​In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face
I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times it's only me
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand

​-- Bob Dylan, "Every Grain of Sand"

By Caitlin Hawke

West End Avenue is deafeningly silent early this morning as the curfew has curtailed most car traffic south of 96th Street. It's a street I recognize less and less yet one that I've come to know deeply. I find myself studying it. Each bird chirping. Each passerby. Each delivery truck. Each siren. Each neighbor at his or her window in my sightlines. All targets of my gaze in a way I have never gazed before.

Looking out my window in sleepy Bloomingdale all day today I perceived a strange vibrato. Tension thick in the air. Anticipation. Trepidation. And the gaze from apartment to street of all these neighbors still cooped up is one of watchful, worried eyes. The First Wave scarcely receded, the Second Wave is roiling and swiftly rolling in.

But I am not talking about the virus. Like a Rube Goldbergian contraption, infection has become the vector of infection. Instead of picking up with some semblance of normalcy coming off the first wave of coronavirus, we are now again waist deep in. Begat by the first wave but not precisely in its own image, the Second Wave of which I speak looks and feels very much like a growing revolution, where people the city over -- the country and the world over -- have been swept up as it crests. 

Chalked on sidewalks, hung from windows, held up in protest posters each day at 1pm in Straus Park, called out by peaceful congregants making their noontime way down Broadway, the revolution beckons: manifest in support of justice for all, manifest in opposition to police brutality, manifest in acknowledgment of the grotesque and disproportionate toll Covid-19 has had on people of color.

The solidarity of the Second Wave equals that of the first, but its fury surpasses it. Both share uncharted waters, unpredictable consequences, unimaginable cost, unfathomable pain.

Experts tell us that there will be another wave of viral infections. But they didn't tell us that our social isolation would finally make us immune to complacency and catapult us into the work we must now do. 

I'm still too jaded to believe that in corona there could be salvation. But at a minimum there is transformation. And we are most definitely not coming out of this the same.  Prepare ye.

Above photos courtesy of Sharon Waskow

Daily protest near Straus Park near W. 106th Street, where neighbors gather at 1 p.m.

By Caitlin Hawke

Reflecting nigh on 100 days of solitude, I should be writing a love letter to Bloomingdale Aging in Place, or "BAiP" as everyone calls it. A bit over ten years old, this network of neighbors has proven itself to be the insta-community just waiting for anyone who wanted to join and meet-up hyperlocally. Did you ever watch "Cheers"? It's like that bar. But without walls. And no taps. You walk in, and everyone knows your name. BAiP is a perfect third place.

Its network of neighbors has launched nearly 100 different social and activity groups in the last decade. Groups that meet monthly, weekly and in some cases daily. 

But when Covid-19 hit and flung all BAiPers into their respective corners, with a halt to in-person social activities, it was hard to predict what might happen.

Three months later, there are more than 100 people meeting up -- sometimes three times a week -- to join remote yoga classes and then stick around in a post-yogic haze for breakouts just to schmooze, share, check in, be.

Many of the activity groups have not missed a beat, moving swiftly online and picking up when Mother Nature thwarted them from meeting together in cinemas and museums, in parks and living rooms. Each group its own mini-community led by a neighbor, when beheld together these dozens of groups weave into a tight-knit fabric of connectivity for nearly 1500 people throughout Bloomingdale. The grassroots, neighbor-to-neighbor model not only has proven resilient and responsive, but it has also been a lifeboat ferrying from desert island to desert island keeping us castaways connected while we all endure the strange pause.

Knowing that with a click, three times a week, I can jump in for a yoga class, instantly connect, and lay eyes on all these neighbors makes me feel a solidarity like the one I feel at 7 p.m. sharing glimpses and furtive waves with neighbors across the street, ringing my bell as fast and hard as I can to keep up with the cheers.

And while these classes are great for body and spirit, BAiP's neighbor-led groups are the community-building engine at its core, and despite worst initial fears, many have found a way to persevere online.

