Today is Monday, June 8th, 2026
Today’s forecast calls for crystal-clear skies and a high of 78 degrees. But brace yourself; temperatures are expected to climb steadily throughout the week. On both Thursday and Friday, the high is expected to be 92 — close to the record for both days. (The June 11 record, according to Accuweather, was 95 degrees, set in 1973, and the June 12 record was 93 degrees, set in 2017.)
On this date in 2020, after 100 days of COVID-19 lockdown, New York City began its Phase 1 reopening, with construction and manufacturing businesses allowed to resume operations as long as they had safety precautions such as face masks and social distancing in place. Retail establishments were allowed to reopen as well, but only for curbside pickups.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
The Upper West Side Dish column, which is usually published on Mondays, will be on hiatus for a couple of weeks while a new columnist gears up to take the reins. (As regular readers may recall, Abigael Sidi’s final Dish column ran last week; we wish her well as she prepares to head to college in the fall.) Stay tuned for an announcement about our new columnist soon, and if you’re hungry in the meantime, check out all of our past Dish columns — HERE.
Since we’re on the subject of food: The first of the season’s “longest table” community potlucks on the UWS will be held Sunday, June 14th, from 5 to 7 p.m. on West 103rd Street (between Broadway and West End Avenue). An RSVP is required, and tickets were going fast, but as of this writing — Sunday afternoon — there were still some left. To check, click — HERE.
The synagogue Bnai Jeshurun is holding a special meet-the-candidates night tonight from 7 to 8:30 p.m., with a focus on what it calls the “issues that matter to Jewish New Yorkers.” Candidates for both the 12th Congressional District and the 69th Assembly District will be on hand. The event is being held in Bnai Jeshurun’s community house, 270 West 89th Street, between Broadway and West End Avenue. Registration is required and closes an hour before the event; walk-ins will be allowed only as space permits. The forum also can be accessed via Zoom. More information, plus registration and Zoom links — HERE.
We love comments from readers on our stories, and enthusiastically encourage them. However, we’d like to remind everyone that our policy limits them to 150 words. (They’ve been getting longer lately, and our moderator tells us she’s about to crack down!) Full comments policy can be found — HERE.
News Roundup
Three men linked by the chess tables in Central Park were the subject of a recent piece by The New York Times, which detailed how their unlikely friendship helped to save at least one of their lives, and possibly two.
The story started last September, when Frank Ames, an UWS scholar of South Asian textiles, realized it had been awhile since he’d seen Paul Trahan, one of the casual acquaintances he’d been playing chess with for a decade. When none of the other players could tell him what had happened, Ames went to Trahan’s apartment to make sure he was all right and discovered he was not: When Trahan answered the door, he was incoherent, had clearly not been caring for himself, and his apartment was a shambles.
The rest of the story follows what happened after Ames called 911, then brought in another casual chess-playing acquaintance, a homeless man named Lincoln Cyrus, to help keep an eye on Trahan after he was discharged from the hospital.
We won’t give away the details, except to say that what transpired next got Cyrus out of the park during the bitter cold spell that caused the deaths of at least 20 homeless people last winter. Read the full story — HERE.
WPIX recently ran a story about the effect that the end of the federal emergency housing voucher program is having on residents citywide, using as an example a retiree who’s been told she’ll have to leave the UWS apartment she has occupied for four and a half years.
Olga Garcia, 72, told the station that she lives in a one-bedroom apartment on West 71st Street, in a building run by the non-profit Project Find. The housing voucher has been covering about two-thirds of the $1,500 monthly rent, but with that money coming to an end, she’s been notified by NYCHA — which administers the federal voucher program in New York City — that she needs to pack up and move to another building at 145th Street.
Garcia is not only upset that she has to move — “This is my community where I feel safe,” she told WPIX — but also is struggling to figure out how she can afford it. “I live on a fixed income,” she said. “Moving out of my home is going to cost me about $3,000 because moving is very expensive.”
