By Caitlin Hawke

A little more than three years ago, I wrote about a beautiful neighbor on this blog: Kumiko Imamura. A woman who worked as hard as anyone I've known, and always had a warm hello or good-bye and a smile.

Really, her smile started in her eyes - the smize - and then made its way across her whole face, like sun up at Sun-Chan. 

The quintessence of a hostess, she and her husband Tokishige own Sun-Chan, and Kumiko's way is to welcome you in, tuck you into her apron, make sure you have a hot cup of green tea, and take care of you while you were "hers" -- in her care at her hearth. 

If you've been to Sun-Chan, you know her hearth was, in fact, an inferno.  So this genuine hospitality was all in spite of standing long hours in the yakitori's scorching heat with constant motion around her coming from her loyal staff in a very tight space.

I wrote about her robata here and it's all still true, except it's not:

It's not true any more because tonight, I learned that we've lost this beautiful woman.

In Japanese, depending on how it's written, her name means beauty, forever, child.... To paraphrase James Joyce: She was Kumiko by name and kumiko by nature. And her loss is immense.

She weathered a terrible bout last year with the restaurant losing its gas, and she rebounded from the anguish of the saga with her arms spread wide to welcome her customers back. It's too cruel a twist that she's now gone.

In mourning, the staff and her husband Tokishige have closed the restaurant this week to bid her farewell. I understand there may be a service at the New York Buddhist Church in roughly six or seven days. If you would like details should I learn them, please leave a comment below and I'll be in touch.

I hope Tokishige and Rie and all the Sun-Chan extended restaurant family know that Kumiko is a neighbor who will be missed dearly and that Sun-Chan's community mourns alongside them all.

I won't soon forget this Queen of Queens.

With warmest thoughts of Kumiko and deep sympathies to her loved ones.

By Caitlin Hawke

Thanks go to neighbor David Ochoa for his technicolor take on "Memory" in Straus Park this past weekend and to the gardeners who maintain this jewel box. (For some history on the park, click here.) And to Mother Nature herself for the glory of Spring. Is it me or does Spring's dazzle take you by surprise every time? It's like you know it's going to be pretty, but then each year it's even better than you remember.

I haven't enhanced the picture below but I did play around with it in various filters. You may be seeing more of it down the road.  Quite a shot. Thanks, David!

By Caitlin Hawke

You may have caught last Sunday's "French Cookin' Blues Band" gig at the overlook on the promenade level of Riverside Park (at the equivalent of 116th Street a bit south of the tennis courts). And cook they did.

There are two more chances to catch a gig
in this series:

Sunday, April 29, 2 p.m.
Columbia Wind Ensemble, Jason Noble, Leader
"A big band of 50 brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments plays rousing music from the Renaissance to the present."

Sunday, May 6, at 2 p.m.
Manhattan School of Music Jazz Quintet
"These fine musicians play the best of jazz standards in their own incomparable style."

Riverside Park is the gift that gives every day. It's trees and blooms are popping. It's playfields are abustle. The tennis players are back in force. The conservancy's website has a calendar with many offerings like Tai Chi, exercise, storytime, birding and more. And of course there's the swing-a-ring lot. (A prior post featured images here).

What, I ask, is not to love?  Except maybe the white noise of the highway.

By Caitlin Hawke

Have you secured your vendor's table at our May 19 Block Party yet? All the information you need is right here. If you are a resident of the Block Association's catchment, it's just $50 for a spot from which you can turn your no-longer-needed possessions into rent money or a couple of dinners on the town.

If you are like me, you love the haggle. You love the circle-game of old things finding new life in the twinkle of a stranger's eye. You love the cash. You love the feeling of community. And you love the idea of winnowing your cupboards and drawers.

If you don't want to vend, hawk or huckster, why not just tell all your friends with overbrimming closets that this is an occasion to be seized!  For folks outside the catchment, the fee is $70.

Click on the Block Party tab on our website for an FAQ and all the deets.

And don't forget to save the date and come noodle down the street. There's deals to be had and treasures to be unearthed.

It's my favorite Block Party tradition.

(Click here to see the lagniappe video below if you are reading this via email subscription).

By Caitlin Hawke

Blow a kiss. Take a bow!

I am looking at you Mark Schneiderman (coordinator), Michael Stearns, St. Luke's, Tina, all you neighbors who lugged, mulched, dug, tidied, planted, watered, crouched, knelt, and helpfully applauded from the sidelines.  

All hail the Block Association's eco committee and your beautiful results.

Our tree wells, as shot by Celia Knight below, are ready for the throngs to come pouring through for our Block Party on May 19. (Did you reserve your table yet, vendors?).