One of BAiP's oldest living room groups, Photography, is led by Block Association cameraman and ubermensch Ozzie Alfonso. Just as Covid-19 struck, Ozzie sent out word to the neighbors in his group that the next theme to shoot would be "Life in the Time of Coronavirus." Slightly ahead of the wave, the crew got out there way back a lifetime ago when the crocuses were starting to come up.  Over the weeks, they began documenting our neighborhood, our stores and streets, our residences.

Below is the very special, personal gallery that these local photographers produced. To view more of this group's work, see the dozens of their beautiful galleries here.

For me, coronavirus is a clarion call, like the one intoned by Allen Ginsberg at the end of Scorsese's documentary on Bob Dylan's magical mythical tour, the Rolling Thunder Revue. It's as if this virus is saying the same:

"Try to get yourself together, clean up your act, find your community. Pick up on some kind of redemption of your own consciousness, become more mindful of your own friends, your own work, your own proper meditation, your own proper art, your own beauty. Go out and make it for your own eternity."

Here's hoping that if we take one kernel of truth back out into the social world with us when we emerge it is one akin to BAiP's truth: build the community you aspire to and they will come.

This Block Association and its sister organization, BAiP, spawned here 11 years ago, deserve your TLC. ​We have work to do, people. And redemption of our consciousness may be the one true gift to arise from this ordeal.

Credit: Gallery "Life in the Time of Covid '19" courtesy of BAiP's Photography group led by Ozzie Alfonso. Note: if you received this post in an email via your subscription, click on the title of the blog post to view the gallery online.

And lastly, my lagniappe for you is the Ginsberg benediction of the Rolling Thunder Revue. Again, if you are reading this in an email via your subscription, click on the blog post title to view the video on the blog.

By Caitlin Hawke

I won't go much into my complicated relationship to my patriotism. Except to say, while I could have done without all the lapel pins that later ensued, when I saw the first flags appear in solidarity in the immediate wake of 9/11, it took a deep emotional toll. I don't think I'd ever before realized how powerful a symbol a cloth flag could be.

When I was in grade school, I remember learning "Lift Every Voice and Sing" and being awestruck by its beauty. It shook awake in me an explosively optimistic feeling, perhaps the birth of my complicated patriotism.

Today, cheering at my window, watching my partner cheer beside me, hearing his voice projecting over West End Avenue, listening to but not seeing my downstairs neighbor ringing her school bell, and seeing my counterparts across the avenue materialize from behind closed windows night in and night out: these are small moments of solidarity I never could have imagined would be mine. 

Like the flags after 9/11 and the voices lifted in song of my DC childhood, the evening cheers touch a deep nerve within. Collective and rallied around a single cause. A patriotism.

Here now come the airborne elite. In a military tribute to the legions who've kept our fates from a downward spiral -- the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and the Navy's Blue Angels will flyover our punch drunk city today at noon in a salute to the people whose debt we are in: our essential workers and the frontline Covid workers.

These glorious flocks of flying machines are guaranteed to take your breath away.

I can't imagine any aerobatics, but the metaphor of the jets passing in impossible proximity at impossible speed is akin to what our medical, city, and essential business workers have done these past two months. Lockstep. No margin of maneuver. In sync. All ramped up at full speed.

As I said at the top of this post, my patriotism has its complexities. But when it comes to the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds, when they fly over, all is forgiven and forgotten between me and Uncle Sam: I am American to my core. The sight and stunning sound of them, too, make a deep emotional mark -- like a roaring promise that anything is possible, anything achievable. If we come together.

Deep inside we know it's time to face the rising sun of our next new day. With the Blue Angels above, let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

By Caitlin Hawke


A big hat tip to neighbor Win Armstrong for sharing news of this episode of "George to the Rescue" wherein the Bloomingdale School of Music gets the full "surprise reno" treatment that the show is known for.

While we are socially isolating and dreaming of the days of yore when stepping out to a concert didn't require biosafety level 3 gear, here's a feel-good story about how the little tuneful powerhouse known as the Bloomingdale School of Music gots its groove back. You may have seen the prodigious schedule of BSM concerts featured in our newsletters and website calendar. And you may have passed by this modest landmark just west of Broadway at 323 W. 108th Street, but never thought about what goes on inside.

