Today is Monday, May 18th, 2026
The forecast calls for mostly sunny skies and a high of 86 degrees to kick off what’s going to be a roller coaster of a week, temperature wise: It will be well into the 90s tomorrow and Wednesday, barely break 70 on Thursday, and top off at a comparatively cooler 64 on Friday. Don’t put those sweaters away yet!
On this day in 1910, not much happened — and that was very good news, because Halley’s Comet was passing between the sun and earth, and public hysteria over the event had been escalating for months. Headlines such as “‘Comet May Kill All Earth Life,’ Says Scientist” and “Coming End of World” appeared in newspapers, along with predictions of earthquakes, tsunamis, plagues, and deaths from poisoned gas as the earth passed through the comet’s tail. Public fear reached such heights that some people sealed themselves in their homes or took refuge in wells or caves; a number of suicides also were blamed on hysteria over the comet. But, as one newspaper reported the next day: “Halley’s Comet Speeding Away: Passed between Earth and Sun Wednesday, Caused No Convulsions of Nature or Apparent Atmospheric Disturbances.”
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
Shakespeare in the Park kicks off the 2026 season on Friday with the classic “Romeo & Juliet.” Tickets are free, as always, and there are several ways to obtain them. More information — HERE.
Interested in learning how to protect the neighborhood’s trees? From 5:30 to 7 p.m. today, Trees New York will teach tree stewardship skills in partnership with City Councilmember Gale Brewer’s office. Meet at West 63rd Street and West End Avenue. If you can’t make it tonight, there will be a repeat session on June 8 (that one located at West 65th Street and Amsterdam Avenue). We’ll put a reminder in this space the week before.
Since we’re on the subject of trees: The Parks Department’s annual tree census is underway in green spaces throughout the city. The next one on the UWS will be held in Riverside Park on June 12, but registration is required, and that begins this Friday at 8 a.m. More information and signup link — HERE. (Note that there are two signup links for that day — one for those who’ve participated in the tree census in the past and don’t need training, and one for those who are volunteering for the first time.)
As we’ve noted on a couple of different occasions recently, the Rag is in a period of transition, as we seek non-profit status. We know we’ve had our hand out a lot lately, but your donations really do help; they go to pay our writers while our non-profit paperwork winds it way through the bureaucracy. We’re having another fundraiser right now, in honor of our 15th anniversary; if you’d like to support us, the link is — HERE.
News Roundup
Compiled by Laura Muha
To start this week’s news roundup, we call your attention to an Architectural Digest article about a building that’s not technically on the UWS, but whose presence is hard to escape if you live here. We’re talking about the world’s skinniest skyscraper, which juts more than 1,400 feet into the sky at 111 West 57th Street, just past the southernmost edge of the UWS.
“[W]hile detractors complain that the skyscraper casts a shadow on Central Park, for those on the inside the building’s 360-degree views of the celebrated Manhattan green space are a definite plus,” according to Architectural Digest, which pegged the story to the controversial building’s fifth birthday.
Also known as Steinway Tower, because it’s built atop the landmarked 16-story building that once housed a Steinway & Sons piano store, the building is the width of two townhouses, and the depth of one; at 59 by 75 feet, its footprint is smaller than an NBA regulation basketball court. But its height-to-width ratio is what Architectural Digest calls an “astounding” 24:1; it’s also the second tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere, reaching a “whopping” 1,428 feet high, including its 300-foot decorative steel crown.
In an interview, architect William Sofield, of Sofield Studios, described how he referenced the Steinway building’s Gilded-Age history wherever possible. For instance, the lobby flooring is made from wood rescued from Steinway’s original piano loading docks, and one of the building’s chandeliers is a reproduction of an original design that once hung in Steinway Hall. In addition, Architectural Digest said, the architect infused “little Easter eggs” — i.e., small surprises — into the design. Each of the city’s landmarked buildings is represented in bas-relief somewhere in Steinway Tower. “And there are some charming details that reference 111 West 57th itself; the bronze handles on the living room doors in each condo are crafted to resemble the staggered outline of the building,” according to Architectural Digest.
Steinway Tower also has plenty of amenities — no surprise in a building where a three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath condo is currently going for about $46 million and the monthly maintenance for an apartment of that size is about $8,000: a sauna and steam room, a double-height fitness center, a golf simulator, a padel court, a private dining room and chef’s catering kitchen for entertaining, and a barber shop and shoe-shine stand on the premises.
Read the full story, see photos, and take a video tour of Billionaire’s Row with architect Nick Potts, who explains what went into the construction of the building — HERE.
This next story is also about a building with Gilded-Age roots, but this one is actually within the boundaries of the UWS, and it’s a far cry, design wise, from the needle-like Steinway Tower.
