Results tagged “upperwestside”

[UPDATE BELOW] It's so important to diversify your portfolio. With a police sketch of his likeness taped to brownstone stoops throughout the West Village, the fake deliveryman suspected in a string of home invasion robberies has apparently taken his act back uptown. Yesterday afternoon, a nanny entering a West 81st Street apartment with a 5-month-old boy was followed into the building by the suspect, who was carrying a pile of packages. Once inside, he brandished a knife and forced his way into the apartment.

Firefighters are investigating the cause of a blaze that killed a woman in an apartment at 250 West 104th Street yesterday before 6 p.m. The Post reports the woman's mother attempted to rescue her 48-year-old daughter but the daughter's bedroom was "mysteriously blockaded, according to neighbors who responded to the mom's cries for help." (NY1 says the door was blocked with suitcases.) The daughter died of smoke inhalation; more than 60 firefighters fought the fire.

The DOT is inching closer to implementing a city-wide bike share program, perhaps starting with the Upper West Side. According to the West Side Independent City Councilwoman Gale Brewer is pushing for a pilot program in the neighborhood, and in a letter to the DOT commissioner, she writes, "The size and density of the 6 district, the diversity of our constituency, and our position between Central and Riverside Parks would generate valuable user data for future planning." But can New Yorkers really share? And who will pay for it?

Recently we got a glimpse of the glass roof sheltering the new Apple Store, courtesy of a remote control helicopter. Now we learn that this latest store will officially open in November. The company recently went on record saying during yesterday's investor call, "We plan to open our first two stores in France, including one at the Louvre as well as our fourth high profile store in Manhattan on the Upper West Side." Let the hype begin!

Somehow we don't think a broom handle to the ceiling is going to fix this one. One of Madonna's Upper West Side neighbors filed a lawsuit yesterday, charging her of subjecting the building to "pounding noise and vibration" when she uses her apartment as a dance studio.

New Yorkers, fed up with drivers zipping up and down Broadway at breakneck speeds, have demanded a gentler, calmer Upper West Side, and one politician is more than happy to oblige. Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal has proposed placing speed bumps, or new signage, at the Amsterdam-Broadway "bow tie" (the intersection where Amsterdam crosses over the north and southbound lanes of Broadway on 71st Street—the one where a taxi cab drove into a subway station) to slow traffic down, reports WCBS 2.

The crane accident that went down at 775 Columbus Avenue yesterday afternoon is going to cost a pretty penny for some involved. The Real Deal reports that "the general contractor, crane owner and operator at Columbus Square face fines of up to $25,000 after a piece of a crane crushed a sidewalk covering."

Early yesterday morning, a 19-year-old man was killed on the sidewalk outside 301 East 75th Street at Second Avenue. According to the Post, Omar Gaspar was "stabbed to death" around 4 a.m. by two men who had attended the same small gathering at an apartment.

A tenant war broke out recently when one Upper West Side co-op was considering taking a common area and fancifying it into a new playroom for the buildings' kids, nowadays apparently too good to just hide inside the Hamburglar's Head all day. The spat pitted the classic battle of Mommies versus Bodies, the contingent of self-improving residents who wanted to put in a gym. Throw in one crank calling to "get rid of it! It’s a waste of money and it’s taking up storage space that we need," add a touch of winning rhetoric on the parents' part that apparently included an "Obamaesque way of phrasing things," and it sounds like a classic battle in yuppieland. Apparently this kind of madness is becoming more common in the high-stakes world of children's playrooms in buildings, which can cost up to six figures and include amenities such as trapezes(!).

First the Upper East Siders were ranting about sidewalk congestion, and now the Upper West Side is joining in on the complaint chorus. A writer for West Side Spirit has a bone to pick with enclosed sidewalk cafés; because what else are you going to get worked up about these days? La la la, there are really no other problems except dining establishments jutting out on to public property. Really, nothing.

The sneaky state of New Jersey has quietly made its way into a storefront on the Upper West Side; opening a pop-up tourism store on West 73rd and Columbus that is suspiciously devoid of Bon Jovi, the Boss, scrunchies and mall references.

Sure, you use your Snuggie to go bar hopping, fornicate comfortably, and walk the runway, but the Snuggie's most valuable purpose has yet to be fully explored... until now! Take it away, press release: "What if you could burn 600 calories in 15 minutes… in a Snuggie? That’s what the latest medi-spa treatment is promising using Far Infrared Ray technology. The 'Snuggie Sauna' (official name: Relax Far Infrared Ray Sauna) improves blood circulation, promotes lymphatic drainage and cellular renewal, increases metabolism, burns calories without lactic acid production, promotes better sleep and detoxifies the body from heavy metals, including mercury and cadmium—all in 15-20 minutes."