At far bottom is a Merman lagniappe from 1961 with cameos by Lenny Bernstein and Old Blue eyes. (Remember to click on the blog title or here if you are receiving this directly in your email box.)

"We want to thank everyone for all the years of fun. It has been a journey that has meant the world to us. Please come in and see us one more time this week. I love you all. Thank you, Paul"

I really could go on (and go off) about this.  But I think I'll leave it at "Res ipsa loquitur."

Denial? I got something for you! Tuesday night, you can catch some live music at 8 p.m.

I give you Abbey Lincoln as my outro. (If you receive this via email, click here to listen to Abbey).



h/t to Terence Hanrahan for the scoop about this news.

Abbey Lincoln signs Bobby D.
(Click here if you are reading this in an email subscription).

By Caitlin Hawke

Bloemendaal by name and blooming valley by nature.

Happy Spring everyone!

The "One from the Vault" feature plumbs the archives of back issues of Block Association newsletters for the benefit of new neighbors and lovers of our community and its history.  To read other pieces from the vault, click on the category at right.

By Caitlin Hawke

Some treasures, once unearthed, give unexpected context for people whose paths cross. I stumbled on this, as I do many of the vault pieces, and recognized the subject as a blog reader: the multi-talented Jimmy Roberts.

Written 20 years ago by Jock Davenport, the profile gives an inkling as to how many talented people live behind the closed doors of our neighborhood's apartments.  I shouldn't be surprised; the neighborhood is well known for its concentration of musicians. 

So, here now, in one from the vault, is a little window into this musically gifted neighbor, Jimmy Roberts, the composer responsible for one of the longest running off-Broadway musicals "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change".  If you search it on YouTube, don't be surprised to see Chinese and Hungarian productions.

Lagniappe below (for email subscribers, don't forget to click on the title to view the videos directly on the blog).

Enjoy.

To see the video above if you are reading this in an email subscription, click on the title of the post to go directly to the blog.

By Caitlin Hawke

Our friends over at the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group have yet another great talk in store for this week. Eliza Jumel (as in Morris-Jumel Mansion) is the subject, and there are few as fascinating in the back pages of Upper-upper West Side history. I don't want to put out any spoilers, but trust me that her life is chock full of gobsmacking tidbits.

I'll offer up just one: she married Aaron Burr who was 19 years her senior and within four months realized her fortune might be at risk and then separated, choosing Alexander Hamilton, Jr. as her attorney. Their divorce was finalized on the day that Burr died in 1836, yet Eliza lived on nearly another 30 years, reaching the age of 90 in 1865. And that wasn't the only time she saved her fortune.

See, I told you!

But that's nothing. Her father was a sailor and her mother was an indentured servant. She spent part of her childhood living in a brothel. That's the rags from which she rose. She took to the stage, met the merchant Stephen Jumel, became a francophile and amassed a tremendous art collection and ended up as one of the richest women in New York City.

I know, I know. You're coming to the talk.

It takes place on Thursday, April 19, at 6:30 p.m. at Hostelling International NYC (891 Amsterdam Avenue at W. 103rd Street). It is presented by art historian Margaret Oppenheimer, author of The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel: A Story of Marriage and Money in the Early Republic will discuss Mme. Jumel’s art collection — over 240 paintings acquired in Paris at the beginning of the 19th century.

A word to the wise: get there early. You can never get a seat anymore!!

By Caitlin Hawke

Saturday, April 21 is the Block Association's annual day to come out and plant your heart out. You'll find the details in the poster below. As I've said before: you'll be a good kind of tired when it's all said and done.

Kids, bring your folks.  And folks, bring your kids. It's all in the neighborhood, and it's good (so-so) clean fun as you'll see in the past galleries here and here.

If you need additional information, email trees@w102-103blockassn.org.

Note to readers: Many of you subscribe via email. That's great because it means you get these posts delivered directly to your inbox. But the service we use (Feedburner) is a little wonky. You've noticed that when I embed videos, you can't view them in the emailed version. And yesterday, when I embedded a pretty little gallery of Straus Park, it didn't come through to your email. But fear not! All you have to do to read the post as it is meant to be seen is to click on the title of the post. That will open up the webpage where you see any videos or photos. So here's a chance to revisit the post about the Straus Park commemoration this weekend.

But that's not all! There's more to do this weekend. Below is an invitation to the Second Annual Vaux Art Exhibit.  On both Saturday and Sunday afternoons from 2 to 6 p.m., you can head over to the community room of "The Vaux" -- located at 372 Central Park West -- and check out this enjoyable show.

