crumpet on Biden’s lap. That’s an “international incident.”
People love to use words like “genocide “ even though they can’t define or justify them. This is the state of intellectualism in America.
The UN determined a genocide occurred. Strangely, the moderator seems to be blocking my link to the UN Commission finding but you can see the short summary below:
16 September 2025
GENEVA – Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel said in a new report today. The Commission urges Israel and all States to fulfil their legal obligations under international law to end the genocide and punish those responsible for it.
The Commission has been investigating the events on and since 7 October 2023 for the last two years, and concluded that Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.
Why do urbanists always like to be accusing the moderator of blocking comments. I have gotten comments blocked myself, and I do not cry about it the way urbanists do!
Thank You Charles.
Literally my first comment with the link was blocked! Why would I make that up.
It was blocked because your link didn’t work
That is odd, but thanks for clarifying that the comment was indeed blocked.
Good reporting
Well reported.
There are no ” massive protests” and “sprawling tent city” at Columbia. Don’t know what you are reading. I guess this is tongue in cheek.
Peter was just having a wee bit of satiric fun at the expense of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, imho.
Now I know how that Dr. Frankenstein felt.
While it would appear to be a sensible option – a loading zone in front of the residential building – the purpose of a loading zone is just that – loading/unloading commercial goods. A residential building needs a no-standing zone for discharging/loading passengers/residents, which would make ticketing temporary parkers there easier.
Until the doormen and other workers get courtesy. This happens more than you think.
Linda Rosenthal is excellent.
Speaking of the Astor, why has their scaffolding been in place for 10+ years, with a fenced-in/caged area on West 76th St with parked cars? Take down the scaffolding and the caged area by the building entrance and then put in a loading area.
I have asked this question too and cannot seem to get any answers. I have asked the rag to look into it as well.
Not only that, but Broadway in front of the building is 2 hour metered parking and there are about 3 two hour metered spaces on West 75th Street. If it is a 24/7 loading zone, I get the objection, but if it is an 8 am – 6 pm weekday only loading zone that is replacing the metered spot, then there may be an argument. But the thing is that urbanists and those sympathetic to them are hungry to get rid of people’s choice on the UWS, while in the suburbs they try to force their agenda as a choice when it really is not a choice. I think the ultimate motive is power and control with urbanists, they do not care about safety, traffic or climate.
Why do random people need access to a private university campus? Just to go on the campus and protest and cause damage and vandalism? Because that is what happened before. Columbia has already granted all neighbors access who requested and could prove they live in the neighborhood. No one else needs access. Between ICE, non-affiliate protestors, crime, and in light of recent murders at Brown and MIT, Columbia does not need to open their gates. Student, staff, and faculty safety take presence over randoms whim for access. Residents have not been kind or respectful.
What are you talking about?
Joe –
A major issue is Broadway-Amsterdam access and transit access.
For example, if you are coming from Mt. Sinai/St. Luke’s and need to get to the subway at 116th Street and Broadway, without access to the path it is a much longer walk to Amsterdam as you need to go around the campus.
The transit situation is worsened when Amsterdam is closed for “open streets” for “brunch” – there is no access to the M11 bus on Amsterdam.
Using NYU as a comparison, there is no gated “campus” – and non-NYU pedestrians walk by NYU buildings without restriction.
116th Street is not Columbia’s. They were given the right to pedestrianize the street with the condition that they leave 116th open for public foot traffic. It’s a public road: they could no sooner close Broadway because their buildings are adjacent to it. They have been taking advantage of an exception to the public access, which is in case of emergency need. It defies belief that they’ve been having an emergency for two years.
The Board of the Astor does not seem to mind that for 10 yrs they have taken over a portion of 76th Street side of their building with a construction barricade and that encampments have taken over the Broadway store front side of their buildings. The Astor is not a very good community or neighbor.
There are a lot of arrogant co-op and condo boards. That is a big problem.
Can someone at the WSR PLEASE tell us who’s on the ballot for the District 47 State Senate election – for which early voting beingss tomorrow (Tues)? Also, it is a primary (open only to those affiliated with a party)? Or is it open to all? I’ve scoured the web to find out, and it’s as clear as mud. Thank you
Relating to parking….
Wondering if anyone knows….?
Why does the 800-Popcorn truck (red truck with Florida plates) seem to be permitted to park permanently (24/7) at 72nd and Broadway (SW corner)?
It has been there for weeks, not moved. Not open either?
Also it is parked at what is supposed to be an unloading area for TJs.
And recently another food truck, Bangkok Bros, seems to have decided to park (24/7) behind the popcorn truck.
Are food trucks allowed to park permanently?
I wonder if the block association is doing anything about this. I hear the West 72nd Street Block Association is pretty tight with Open Plans.
The Astor has been a terrible neighbor to the community with scaffolding up for over 12 years. Virtually every store (with the exception of one) has been vacant for a long time and are rundown and unkept with no signs of being rented or improvements, the sidewalk along broadway is in bad shape with cracks and holes creating a danger, there are currently 2 peurmenanf homeless encampments on broadway and sometimes even more which almost completely block the sidewalk and there is graffiti and garbage all along Broadway. I have reached out to the building several times and never receive a response.