Monday Bulletin: Van Strikes and Kills UWS Cyclist on Riverside Drive; 83-Year-Old Woman Dies in UWS Apartment Fire; Internet Gets a Kick Out of Pregnant Rockette’s Audition Video; Pharrell Williams Designs a Collection Inspired by Central Park

Today is Monday, December 15th, 2025

Cloudy and cold. High: 30 degrees.

Gradually warming later in the week, with highs approaching 50 degrees. Possibility of rain on Thursday.

Tonight is the second night of Hanukkah.

On this date in 1791, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution — known collectively as the Bill of Rights — became law, limiting the powers of the federal government and safeguarding the liberties of individual Americans.

Notices

Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.

A couple of weeks ago in this newsletter, we wrote about volunteers who gathered at St. Paul & St. Andrew United Methodist Church to slice more than 700 apples for pies for Goddard Riverside’s community Thanksgiving dinner. The totals are now in: 150 pies, plus more than 15,000 cookies, baked at the church or dropped off by volunteers who helped to feed 2,000 people at Goddard’s Thanksgiving meal.

“[T]hat is a lot of butter and brown sugar but more importantly THAT IS AN OVERWHELMING AMOUNT OF LOVE AND GOOD ENERGY pouring out of our ovens and our hearts!” coordinator Charlene Floyd wrote to volunteers in a thank-you email. It was such a success that Floyd is now spearheading a repeat performance for the organization’s community Christmas dinner. If you’re interested in participating, you’ll find instructions and a sign up HERE; the deadline to register is this Thursday, December 18th. For questions, email Floyd at charlenefloyd@aol.com.

CB7’s Parks & Environment Committee will meet tonight at 6:30 p.m. for a briefing from the city’s parks department on renovation plans for River Run Playground in Riverside Park at West 83rd Street. Register here for the Zoom link, or attend in person at the board’s office, 250 West 87th Street.

While the Columbus Circle holiday market is arguably the most famous on the UWS, there’s another one almost as close to home for UWSers: Columbia University’s Lee Bollinger Forum Holiday Market. Described as “small but mighty” by Time Out New York, it features products by Harlem craftspeople and entrepreneurs. The market is open from noon to 5 p.m. this Monday through Thursday and 4 p.m. through 8 p.m. this Friday, December 19th, at the University Forum and Academic Conference Center, 3207 Broadway, between 125th Street and St. Clair Place. More information — HERE.

News Roundup

Compiled by Laura Muha

A prominent UWS philanthropist was struck and killed by a van last week, while riding his bike in Washington Heights. Geoffrey Radbill was declared dead at  Harlem Hospital after last Sunday’s accident, which occurred on a narrow stretch of Riverside Drive between 158th and 160th streets.

Streetsblog reported that the roadway often is used by cyclists to reach the George Washington Bridge. Radbill, who was cycling northbound, was hit from behind by the van. The driver, who was not named by police, remained at the scene and was not charged. Police said their investigation is ongoing, Streetsblog said.

Radbill, 78, was an alum of Bowling Green State University in Ohio and a former member of its board of trustees. According to the university’s website, he spent 36 years with the global financial services company AXA-Equitable, most recently as senior vice president and chief operating officer for the company’s domestic retail sales force.

After retiring in 2004, he devoted his time to philanthropy, raising money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity Foundation, and Bowling Green, where the Geoffrey H. Radbill Center for College and Life Design is named after him.

“Because of Geoff’s support and belief in the power of a Bowling Green experience, thousands of students have gained life-changing opportunities through Life Design,” university president Rodney Rogers wrote in a social media post on X. “On a personal level, Geoff was a friend, and I will miss his counsel, advice and ideas. He was always up for a call to dream big.”

The university dimmed the lights of the Geoffrey H. Radbill Center for College and Life Design in tribute to Radbill on Sunday night.

Read the full story — HERE.

Last week, media attention was focused on the four-alarm fire that destroyed the upper floor of a building at West 107th and Amsterdam, leaving nearly two dozen families homeless and sending six people — including three firefighters — to the hospital.

But a much smaller apartment fire three days later and four blocks south proved to be more deadly, claiming the life of an 83-year-old woman in a residential building for low-income seniors at West 103rd Street and Broadway. The fire, which broke out in an apartment at The Marseilles, was reported shortly before 6:30 a.m.; firefighters were able to extinguish it in about 40 minutes, according to The Daily News.