This week the Times's interim chief dining critic Pete Wells takes a hammer to deservedly acclaimed chef Michael Psilakis, whose latest venture, Gus & Gabriel, is inspired by the culinary tastes of his son, TGI Friday's, and whiskey. Wells's review is disastrous, which means it's a fun read: "When three children under age 10 leave their milkshakes almost untouched, you know there’s trouble." The restaurant's "colossal misfires are almost impossible to believe and harder still to explain." Specifically: "Almost every chef in town is experimenting with techniques for building a better burger. Mr. Psilakis may be the only one to have perfected a new technology that magically strips out all the taste. The skin on what is advertised as 'crispy chicken' was as crisp as a balloon, and the biscuits on the plate were wet and doughy, as if the cook had decided halfway through that he would rather make dumplings."

A tipster emailed us saying, "There's some sort of insanity from Fairway to the 72nd St subway station. Cops everywhere, streets closed off, flashing lights and no cars are budging - any idea what's going on?" Our stab in the dark: Possible motorcade for President Obama, who landed at JFK Airport this morning to attend the memorial for CBS anchor Walter Cronkite. The memorial is being held at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall and the expected guests include astronaut Buzz Aldrin, CBS News' Katie Couric, Andy Rooney and Bob Schieffer, and NBC News' Tom Brokaw, with musicians Jimmy Buffett, Michael Feinstein, Wynton Marsalis and the U.S. Marine Band.

       

Opening "softly" tomorrow, A Voce Columbus is the new big sister location of the cozier A Voce in the Flatiron District. The original location made a big name for chef Andrew Carmellini, who is currently saving Robert De Niro's restaurant reputation at Locanda Verde in the Greenwich Hotel. Then came chef Missy Robbins, who joined A Voce after her tour as Executive Chef at the Obamas' favorite Chicago restaurant, Spiaggia.

The Daily News noticed that there were three of the four City Comptroller candidates, John Liu, David Weprin and David Yassky, trying to bring their cases to commuters at the 72nd Street and Broadway subway station on the Upper West Side—and it wasn't pretty: "'Doesn't he look like a used car salesman?' asked a Liu worker of a straphanger who'd just finished talking to Weprin. When Weprin volunteer Luther Eason loudly urged voters to support 'the honest controller' - a reference to allegations that Liu embellished a story about working in a sweatshop as a child - Liu's team told commuters that Weprin flubbed a Daily News quiz about the size of the controller's office budget." Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, a Liu endorser, explained the appeal of the West 72nd Street subway station, "Texas has oil and the upper West Side has Democrats. It's a rite of passage. Like you go to Nathan's hot dogs out in Brooklyn, you've got to go the 72nd St. subway station." Or Fairway—we've seen Mark Green, Cyrus Vance, and countless others there on weekends!

The long-awaited Whole Foods at Columbus and 97th Street is opening on Thursday, but yesterday it opened its doors to the neighborhood—for $15 admission, which went to the Riverside Park Fund. MyUpperWest reports, "The store itself occupies two vast floors, outpacing the Columbus Circle in terms of size and selection." And Racked, which calls it a kid-friendly location, adds, "This store won't be selling as many different prepared foods as its downtown compatriots, but what it lacks in variety it makes up in kosherness—a nod to the demographics of the neighborhood," and found that the wine shop (Whole Foods' first in the city) does indeed sell three kinds of Ed Hardy wines. But can someone tell us if the UWS liberals were up in arms about Whole Foods CEO John Mackey's "anti-health care reform" op-ed (here's his unedited version)?

An off-duty firefighter got called into action Friday night when he ended up pulling a Wes Autrey and jumping down on the tracks to rescue a man who had fainted and was laying unconscious on the tracks just as an uptown Q train began pulling into the Union Square station. 30-year-old Adam Rivera, originally of Bay Ridge, had been out in the East Village getting Indian food with his girlfriend to celebrate their seventh anniversary. The couple was heading home to the Upper West Side when Rivera spotted 45-year-old Marco Delamo on the tracks. The firefighter out of Engine 10 in lower Manhattan told reporters, "People were panicking, but nobody was doing anything...I thought to myself, 'This is my job — I'm a New York City firefighter, and I have to do something...There was no time to be afraid. You can't waste time hesitating. You just move, and the thinking stops...Being right there in a position to help — that's why I joined the department." Rivera and two other men lifted Delamo to the platform before he was taken to St. Vincent's intensive care with head injuries.

