Today is Monday, September 14th, 2026
The forecast is lots of sun for the start of the week. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday will all be sunny with highs between 75 and 80 degrees, before chances of rain on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. Overall, it looks like another pleasant week of weather.
On this day in 1899, an UWS real estate broker named Henry Bliss had the unfortunate distinction of becoming the first person on record to die in an automobile accident in the United States. A day earlier day, while stepping from a southbound trolley on Central Park West at West 74th Street, 69-year-old Bliss was struck by a taxi and fell to the pavement. He was taken to Roosevelt Hospital (now Mount Sinai West) with head and chest injuries, and died the next morning. The driver of the taxi was arrested and charged with manslaughter, but was acquitted on the grounds that Bliss’s death was not caused by malice or negligence. (The driver claimed a large truck had been blocking the right side of the street, forcing him to swerve toward the trolley.) In 1999, a century after Bliss’s death, his great-grandddaughter laid roses at the site as a memorial plaque was dedicated. It reads:
Here at West 74th Street and Central Park West, Henry H. Bliss dismounted from a streetcar and was struck and knocked unconscious by an automobile on the evening of September 13, 1899. When Mr. Bliss, a New York real estate man, died the next morning from his injuries, he became the first recorded motor vehicle fatality in the Western Hemisphere. This sign was erected to remember Mr. Bliss on the centennial of his untimely death and to promote safety on our streets and highways.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
News Roundup
Compiled by Gus Saltonstall
A new Friedmans location is slated to open on the Upper West Side after a real estate deal closed last week.
The Friedmans ownership group, which also owns Pastrami Queen, has purchased a retail co-op unit at 541-555 Amsterdam Avenue, between West 86th and 87th streets, where they are planning to open another Friedmans outpost in the neighborhood, according to Lee & Associates NYC, the commercial real estate company behind the deal.
Specifically, the new Friedmans will open at 551 Amsterdam Avenue, most recently home to The Granola Bar, which closed in January of this year.
“The new owners will occupy an existing vacant restaurant space at the property, where they plan to open a new Friedmans Restaurant location tailored to appeal to the Upper West Side neighborhood,” Lee & Associates NYC wrote in a news release. The timeline for the opening remains unclear.
The new owners purchased the 5,000-square-foot retail space for $4.35 million, according to the real estate company.
The other news element of the real estate purchase is that Friedmans now owns the co-op in which Barney Greengrass, a famous UWS institution, is located, as well as Hudson & Charles, the butcher shop.
“Both businesses [Barney Greengrass and Hudson & Charles] will remain in place following the sale,” Lee & Associates NYC wrote in its news release about the sale.
The Rag will report when we get more information about the new Friedmans opening.
A man was rushed to the hospital Friday on the Upper West Side after being hit by a falling tree branch near the American Museum of Natural History, according to FDNY and CBS.
The incident took place around 2 p.m. at Central Park West and West 77th Street, FDNY said. A witness told CBS that the injured man was selling hot dogs at the location.
It is unclear what caused the tree branch to fall or the condition of the man.
You can watch CBS’ video report — HERE.
Last week, former Upper West Side Assemblymember Scott Stringer, who also served as Manhattan Borough President and Comptroller, spoke with City & State about the neighborhood and Manhattan politics.
“The West Side electorate puts you through your paces,” Stringer answered when asked how the Upper West Side prepares you for higher office. “When I got elected to the Assembly in 1992, I remember being in Albany, as a young freshman legislator, I’m writing my newsletter, and another freshman came up to me and said, ‘I saw your newsletter. How come there were few pictures and all of this copy? Who reads this stuff?’ And I go, ‘My constituents don’t send me postcards on an issue; they send me Ph.D dissertations for me to respond to.'”
Stringer also gave his thoughts on the merging of the Upper West Side and Upper East Side into one Congressional District in 2022, Jack Schlossberg’s recent candidacy, and Darializa Avila Chevalier’s victory over Rep. Adriano Espaillat in the Upper Manhattan congressional race. You can read the full interview — HERE.
ICYMI
Upper West Side Trader Joe’s at 72nd Street Will Reopen on Saturday Morning
Remembering 9/11: From Upper West Side Dad to Daily News Deadline
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Tuesday, Sept 15 7pm-8pm is the Central Park Precinct Community Meeting at the precinct at W.86th St Transverse. It is a great opportunity to speak to the CP Police and the CP Conservancy about the e-vehicles, pedicabs, amazon e- trucks that are in the park.
about Mr Bliss, i find it ironic that he was killed by an electrically powered vehicle—a taxi, i think it was.
An electric taxi? In 1899?
If Friedman’s can serve a better than solid lunch and dinner, it will succeed. By the end, Granola Bar proved to be too small for the multiroom space, with dinner first falling off in quality and rigor and then being eliminated entirely. Concept was never too clear, and the food wasn’t good enough
It also had a godawful and confusing name. Who wants to impulsively stop into a neighborhood a restaurant that specializes in cold cereal?
And it wasn’t even a bar!
It’s a well established brand with pretty good food. That location has had several misses since Popover went out.
If anyone can succeed there? This one seems as promising as any.
I miss Popover
Let’s beg people to NOT allow their dogs to pee on trees. Beg, heel, roll over, whatever it takes……
Oh please.
Remember Curb Your Dog?? People seemed to have forgotten to do that.
When I mention that to people they insist “curb” means control. As in Curb Yiur Enthusiasm. They don’t believe it means your dog should go on the curb.