The fire marshal is investigating the cause of the blaze, but according to the Daily News, “a source with knowledge of the case” said a space heater found in the apartment may have started the fire.

The woman, who was not immediately identified, was declared dead at Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital. Read the full story — HERE.

Former Rockette (and UWSer) Alina Silver thought she was just posting a fun memory when she uploaded a throwback video of her 2016 audition for the legendary dance company, when she was seven and a half months pregnant. Instead — to quote the New York Post — “[t]he internet got a kick out of it,” and the video quickly went viral, racking up a combined 11.7 million views on TikTok and Instagram.

In the video, Silver pirouettes, leaps, and high kicks her way (in high heels!) through four dance combinations, seemingly unaffected by her very pregnant belly and the slippery floors. Commenters were amazed.

“While you were PREGNANT????” wrote one. “I could barely get out of BED when I was pregnant.”

“Me NOT Pregnant just hit my knee getting out of a chair and tripped on my sandal,” wrote another.

Silver told the Post that she was tickled by the comments, which made her see the audition differently. “[A]s dancers, it’s just wired in us to be super determined, and I didn’t necessarily feel like that was brave, but now, to look back, I’m like, ‘Wow, I really did go for it,’” she said.

The Nashville native, who has been dancing since she was 3, spent 12 years as a Rockette, starting in 2005.  She got pregnant during the 2015 Rockettes Christmas Spectacular, she told the Post, “because I knew that if I had the baby in August or July, that I could go back the next season.” The only wrinkle: The Rockettes have to audition each year to retain their places, so it meant she was going to have to try out while very, very pregnant.

To her own surprise, she wasn’t nervous at all. “Somehow, having my little one with me brought a calmness I’d never felt in an audition room before,” she wrote in an Instagram post accompanying the video. “And having my Rockette sisters cheering me on reminded me exactly why this line will always be family. Our sisterhood is one you can’t explain. I love these women with my whole heart.”

Silver left the Rockettes after the 2016 season because she wanted to expand her family; she now has three children and runs a private- and group-fitness program she calls Tribe by Alina,  where, she told the Rag, her mission is “to inspire and connect others through the power of movement.”

As for the baby in question: She’s now 9 and, yes, she’s continuing in her mother’s footsteps as part of the pre-professional school Manhattan Youth Ballet.

See the video — HERE and the New York Post story — HERE. 

Pharrell Williams may be best known as a singer, record producer, and former judge on The Voice, but he’s also a fashion designer, collaborating with well-known brands on sneakers, denim, eyewear, sunglasses, and since 2023, with the design house Louis Vuitton as the men’s creative director.

Which brings us to the reason we’re writing about this: Williams’ recently released pre-fall 2026 menswear collection, which is generating excitement among the fashion-savvy, and which takes its inspiration from the UWS’s so-called “back yard” —  Central Park.

“Pharrell’s Pre-Fall 2026 designs do more than reference Central Park—they translate its kinetic, multicultural essence into fabric and form,” enthused StupidDope, a Harlem-based site that covers culture. “The collection nods to the park as both a literal and symbolic space of intersection: where suits and sneakers, leisure and labor, art and athletics all coexist … Every look becomes a character study—tailored yet unstudied, precise but relaxed.”

That means khaki pants with Louis Vuitton boxer shorts peeking above the waistband; a hooded blouson jacket in the design house’s version of a Prince of Wales check (with a LV monogram, of course) and matching pants that could be converted to shorts; a crocheted shirt; a faux-fur vest and what Vogue described as a “muesli-toned” jacket.

The magazine’s verdict? “The overall impression was of a rose-tinted, lightly Wes Anderson-inflected Central Park sashay: a divertingly deluxe dandy ramble.”

Read the full story and see the collection — HERE and 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.)

Owner of Pit Bulls that Attacked Penny the Chihuahua on UWS in May is Arrested in NY Courtroom

After She Dances in Sunday’s ‘Nutcracker,’ Where Will NYC Ballet Soloist Naomi Corti Go to Unwind on the UWS? Read On

What Are You Paying This Year to Bring Home a Christmas Tree on the Upper West Side?

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