It's all right here in the neighborhood. And it's all happening this weekend.

By Caitlin Hawke

This Saturday, the Friends of Straus Park will hold a remembrance for the victims of the April 15, 1912, sinking of the Titanic. The flyer below gives the details; everyone is welcome to attend.

You've gone by Straus Park hundreds of times. We forget how the community came together to beautify this triangle and dedicate it to the memory of Ida and Isador Straus (co-owner of Macy's) who were aboard the RMS Titanic when she went down.

I've written in prior posts about how the triangle was first named for Philip Schuyler in 1900. Just fifteen years later, the park was dedicated to the memory of this local couple, who perished aboard the Titanic. (I wrote about that dedication here in a post with beautiful "Throwback Thursday" pictures.)

Since then, the park has of course been home to our resident statue of Audrey Munson, the sculptor's muse extraordinaire. Munson posed for the allegorical sculpture of "Memory" by Henry Augustus Lukeman. "Memory" is uncommonly photogenic as memorials go.

Fast forward a century and the park is our neighborhood respite seated at the trivium of Bloomingdale. Dramatic in snow and exuberant in spring, it's a haven for workers, neighbors, children and parents, bus drivers, and other passersby. As Manhattan pocket parks go, to my mind, it's second only to Gramercy Park. And you don't need a key!

Last May, I was walking through and came upon the beautifiers in hortico flagrante, so I grabbed my camera. The shots in the gallery below were some of the images I captured, and all around the border of the part, people were perched on benches enjoying that one particularly fine day.

From icebergs spring allium where Memory now persists.  Safe in her haven, she sleepily points us back to the unsinkable great ship that went down and those who lost their lives 106 years ago.

The "One from the Vault" feature plumbs the archives of back issues of block association newsletters for new neighbors and lovers of our community and its history. To read others pieces from the vault, click on the category at right.


By Caitlin Hawke

Missing Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, my thoughts turned to the landmarked Metro Twin at 2626 Broadway and I recalled I had this old newsletter article (below).

You'll see that the account is about the Metro's last gasp as a movie house almost 13 years ago. Its current state of not-so-benign neglect is a tale worth telling and retelling. There's more about the house's chronology here. But the truth is, aside from a near-miss with the Alamo Drafthouse chain and rumors of a fitness center moving in, there's not been much action at the Metro since this article was written.

I know many in the area hold out hope that it can be revived as a cinema.  But sadly, I doubt the Metro could serve again for films because, it was gutted to make room for a big box-type store. I've suspected that the expense of making it back into a multiplex is what scared off the Alamo folks.  

And the Metro's exterior is not a pretty picture, as the marquis begins to sag. That's what I mean by not-so-benign neglect. The community really should organize to find some solution so the whole thing doesn't just crumble around our feet. It's happened before around here: the Riverside Theatre at 96th and Broadway suffered a collapse and was demolished around 1974. It could well happen again with the Metro.

And now, just as cinephiles are despairing over the loss of Lincoln Plaza, good news may be in store. Norma Levy, a film-loving Upper West Sider has organized a movement called Coalition for a New Cinema that has incorporated, put up a website, formed committees and begun to raise funds to keep an independent cinema operating somewhere on the UWS.  Over 11,000 people signed a petition to try to save Lincoln Plaza, so Levy began to explore options. With a "New Plaza Cinema" as the goal, the Coalition was formed in the hope of "creating and operating a new cinema devoted to quality independent and foreign films on the Upper West Side of Manhattan."

We might just get our own little Metrograph if these movers and shakers get the help they need from the community.  The Coalition is looking for help to draft a business plan, raise funds and get the word out. You are hereby invited to attend an organizing meeting:

When: April 17, 7 p.m.
Where: 142 West End Avenue, Apt. 27L (entrance is on 66th Street between Amsterdam and West End)
What: to hear further details on progress and plans and obtain community input on the effort to open a new movie theater.

Read more here. (H/t to neighbor Esther R. for the news.)

So two mysteries to be solved: will the New Plaza rise and will the Metro rise again?

And now, one from the vault dated September 2005.

By Caitlin Hawke

My apologies to readers. I noted in an earlier blog post that there are plans for some upgrades at the Bloomingdale branch of the NYPL. The date I gave for the begin of work was not firm and the prior post has been updated to indicate that no firm date for the closure is established. As soon as the library has that date, they will share it with the community and I will post the information on the blog.

In the meantime, there is plenty on tap at the Bloomingdale branch!