The seven-story, 12,000-foot Beaux Arts residence in question is located at 25 Riverside Drive and is one of the last surviving single-family mansions of its era. It features eight bedrooms, six fireplaces (at least one of them located in a marble-floored bathroom), stained glass ceiling panels by Tiffany & Co., a mahogany-paneled home theater, a glass conservatory with views of the Hudson River, three kitchens (with copper sinks and professional appliances), a landscaped garden with pear trees screening it from the street, and a rooftop terrace big enough to fit 100.
It’s been on the market on and off for several years, and when it went back on again for $65 million last week, the Post used the opportunity to examine why no one has snapped it up.
The consensus from real estate experts: The sale is slightly complicated by the fact that the property is owned by a trust set up for the benefit of Dina Wein Reis, who pleaded guilty in 2011 to federal conspiracy to commit wire fraud and served seven months in prison.
But mostly, it’s that such properties take a special buyer, who hasn’t appeared yet.
“Unique trophy properties like this move differently than the broader market. A Gilded Age mansion on Riverside Drive is a highly specific asset, and the buyer pool is naturally much smaller,” Michelle Griffith of Douglas Elliman told the Post. “Even with an exceptional location, scale and architectural significance, these homes can take time because they require the right buyer at the right moment.”
Read the full story and see photos — HERE.
Most people think of Matt Dillon as an actor, best known for movies such as “The Outsiders” and “Drugstore Cowboy.” But he’s also an artist, and the New York Times recently visited him in his Upper West Side studio, where he paints what the publication described as large pieces “in a brushy, textural style.”
On the day of the visit, he was working on a jagged piece of Masonite that was fixed to the wall and “slathered in black paint onto which he’s scrawled ‘Porto Novo’ along the top and ‘Abomey’ at the bottom,” the Times said. (Both are cities in Benin, West Africa, where Dillon traveled after filming 2025’s “The Fence” in that region.)
Though he didn’t have formal art training, Dillon told the Times he’s been painting for years during slow times on set, and in hotel rooms when traveling. About a decade ago, he rented his first studio and began painting on a larger scale, and he’s steadily been gaining recognition since then.
“He’s an emerging and midcareer artist at the same time, which is an anomaly,” Michael Nevin, co-founder of the Journal Gallery in Tribeca, told the Times. Dillon’s first New York solo exhibition runs through Saturday at the gallery at 45 White Street.
Read the full story — HERE. More information on the exhibition, including photos of the works on display — HERE.
To many of us, vacation is synonymous with getting out of town. But for East Village writer and mother Blake Turck, the destination is a lot closer to home. In fact, it’s just a few neighborhoods north, right here on the UWS, where, she wrote in Business Insider, she and her family (including their dog) take an annual a “staycation” in the hotel where she and her husband were married seven years ago.
The tradition started while the couple were undergoing IVF treatments; “I was at the mercy of science, and strict, necessary timelines around each cycle. I couldn’t travel,” she wrote. “Going to a local hotel as a pretend tourist turned into a way to romanticize our marriage, without actually leaving the city.”
Even though she and her husband now have an almost-2-year-old daughter, she wrote, they’ve continued the tradition.
“With travel becoming more chaotic, I’m not sure I need the stress of worrying about long wait times, fuel prices, and the like. Staying in my city has kept my wallet and psyche at ease. Our repeated family staycations allowed us to explore the city in a way we normally wouldn’t. Each visit becomes a task to uncover something new about the city, and each other.”
Read more about her UWS “staycations” — HERE.
In Other UWS News: Politics Edition
The UWS congressional and State Assembly races got a lot of attention from major media this week:
- The New York Times wrote about what some are calling Jack Schlossberg’s “chaotic” campaign to succeed Rep. Jerrold Nadler in Congress. Read the story — HERE.
- CNN’s Dana Bash followed up with an interview with Schlossberg in which he defended his campaign as “nimble and small.” Read about it/watch it — HERE.
- Politico took a look at Micah Lasher’s campaign in a story headlined, “Nadler’s Heir Apparent Tests Whether Experience Still Sells.” Read it — HERE.
- The New York Times also took a look at rabbi and community organizer Stephanie Ruskay’s primary race against Eli Northrup for the Assembly seat being vacated by Micah Lasher. Read it — HERE.
- The Indypendent, which describes itself as “a free, progressive monthly newspaper, online news site and weekly radio show,” focused on Ruskay’s opponent, public defender Eli Northrup. Read it — 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.)
2 Men Killed After Car Jumps UWS Sidewalk Curb and Crashes Into Pedestrians: Police
Major Subway Service Changes Coming to Multiple Upper West Side Train Lines: What to Know
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How can you have an entire section on the Steinway Tower and not mention that it has faced a range of construction and design defects, with lawsuits filed by the building’s condominium board alleging approximately 1,500 defects, ranging from plumbing failures to excessive vibrations?