As if Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe hasn't been given enough agita by the New York Post this summer as they breathe down his neck over delinquent lifeguards, now he has to answer why his officers are giving out $200 tickets to a 10-year-old girl selling lemonade at Riverside Park. 10-year-old Clementine Lee and her dad Richard set up a stand selling lemonade for fifty cents a cup yesterday afternoon when they had their run in with Parks officials. Richard Lee describes, "They approached us nonchalantly but then surrounded us. They were very hostile as soon as they approached, saying 'Where's your permit? Where's your permit?' " The Parks party poopers issued a summons that carries a fine of up to $200. Benepe waved off the ticket, saying the officers used poor judgments and would be retrained. He tried to save face by telling the paper, "We're going to make lemonade out of lemons...I look forward to buying lemonade from her if I pass by." But if you think the commish can out-adorable young Clementine, guess again. The "soccer enthusiast" says she was "really nervous" when she and her dad were cornered and added, "It was such a hot day I figured people would want a cold drink."

Early yesterday morning, a woman fell to her death outside an Upper West Side townhouse. It's believed that 37-year-old woman was locked out of an apartment at 152 West 76th Street, so she tried to climb in from the outside.

A livery cab driver decided to keep the change when a foreign tourist didn't have anything smaller than a hundred and unwittingly ended up with a baby on board. 42-year-old Jean Pierre Lesly picked up a woman and her three children who had all just arrived from Nigeria yesterday morning, driving them from JFK to the Upper West Side's Milburn Hotel. When the 42-year-old cab driver from Huntington didn't have enough change for her $68 fare, he ran into a nearby laundromat to break the Benjamin. When Lesly returned and didn't see the woman, he decided to hit the road and pocket the full hundred. As a police source told the News, "He boogies, thinking he is going to get the extra $32." Bur Lesly quickly realized that he had inadvertently turned the woman into a generous tipper when he spotted that her baby was still sleeping in his backseat. Upon returning the child, he was greeted by cops who arrested him for petty larceny. Despite the napping kid, he avoided a kidnapping rap, but did rack up a couple more charges when cops discovered he was driving his own car without a TLC license and had a suspended driver's license as well.

Jeffrey and Michelle Feig's charming Central Park West apartment has gone from urban oasis to noisy nightmare, and someone's got to pay. In a $4.5 million lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, the Feigs accuse the neighbor, Michel Kadoe, of turning his backyard into a "shantytown," by renting out the garden apartment in his brownstone to unruly tourists.

So the divorcing TLC reality couple with eight kids weren't spotted together, but the NYC paparazzi is in a tizzy over the US Weekly/Star/People bait. According to People, Kate Gosselin traveled to the Big Apple with the eight kids for a TLC photo shoot: "Sometime after 3 p.m., Kate and her kids left the hotel and were followed by a pack of photographers...when the group arrived at the City Stage studio in the Chelsea neighborhood, security guards attempted to keep the photographers back using umbrellas, styrofoam boards and folding event tables, according to an eyewitness," and another said, "It must have been very upsetting for the kids." Jon Gosselin, the new Upper West Side resident, appeared separately for the TLC shoot. He was later spotted not wearing his usual uniform of Ed Hardy or Christian Audigier shirts with a "mystery woman" on the Upper East side—a "mystery" because it wasn't his new "wild" girlfriend, the daughter of the plastic surgeon who gave his estranged wife a free tummy tuck.

Over the weekend, we had an up close and personal sighting of original Public Advocate Mark Green getting signatures for his petition at the Fairway on the Upper West Side (people seemed more focused on groceries than government). The Times was there as well for what Green's political director called "a humbling experience" for the candidate who was mistaken for Scott Stringer at one point and got the reaction from one woman, "It’s very sad. It’s like he can’t get another job." And she was a supporter! The campaign is a strange one for the man fighting the public's "Green Fatigue" after campaigns during his public advocate reign in the '90s and unsuccessful bids against Bloomberg and Cuomo this decade. Despite an early lead in the polls, Green has raised a fraction of his opponents' war chests. And there's even a humble tone coming from the man who is usually quick to tell you he came up with the idea for 311, saying, “Why would I have a press conference and have no one come? Who wants to come listen to the Mark Green economic development plan?”