Founded in 1964, this school is all about making music education accessible. It's one of those neighborhood gems like the temple of Shinran Shonin known as the New York Buddhist Church, or the Nicholas Roerich Museum -- institutions that quietly populate our residential streets and are getting on in years. Pushing 60, BSM has been so focused on educating, that sprucing up its backyard or performance hall has had to wait.  Until the angel-makeover show "George to the Rescue" got wind of its aspirations. Now that time has come, and the full transformation is unveiled in the video below.

On pause like the rest of the city, BSM will come roaring back one day soon because one of the things that makes us human is our need to make and experience music in live performance. Maybe this lovely little tale of its recent sprucing will make us all jump at the chance to attend one of their student or teacher concerts. That is, once we are delivered from our surreal sequestration. But it's something to look forward to in our Bloomingdale backyard.

Click on the image below to view the video directly on youtube (you know you have time!), or click on the blog post title to view this on our website where the video is embedded.  While you are thinking about it, now is a great time to share this blog with your neighbors while we are all in hyperlocal lockdown. It's easy to subscribe via the links below and receive posts directly to your email in box. So tell a couple of friends or neighbor about this site.

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By Caitlin Hawke

People of Bloomingdale, what a surreal ride we are on together. I don't pretend to speak for us all, but for me it's been a week of heartbreak, solitude, angst, and the good old telephone. Oh, and ice cream. But I noticed you are eating ice cream, too, since there's never any in the store. We apparently all like the same flavors, and desperation forces us to consider the unthinkable. Strawberry, I am looking at you.

I have zoomed a good deal, too, and while I am growing used to videoconferencing, nothing beats a good, long dystopic gab on the phone with a good or long lost friend. So, count that as a silver lining.

Heartbreak is rolling in past the bulkhead in waves. Reading back a couple of posts, I was feeling it three weeks ago (also known as another lifetime) and my imagination is not as stretched as it once was: I do still greatly fear for our Mom & Pops, both the flesh and bone kinds and the brick and mortar kind. The so-called impending lockdown makes it all the more concrete. But it's not just the little guy; when I called to cancel a hotel-room block today for an academic event that had to be postponed, the echo of not one, not two, but three sales staff members furloughed, really shook me. There are a host of poignant stories, and I expect we will all be deeply touched by many of these as the weeks wage on. And so much more.

Solitude and angst, thankfully, don't go together for me. I like my community, but I also like my space. The angst comes from being out on the sidewalks and having to pass anyone who believes 3 or 4 feet is 6 feet. I guess we all have our sense of what is socially acceptable social distance! But don't make me take my tape measure out, because first I'll have to sanitize my hands, then pull it out, tap you, ask you to edge further to the east, snap my tape measure back, wipe it down, put it in my "clean" pocket, and try to remember which is my clean hand for when I have to repeat this process. It's meshuganah-making.

But through it all, so far, I am observing little touches of commonality. The urge to hug someone shaken because her dog got into a skirmish was powerful; but the 6 feet remained between us. Still we had a connection. The tilted heads and gaped mouths and "can you believe" gestures from nearly every neighbor passed who has dared to take a walk reinforces our bonds.

Distractions abound. Like you, I am receiving rafts of amazing offers from the suffering but stiff-upperlipping culture emporia that make our city and world so rich. From the fabulous Laura Benanti's hashtag movement (scroll down for some) to get any kids whose spring musical was cancelled to share their performance with her so she could be their audience, to the scads of streaming performances like my mad crush Ivan Fischer's Quarantine Soirées by way of the Budapest Festival Orchestra members at 19:45 each day (heure de Budapest), to this very special clip embedded below from the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra: the human power to create, entertain, empathize and innovate is as daunting as the probability that some poor poached plated pangolin would have us in the state we're in.

So. Don't eat pangolin. Wash your hands. Don't go out. But exercise every day. Maintain your distance. Destress. Sleep. Complete the census. Skip your tax deadline (til July). Vote. No, I mean really vote. Vote like suffrage had been taken away from you and you just got it back after a many-month house arrest. Vote like you are Kate Winslet as Dr. Erin Mears tracking down the index patient in Contagion. Vote like you've just come upon a shelf full of gallon squirt-bottle hand-sanitizers on a Duane Reade shelf. And most of all, appreciate the irrepressible, untouchable, fellow Homo sapiens sapiens all around you.