Mr. Bliss was the first but now we have ~250 New Yorkers killed by drivers each year. London has roughly half that number, we need to have better street designs and more pedestrianization to keep New Yorkers safe.
UWS Dad:
My concern reading this WSR article is for the man who was hit by a tree branch.
Hoping this person is ok.
Way to cherry pick. NYC traffic related deaths are also significantly lower than Boston, DC, Philadelphia and Chicago… like A LOT lower.
Aren’t you cherry picking cities with less developed public transportation? Our peers are global tier 1 cities like London, Paris, Tokyo etc.
UWS Dad,
BTW a big reason for increase in vehicles on NYC streets is due to Uber and Amazon/ecommerce.
A Modest Proposal – able-bodied folks in the walkable UWS could walk to local stores as in the past, instead of using Amazon?
If Americans behaved like Britons we’d have fewer violent deaths and injuries all around.
(And there wouldn’t be as much opposition to e-bikes because they’d be ridden with less disregard for the rules).
Sadly we don’t.
But comparing a like to alike?
NYC has 1/4 this nation’s road death rate.
Yes we should fight to improve it.
(By the way, in the era when the unfortunate Mr Bliss met his fate? The death rate on this City’s streets was far higher than it is today. Horses were the more dangerous option)
What? An estimated 36,640 people died in U.S. traffic crashes in 2025, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. NYC did BOT have 9,000 trafiic deaths last year.
NYC has 1/4 the death rate of the nations as a whole.
Not 1/4 of the deaths.
Yes, this is obviously because we use public transport and have less vehicle miles traveled per person.
NYC’s comparison should be other global cities like London, Paris, etc, not the suburban sprawl of the rest of the USA.
Death RATE.
I think part of it is that I didn’t see jay walking in London AND I didn’t see drivers running through lights. Both are SUCH a dangerous combination.
Re: auto accident: Was it then called Roosevelt Hospital?!
I was taken by ambulance to Roosevelt Hospital in the 1970s after being hit by a skateboarder in the park. It was not a good experience. A young girl was in the ambulance with me after breaking her leg while roller skating. She had no insurance and had to lie in the ER waiting for her mother to pick her up. I had just arrived in NYC and couldn’t believe that was possible! Roosevelt merged with St. Luke’s in 1979.
Yes. On Ninth Avenue. Old red brick building. The only thing remaining is the historic site. I don’t know if the name was Roosevelt but the location is marked by the historic building.
If the Friedman group also owns Pastrami Queen, they should restore that brand to the West Side. Please. ❤️
what an awful awful restaurant that was. We returned the soup it was so bad. Shane on them. Stay away.
“The other news element of the real estate purchase is that Friedmans now owns the co-op in which Barney Greengrass, a famous UWS institution, is located… ”
Sorry, I don’t understand this. I thought a co-op by definition is owned by the holders of shares in the corporation, whose shares entitle them to a lease for a given space. Does Friedman own the underlying land, or does Friedman own a majority of shares in the co-op corporation, or something else? Or is the building not a residential co-op? So confused.
I believe the bought the ground floor “unit” of the co-op and that their unit includes the other store space on the same level ie Barney Greengrass.Because 4 million for the entire building would be a steal.
Retail units in coops can be owned in different forms depending on the corporate structure. More common are condos where the condos are each retail unit and the apartments are a single condo which is then owned as a coop. The Lincoln Towers buildings are set up that way, as is the building on the west side of Broadway at 86th.
I believe co-ops can sell commercial spaces as shares too. Presumably the group behind Friedman’s/Pastrami Queen/Kossar’s is now a shareholder in the co-op that holds the leases for Barney Greengrass and Hudson Charles.
Not all coops. It depends how it was structured at the beginning.
Scott Stringer’s opinions – Nobody cares – you’re out, you’re out!
The thirdworldification of the city continues apace. Garbage in, garbage out. You get exactly what you vote for. And deservedly so.
More than four million U.S. road deaths have followed Mr. Bliss’s. As in his case, there are rarely any meaningful consequences in this country for killing someone with a car or truck, and so the carnage continues.
Regarding the falling branch injuring the man in Central Park: we just had a very large, old tree fall in Riverside Park’s Firemen’s Island (near 103rd St.), which stood over 2 benches and in an active human/dog walking area. Fortunately, no one was near the tree when it came down, and because it happened on 9/11, during ceremonies at the Firemen’s Memorial at 100th St, it was roped off almost immediately. This tree had been a topic of discussion between me, as a ParkTender volunteer in that area of the Park, and Riverside Park Fund/Conservancy staff (and the Parks Dept.) for almost 20 years: me, making requests for them to get an arborist in to check the tree, as it had many large, dead branches overhanging the benches, and them taking some pictures and saying, “Sure, we’ll see what we can do.” What they did was nothing. If the tree had been checked up inside the area where dead branches were emerging, it would have been clear there was an issue, which might have been helped with professional care. Now, the tree is gone and has done a lot of damage to the surrounding plants/shrubs. This is the Parks’ and various Conservancy’s approach to tree care: do nothing and wait until a branch or tree falls (perhaps injuring someone), then take it out and replace with a new, $2,000 baby tree, from prearranged contractors/nurseries (which might die), and repeat. So much for our “urban forest.”
PS: I’m really sorry the vendor got hurt. I hope he is okay.
Friedman’s is so boring. Bring back the Famous Dairy Restaurant, the Cafe Eclair, the Royale Bakery, and other establishments of class.
For people with Celiac, Friedman’s is a fantastic option, and one that also includes non-gluten free options everyone else can enjoy. Glad they’re opening.