The voucher program was created by Congress in 2021 to provide emergency housing to people at risk of domestic violence, stalking, human trafficking and/or homelessness. It was supposed to run through 2030, but the Trump administration announced last year that funding would run out by the end of this year, and that there was no plan to find more money to keep it going.
In a statement to WPIX, NYCHA said agency officials “recognize the challenge this presents for [voucher] participants.” The agency is working to find alternative subsidized options for voucher recipients, the statement said, “and our goal is to offer an affordable housing alternative to each affected household.”
But Mark Jennings, executive director of Project Find, says the agency’s solutions so far have been less than ideal. “To move people around like stray cats and stray dogs in a shelter,” he said, “it’s not housing stability, which is what the housing vouchers are supposed to be all about.”
Read/watch the full story — HERE.
Katha Pollitt, a writer for The Nation, hadn’t planned to write about Nina Schwalbe, a global health expert who is one of two women in the crowded race for the congressional seat being vacated by longtime U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler.
But then, Pollitt said, she read a story about the race in New York Magazine, and found herself “enraged” on Schwalbe’s behalf.
“The cover, which announced, ‘The Next Mr. Manhattan,’ featured photos of the four top candidates—Micah Lasher, Alex Bores, George Conway, and Jack Schlossberg—squished together in a van, looking very pleased with themselves,” she wrote. “Schwalbe was not mentioned once.”
The men, of course, are running campaigns “swarming with volunteers and staffers, and are lavishly funded,” Pollitt pointed out. But still: “How democratic is the race if you need millions of dollars and preexisting fame to run a visible race? Jack Schlossberg has no relevant experience, and no credentials that I can see, but Nancy Pelosi endorsed him. (At least Schwalbe will be included in a debate next Tuesday on WNYC.)”
With that in mind, Pollitt set out to find out more about Schwalbe and her reasons for entering a race that, at least on the surface, seems so stacked against her. Read the full story — HERE.
Zabar’s has Knicks fever: In honor of the team’s quest to win this year’s NBA’s championship, the famed New York store has introduced limited-edition cookies in the Knicks colors of blue and orange.
It isn’t the first time Zabar’s has done something like this; for Hanukkah, the store typically offers blue and white cookies, along with red and green ones for Christmas. Both were modeled — as are the Knicks cookies — after their famous black-and-whites.
They aren’t cheap, though, as our managing editor Gus Saltonstall reported on X last week: “For $29.98, you get 6 cookies in a Zabar’s padded tote.” (That’s the same price as the black-and-whites.)
The Knicks currently lead the San Antonio Spurs 2-0 in the best-of-seven playoff series, with Game 3 scheduled for tonight at Madison Square Garden. The last time the Knicks won the championship was 1973.
In Other UWS News
- The New York Times real estate section recently featured a family of four looking for larger digs on the UWS. Read about their search — HERE.
- Politico recently did an in-depth profile on Assemblymember Micah Lasher, who — in the highly unlikely case that anyone doesn’t already know this — is running to replace Rep. Jerrold Nadler. Read it — HERE.
- The Upper West Side has changed so much in the almost 70 years since the musical “West Side Story” premiered on Broadway that it’s sometimes hard to remember it’s set on the same streets many Rag readers travel every day. Former newsman Dan Rather recently put the spotlight on the musical’s history in his Substack newsletter “A Reason to Smile.” Read it — HERE.
- France 24 recently did a piece on an unfortunate fact of NYC life: Waiting in very, very long lines. It isn’t UWS specific (though it does mention a crazy line last summer in Central Park), but it is a fun read about something way too many of us experience, way too often. 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.)
The Central Park Guitar Man Readies for His Final Summer After 35 Years: ‘Let’s Embrace Every Song’
Popular Upper West Side Cinema Switching Venues for the Summer
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Good piece in the Nation on Schwalbe, but calling Zabar’s “uptown” is funny.