What, you ask? Photocopiers, computer loans, sewing classes, collaging, baby storytime and open play, teen groups, and the April 28th BAiP play-reading event. Through May, you can see Nancy C. Evers's photo exhibit "Global Graffiti."

To see the hours or calendar, please visit:www.nypl.org/locations/bloomingdale.

For those willing to venture forth to other branches, don't forget the promising exhibit up at the Belafonte.  The opening reception is this Thursday from 5-6:30 p.m. at W. 115th and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard.

The "One from the Vault" feature plumbs the archives of back issues of block association newsletters for new neighbors and lovers of our community and its history. To read others pieces from the vault, click on the category at right.


By Caitlin Hawke

I miss freekah. I miss bringing my own bottle of vino and hanging out in relative quiet with a date or a close friend. I miss the salmon. The flaky guava puff lagniappe at the end. The bold Cuban art. I miss Fidel's edge and conversation and his blunt opinions, and I miss Glenn's gentleness and scrumptious food.

I miss Buster's.

Before you criticize me, let me be clear: I think it's good to be able to voice an opinion and engage directly, keep folks honest, call out truly bad practices, and more. And I get that we're all paying a lot of money to survive in NYC. But I don't have a lot of patience for "mobbing" a store or restaurant due to one incident simply because you have access to a platform that can amplify your message and exact your pound of flesh.

Crabbing about bad products that aren't to one's taste or about one-time mishaps is just so easy in this era of iPublishing.  Words live on for ever.

I'd like to see some of the commenters walk a mile in an owner's shoes. Prior to ranting, some margin of maneuver needs to be factored in: did you ever have a bad day at work? Or deliver a substandard job to your boss? Imagine your boss's rant on Yelp that day and then looking for another boss, the next. Ouchy.

I suspect that dealing nobly with customers whose expectations are unreasonably high is one of the hardest things a Mom & Pop can face.

I have sympathy, I really do. Fidel's flames, I will admit, were not for the faint of heart -- and yet there was some bold-faced honesty in them.

So here, in one from the vault from December 2006, is Hedy Campbell on the subject of a now lost Mom & Pop, or Pop & Pop: the late, great "spa-tinental" hole-in-the-wall kitchenette oddly known as Buster's.  Sadly, the story of the name is one I never got.

For Busterfans, rumor has it Fidel is serving it up from a truck at the Jersey City side of the ferry. I don't think the critics are the reason the shop pushed on. I think it was the razor-thin margin of making a micro-restaurant go 'round without alcohol and with human-scale hours.  Apparently that formula is DOA in NYC, and I'd venture the guess that it's one reason some of the smaller spaces aren't snapped up by new entrepreneurs.

I hope Fidel and Glenn know they are missed.  At least by some.  I hope their hours are saner.  I hope their critics are gentler.  And I hope someone is gobbling up a guava petit four right this very second and feeling their love.

Buster's. Closed two years ago but not forgotten.

NOTE: This post has been updated to reflect that the work at the Bloomingdale branch is not yet firmly scheduled. Please stay tuned. I will post firm information as soon as it is set.

By Caitlin Hawke

Watch this space because sometime in the coming year, our beloved Bloomingdale branch of the NYPL will be closing for a year's worth of upgrades, including a new teen space. Between now and then, check out David Ochoa's collage workshop that he runs for BAiP and the library's community every Monday at 2 pm. Also coming up on April 28th is BAiP's 4th Annual Play-reading event. 

Once the Bloomingdale NYPL work begins, neighbors will be scattered to different NYPL branches during the hiatus. So now's a great time to explore which branch you'll check out!  May I suggest the Belafonte?

Neighbor Helen Broady shared the flyer below about a collections-inspired art exhibit, Infinite Archive: NYPL, at the Harry Belafonte branch at W. 115th and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard.  The opening happens this Thursday, April 5, from 5:00-6:30pm and you are cordially invited to check it out.  The exhibit includes works from 30 artists each responding to a book, poem, periodical or other archival material from The New York Public Library’s vast collection.  Infinite Archive: NYPL runs through August. If you miss the opening, the exhibit is on view during regular library hours Tuesday to Saturday.

I've sung the praises here of the NYPL in general for their digital collections and in particular for the Bloomingdale branch's devoted space to neighborhood archives gathered by the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group.  And while I have many a bone to pick with some of the strategic decisions and real estate transactions the NYPL has imprudently rolled out, its collections are -- to grossly understate it -- a city treasure.  I find myself poking around in them all the time.

So the theme of this art exhibit at Belafonte is a very intriguing intersection of old and new.

Here's an excerpt from the press release and for more information, visit the branch's website. Hope to see you there!