Today is Monday, October 19th, 2026
The forecast calls for sunny to partly cloudy skies, with a high of 63. The weather for rest of the week is expected to be similar, with no rain in the forecast and high temperatures ranging from the upper 50s (Wednesday and Friday) to mid 60s (tomorrow and Thursday).
On this date in 1987, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted by 22.61% or 508.32 points, earning the day the nickname “Black Monday.” Though that plunge set the record in terms of the Dow’s largest single-day percentage drop, it wasn’t the largest point drop; that would occur more than 30 years later, on March 16, 2020, when investors’ reaction to the looming COVID-19 pandemic caused the Dow to plunge by 2,997.10 points — but only 12.93 percent.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
District 3 Superintendent Dr. Reginald Higgens will give a State of the Schools Address tomorrow from 5 to 7:30 p.m. at PS 163 (163 West 97th Street), including a discussion of priorities for the upcoming school year. RSVP — HERE.
The leaves in Central Park are starting to change; find the best places to see them on the Conservancy’s annual foliage tracker, updated daily — HERE.
News Roundup
Compiled by Laura Muha
The UWS Barn owls have been getting lots of attention lately, and judging from a social media post by wildlife photographer Anke Frohlich, they don’t seem all that happy about it.
The Storyful video, reposted by ABC Eyewitness News on YouTube, shows one of the owls leaning forward and screeching at bystanders while perching next to a water tower on West 75th Street.
Frohlich said the owl was making the ruckus to protect her young. “It was eerie and quite loud,” she said. She told ABC she counted five owls, though some media outlets have reported there may be as many as eight. See the video — HERE.
UWS literary agent Meredith Bernstein was walking home from an evening out with a friend recently when she spied two young men and several women hanging out under some scaffolding in front of a building. “The men were doing pull-ups almost effortlessly,” she recalled in a piece that appeared in The New York Times’ Metropolitan Diary last weekend.
Bernstein, who recently celebrated her 80th birthday, had read that the length of time one should be able to hang from a bar was proportionate to one’s age and weight. She rushed up to the men.
“Can you lift me up?” she asked.
The men did, and Bernstein dangled from the scaffolding while the women began to count — “One 1,000, Two 1,000 …” — and her friend snapped a photo.
“After about 20 seconds, I asked the guys to let me down,” Bernstein wrote in Metropolitan Diary. “Once I was on the ground, I asked them how they had done it so easily.”
Read their surprising response — HERE.
The UWS was a hot commodity when it came to retail leases signed in the third quarter of this year, Crain’s New York Business reported.
Citywide, the neighborhood was second only to the Upper East Side in both the number of retail leases signed and in the square footage of space reflected in those transactions. Crain’s source was the Q3 Manhattan retail report produced by CBRE, the commercial real estate services firm. According to the report, there were 11 deals signed for 50,500 square feet of space in the neighborhood between July and September. On the Upper East Side there were 15 deals signed for 97,000 square of space.
CBRE’s field research manager Hironori Imaizumi told Crain’s that the two neighborhoods were booming because they’re “where the consumers are living,” and also because the main shopping districts in the city are already full, “[so] brands are trying to find spaces in surrounding secondary markets. Both of these neighborhoods have been hot markets the past few years, especially after Covid and things like working-from-home were implemented.”
Most of the new retail activity in the last quarter was concentrated on Broadway and Columbus avenues, CBRE’s report said. The largest deal was signed by CrunchFitness, which is taking over more than 28,000 square feet vacated by Marshall’s at 2192 Broadway.
Read the full story — HERE and see the report — HERE.
An historic barrel-front townhouse on West 74th Street, which hit the market earlier this year for nearly $15 million, is now listed for $10.4 million.
The five-story, five-bedroom home has two elevators, a basement spa with a 41-foot lap pool, a hot tub, steam shower, a wet bar; a fireplace; a chef’s kitchen; heated floors; a professionally landscaped back garden; and a south-facing master suite with a private terrace.
The townhouse, at 238 West 74th Street (between West End Avenue and Broadway) was built in 1886 by architect William J. Merritt, and gut-renovated in 2022.
Read the full story and see photos — HERE.
In Other UWS News
- A four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom penthouse at 333 Central Park West (West 93rd and West 94th streets) topped the list of luxury sales on the UWS the week of October 5th, selling for $10.2 million, reported Patch. Read the story and see other properties that topped the list — HERE.
- The history blog Ephemeral New York reported on the history of the Bridle Path in Central Park. Read the full story — HERE.
- Secret NYC recently spotlighted the history of Central Park’s Bethesda Arcade, and its role in pop culture. Read it — HERE.
- The Latrobe, Pa., Bulletin recently ran an article describing the history of a cannon that once stood in Central Park, and describing where you can see it today. Read it — HERE.
ICYMI
May I Be Part of Your Story? The Art of Being Strangers Together
Developers Aim to Construct 145-Foot Building Above Upper West Side Grocer
At Last, Riverside Park South Turf Fields Almost Ready to Open on the Upper West Side
Subscribe to West Side Rag’s FREE email newsletter here. And you can Support the Rag here.
I think half of this article is missing.
Just listed, in the “Upper West Side Village.”
The NYT Metropolitan Diary is one of the greatest things in that paper.
Agnes Lee (who draws all the cartoons in it) is a treasure.
Dr. Higgins address was a week ago.
In comparing commercial leases on the UWS to UES, it’s important to note that we have only 6 avenues, while they have 9. Plus, I see more side street businesses on the UES. The report shows 15 leases on the UES compared to 11 on the UWS. Given the UES has 50% more avenues, our adjusted rate of leases per storefront is probably actually higher–it would be helpful to know the number storefronts to confirm the denominator.
Also, the “onlookers” are very far away from the owl’s perch. It’s very doubtful it screeched “at” them.