       

Here's Bar Luna, the casual Upper West Side wine bar that opened recently in the space formerly occupied by the Neptune Room on Amsterdam Avenue. There was a bit of a delay last month when owner Turgut Balikci, who cut his teeth twenty years ago with Bella Luna on Columbus Avenue, sent out an email canceling the opening because of a liquor license issue. But a source tells the Village Voice that the opening was actually pushed back because the chef, Sean Chudoba (who ran the kitchen at Balikci's restaurant AYZA) quit at the last minute. Bar Luna is now up and running with chef Jacque Belanger (West Branch), whom Balicki says is "better suited for the style of restaurant, and more experienced in the neighborhood."

The Post rounds out more facets of the Saturday afternoon murder of a 63-year-old man in his West 71st Street apartment. While Walter Walker's roommate Frederick Zappulla confessed, the Post reports that the violence was precipitated when Walker "confronted him about smoking crack in the apartment...The two roommates argued in the kitchen, where Zappulla smashed Walker over the head with a frying pan and then reached for a knife and repeatedly stabbed him." Zappulla called his brother to say he killed Walker and then left for the Yonkers Raceway, where "he began blathering to an EMS technician who eventually persuaded him to talk to Yonkers police." Walker, who operated a cleaning service, had rented out the room to Zappulla in February; a former roommate told the Post that Walker suffered from Parkinson's Disease, "I warned Walter [Zappulla] was no good. I thought he would stiff Walter for the rent." Update: The West Side Spirit reports, "Zappulla was Walker’s romantic partner, according to interviews with residents of the West 71st Street building. The two had lived in Walker’s one-bedroom apartment for more than a year."

Right now is crunch time for the city's Landmark Preservation Committee with proposals of a dozen new districts potentially coming up for a vote by the end of the month. The Post talks to preservation experts who say that the recent building boom helped spur demand for landmarks. Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, tells them, "Communities woke up to losing what they really valued and said we want to become a landmark." Included in the upcoming proposal include a stretch of an entire thirty-seven blocks along West End Avenue between 70th and 107th an area of Prospect Heights that includes 860 buildings, the largest potential preservation area in the last twenty years. But will all of this preservation turn the city into "a mausoleum?" One lawyer who has fought against landmark status before told the paper, "The more those things grow, the less dynamic of a city you have. You want to have a city where development is possible; otherwise you get stagnation."

Former Republican Congressman (from Florida) and current MSNBC talking head Joe Scarborough is today's NY Times magazine interview subject. Besides giving some credit to Obama (and also calling him Nixonian) and explaining he's genial, not angry, the commentator explains his potentially head-scratching residence to Deborah Solomon: "How did you end up living on the Upper West Side? I love the Upper West Side. I walk down the street all the time and am stopped by Democrats. I don’t think they’ve ever actually met a Republican before.Do they shriek when they see you? Actually, they hug me, especially the little old ladies."

A quarrel between two roommates on the Upper West Side left one dead yesterday, stabbed several times inside his apartment. Police responded to a 911 call around 12:30 p.m. yesterday and discovered the body of the 51-year-old victim already deceased when they arrived on the sixth floor of 145 W 71st Street. West Side Spirit reports that elevators were shut down and the SWAT team called in as part of the initial response. Eventually police tracked down the roommate, 51-year-old Frederick Zappulla, in Yonkers after he had allegedly confessed to the crime to his brother. Zappulla was charged with second-degree murder after police interrogated him for several hours. The Post says that the victim worked as a cleaner and had lived in the building for over thirty years.

Around 3:15 a.m. this morning, firefighters responded to a blaze on Columbus Avenue near West 67th Street. Which is just up the street from WABC's studios, and naturally the station has the scoop, "A woman was taken into custody after allegedly setting an Upper West Side apartment on fire during a dispute... The woman, who police described as 'emotionally disturbed,' was seen throwing clothing and other belongings out the window before the flames erupted." The firefighters were able to put out the fire quickly and the woman was taken to Bellevue. Related: A man accused of setting four cars and a lobby (all on the UWS, where he also left notes describing his issues with the government) on fire was indicted yesterday; cops apparently found "a sawed-off shotgun, 200 rounds of ammunition, gasoline and a day planner noting the date and time of each of the fires" in his apartment.