Results tagged “West Side”

The Triathalon spirit seems to be spreading all over town this weekend. A 65-year-old man had to be pulled out of the Hudson last night after he dove in and attempted to swim out onto the Intrepid. He made it 50 feet off of shore before firefighters caught up with him and assisted him onto a ladder leading to a rescue boat. An FDNY source told the News, "He felt like he had to go and touch the Intrepid, so instead of paying for admission and going on board, he decided to jump in the water. He was intoxicated. ... You could smell it." The man was taken to Roosevelt Hospital for observation and treatment for minor injuries. Where will the Dutchman's celebratory Quadricentennial festivities lead next??

The Holland Bar, a "classic old man" dive bar in Hell's Kitchen, was gutted late last year after the landlord refused to renew the lease, in the hopes of converting the building for residential use or selling it. But as you may have noticed, it's not exactly a sellers market, and now the landlord has agreed to let the Holland stay, with a little 20 percent rent increase. Following up on EV Grieve's scoop last week, the Times dropped by to observe the dive's comeback, which is proceeding like a sodden phoenix stumbling from the Pall Mall ashes: Owner Gary Kelly has to start from scratch to recreate place—even the plumbing was ripped out. One regular tells him, "I feel like a homeless person without a cardboard box," to which Kelly replies, "Don't worry, I’ll get you your cardboard box." Awww, enabling never sounded so sweet.

Mayor Bloomberg's not about to let a little economic turbulence down on Wall Street ruin his ambitious plans (paid for with $3 billion in bonds) for a business district at the west side Hudson Yards site.

After a long dispute with the Hudson River Park Trust, the heliport operator at West 30th Street and the Hudson has agreed to phase out its flights for tourists by 2010. The NY Times reports Air Pegasus will cut its tourist flights over the next two years, "capped at 25,000 for the year that ends on May 31, 2009, then to 12,500 over the next 10 months, then halted completely."

A huge cruise ship was so eager to get to Manhattan this morning that it actually slammed into the island. The Norwegian Spirit--which is a boat belonging to Norwegian Cruise Lines--apparently took a turn too wide and rammed into Pier 90 at 50th St. and 12th Ave. Typical out-of-towners: they never know how to drive in the city!

It's Fleet Week in NYC, but the city's hometown aircraft carrier Intrepid is having trouble finding its way home. The Intrepid is still in the harbor--docked at a shipyard in Staten Island as it undergoes renovations--but it's uncertain if the fabled craft will be able to make it back to its berth on Manhattan's West Side.

With the deal to develop the West Side rail yards on the ropes, Senator Chuck Schumer said that Mayor Bloomberg's plan for the West Side is the "goofiest thing I've ever seen." According to the Sun, Schumer was specifically referring to "the Bloomberg administration’s decision to include a mid-block boulevard," claiming that it was sapping funds from the much-needed 7 line extension.

Perhaps an Uptown versus Downtown battle would have worked better, as The NY Times says only 100 people showed up at this past weekend's "Battle of Manhattan," which pitted the East versus the West side of town (perhaps they were all at the Scotland Run).

Earlier this week, iReport had a video of a really cute harbor seal spotted off Red Hook [Via Brownstoner] - the video is below (it's an auto-play and it's seriously awww-worthy)! Besides being ridiculously cute, the video brings back a flood of memories of various seal sighting in the city. There was Gowana, the harp seal in the Gowanus Canal, a harbor seal in Brooklyn, another harp seal near Battery Park, and a harbor seal on the Upper West Side.

The Manhattan of yesteryear is alive and well on YouTube. Take a 3-minute journey down the Hudson River (then referred to as the North River) in 1903. The view you'll see is of the west side moving towards The Battery.

State Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell 4th, Democrat and son of the trailblazing Harlem politician Adam Clayton Powell Jr., was arrested for drunk driving on the upper West Side at 2:30 a.m. this morning. According to the Daily News, an unidentified woman passed out in the back of the car was so intoxicated she had to be taken to a local hospital. Powell failed a breath test at the scene by a small margin and, while at the station house, refused to take a chemical sobriety test. He faces charges punishable by up to a year in jail.

After his $500,000 donation to NY State Republicans was revealed, Mayor Bloomberg explained why he did it to reporters while attending a Mayors Against Illegal Guns conference, "I've said repeatedly, I will help those who help us. They have stood up for the city a number of times — when we needed to have a voice in Albany and we didn't have that voice from the Assembly or from the governor, whether it was the last governor or this governor."

If you work on the west side near 14th Street, consider your lunch plans settled: the Papaya King on 7th Ave. and 14th is giving away free hot dogs to the first 500 customers today and tomorrow. As of 11:06am, just 32 customers had taken advantage of the deal, which is part of a promotional for Unhitched, a new Farrelly brothers sitcom starring Rashida Jones, who plays Jim’s ex-girlfriend on The Office.

After the many questions about the unofficial Democratic primary results, the NYC Board of Elections has released the official results for the February 5 primary results, confirming a Clinton victory in the Big Apple. She won 55% of the vote with 527,941 votes, to Barack Obama's 43% (413,898 votes). A total of 955,966 votes were cast, meaning 34% of the city's registered Democrats voted.

William F. Buckley died in his Connecticut home today, at age 82. Some consider him the founder of modern conservatism, as he authored the seminal book in 1951 God and Man at Yale, in response to what he saw was an encroaching secularism at one of the nation's top universities, during what was considered one of the nation's most buttoned-down eras.

Brookfield Properties, which had offered a plan to bring back streets - as well as 12 million square feet of development and 15 acres of public space - to the West Side Rail Yards, has declined to continue in the bidding process. The MTA had requested revised Hudson Yards proposals with more financial details by yesterday and the bids received were from Durst and Vornado, Tishman Speyer and Morgan Stanley, Extell, and Related Companies.

After news spread that Upper West Side institution Cafe La Fortuna would close today, many people came by to bid farewell.

Less than two weeks after Gov. Spitzer publicly reaffirmed his commitment to going forward with plans to construct Moynihan Station despite a $1 billion funding shortfall, it looks like the matter may be out of his hands. The New York Times is reporting that the whole $14 billion project, which would involve building Moynihan Station at The Farley Post Office building and constructing a new Madison Square Garden on the site, is on the brink of total failure.

Olana: The internets are doomed to failure unless someone invents a way to click on a photo at the end of a wet, snowy day and be immediately teleported to the desired location – like those plush chairs clustered around the bar, where one of Olana’s specialty cocktails would be presented at once.

A $114 million plan to put a waterfront park on the East River, just south of the United Nations, came into focus yesterday; the four-acre site is where a parking lot for a Con Edison power plant used to reside. City Councilman Daniel Gardonick said, "The opportunity to create this riverfront park is an opportunity we cannot afford to let slip away." The Municipal Arts Society renderings for the park envision a floating pylon in the river, featuring a restaurant, viewing platform, exhibition space and ferry landing.

It would a bit too simplistic to blame the impending closure of La Fortuna, the Upper West Side café that first opened in 1976, entirely on the skyrocketing rents of a turbo-gentrifying neighborhood. While the ever rising rental tide was certainly a factor – the building was taken over by a real-estate group after the previous landlord died – three years still remained on the lease. According to amNY, the closure has more to do with the death of the original owner’s wife last month:

Vincent "Uncle Vinny" Urwand called the cafe a dream come true for him and wife Alice, who was the "heart and soul" of the place. Alice died in January, and it was hard, Urwand said Thursday, to think of the place without her.

Aside from the concerts, there isn't much reason to go to the Southstreet Seaport unless you're 14 and need to hit Abercrombie & Fitch. The NY Sun reports that General Growth Properties, the developer who owns the rights to the area (the Seaport and Fulton Fish Market), is on a mission to turn that all around; but is their mission misguided? With a commercial and residential project that promises a floating pool and a community center...it also looks to bring in more stores! The big retail names are mostly big bucks shops: Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Barneys New York. Though Target is also rumored to be interested.

A judge has finally ruled on a long-simmering dispute between a restaurant and its deliverymen. Last March deliverymen at the popular Vietnamese restaurant Saigon Grill, which has locations in Greenwich Village and on the Upper West Side, demanded a raise from owners Simon and Michelle Nget. The deliverymen reasoned that since the chain was pulling in more than $2 million a month, they ought to earn more than $120 for a 75-hour week.

Today the Times’s Frank Bruni marvels at Manhattan’s new wave of high tone restaurant openings during a recession, and pins the trend not on entrepreneurial bravado but on the fact that it takes years to get a fancy eatery open, and most of these new places were envisioned in flusher economic times. It is true that in 2005, the top fifth of earners in Manhattan made 52 times what the lowest fifth make – $365,826 compared with $7,047 – comparable to the income disparity in Namibia. Yet thanks to tax cuts and stagflation, the income gap has only widened in the past three years. Dinner at Per Se is as unattainable as ever for New York’s lower orders, but even with Wall Street turbulence it’s unlikely the ranks of the well-heeled will thin to the point where a fashionable restaurant can’t manage. Of course, chefs like Ken Friedman (The Spotted Pig) are artists and don’t chain their muse to the vagaries of the economy: “I’m certainly not the kind who would look at the Dow. Does a writer write or not write a book based on the economic climate? Does a songwriter write songs that way?”

"He put his face into the plexiglass separation, the section that is left open, and screamed 'You f------ b----!' and spit at me, which I could feel spray all over my face. I screamed the loudest I have ever screamed in my life: 'Let me out of this cab!'" So ended a ride home to the Upper West Side for 24-year-old Sarah Snedeker, who claims her driver became irate when she insisted on paying by credit card, locking her in the cab for five minutes while they argued.

Frank Bruni, the Times’s top restaurant critic, awards the new 2nd Avenue Deli one star today, which isn’t bad considering it is, despite all the history, still a deli. We popped in there for food and photos just before it reopened at its East 33rd Street location and found the sandwiches (pictured) as monumental as ever; a second visit turned up no sign of the free bowl of gribenes (chicken skin fried in chicken fat) that the owner Jeremy Lebewohl had promised free at every table.

It's that time of year again - the Westminster Kennel Club will be naming the Best in Show dog tonight. Today is day two (of two) of the Westminster Kennel Club's 132nd Dog show, and the best in group for the sporting, working and toy groups will be determined. Those dogs will face off against the winners of the herding (an Australian Shepherd), non-sporting (a standard poodle), terrier (a Sealhyam Terrier), and the hound (a beagle) groups.

A married couple in the Upper West Side's Ansonia Building are suing their neighbor over her smoking. They claim her smoking is adversely affecting the hallway environment and the health of their four-year-old boy.

It was an exciting night of Super Tuesday primary returns. In the Democratic contest, Hillary Clinton won eight states, including New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California, but Obama won twelve - Illinois, Connecticut, Alabama, and Missouri - among them (New Mexico is still undecided as the two candidates are in a tie). The NY Times notes that since there were no decisive victories, "an electoral fight...will unfold for weeks to come." Or, as the Post puts it in more visceral terms, "Neither Clinton nor Obama was able to deliver a knockout punch on a night that had once been expected to crown a winner."

The League of American Bicyclists has awarded New York City a bronze medal for bicycle friendliness. League representatives met with Mayor Bloomberg and DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, who sometimes cycles to work, at City Hall yesterday to present the award. Though bronze is the lowest rung on the friendliness ladder, New York City is the only community in the region to be designated a Bike Friendly Community (BFC).