Until we touch again...be safe, stay well, and just one more thing: would you mind holding that door open for me so I don't have to touch it? I can't remember which hand is which.


H/T to my dear friend Hanako for Rotterdam and BFO tips. Enjoy.

Sunshine Songs below from high schoolers around the country, a trending hashtag for their performances that were canceled due to the pandemic with thanks to triple threat Laura Benanti.
Click the links to view the performances.

By Caitlin Hawke

Those are the words of the terrific UK internet information source on the current outbreak of novel coronavirus, John Campbell, PhD.  His youtube channel is here. Campbell posts short videos daily that I find strangely calming. Below I am embedding his tips on hand washing, but have found all of his videos filled with evidence-based information.

Below, there are links to documents put out last week by the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which include a fact sheet, a guide for residential disinfection and a poster that you can download and print and share as needed with your neighbors or building managers.

If you are receiving this message in an email subscription, you'll have to click on the post's title to view the video directly on the blog. I heartily recommend it. You will also find it on his channel at the link above.

Lather up and stay vigilant, neighbors.

By Caitlin Hawke

Talking heads everywhere.

If you are like me, you are on circuit overload. Impeachment, primaries, debates, newsmageddon week after week. Everything has stopped making sense. And now, really? We've got once-in-a-lifetime virus for the world to contend with, like there wasn't enough on our plate?

Pass the Purell and, please, Calgon, take me away.

I've been thinking a bit about what life in NYC might look like weeks and months down the road. And I am finding the limits of my imagination. I don't want to trivialize the risk we may be up against nor overdramatize it, but it's very hard to imagine a life when the subway isn't an option or we cannot convene in large numbers or worse. 

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you may recall that I've written quite a bit about the state of Mom & Pop stores in our area. And I must say that in those limits of my imagination, I do worry that something terrible like an outbreak in NYC could be the final breaking point for so many small businesses already surviving on the thinnest of margins.

So this is a shout out to those businesses. And a call to arms to readers that they will need us more than ever. And we may need them, more than ever before, too. We may also need each other and our Block Association. Community is a powerful force, and we're lucky to be in a neighborhood with strong connections.

In the naive melodic lyrics of songsmith David Byrne who is fresh off a Broadway run of his show "American Utopia", this must be the place. And home is where I want to be. But it sure is a wild, wild life these days.

Hang tough, Bloomingdale. And, Mom & Pop, I hope we'll have your backs, same as it ever was.

For subscribers, please note that the lagniappe videos below won't show up in the email subscription feed. Please click here to view it on the blog.

By Caitlin Hawke

On Wednesday, come out for this resource fair for older adults in our neighborhood.  

Don't need these resources now?  Well, you or someone you know will soon enough!  By the middle of this century, the age pyramid of the U.S. is going to start looking rather top heavy with those over 65 making up about a quarter of the population. This is unprecedented and thanks to the Baby Boomer generation and strides in public health.

The Upper West Side, we know, is a great neighborhood for folks of all ages.  But for people nearing retirement or who have retired, it's a launch pad to all NYC has to offer: access to transportation and healthcare, free courses at Columbia, local shopping (or what is left of it), cultural institutions, volunteering gigs, it's all right here.

I didn't even mention Bloomingdale Aging in Place -- BAiP -- which, as the spiritual child of our Block Association and the one just to the north, has thrived over the last 10 years. BAiP have a spot at the fair, so drop by and ask about how to join, what groups are open and how to get involved. It's also a chance to meet our electeds who will be there in force. No matter you age, come let them know what you need to bloom in place.

It all happens on Wednesday, December 11, from 1:30-3:30 p.m. at Children's Aid (885 Columbus Avenue and W. 104th Street).

By Caitlin Hawke

You know it. You live it. We navigate the tumbleweeds of Broadway storefrontage every day.  And it is far from just our neck of the woods.

I've written about the blight many times in a blog series called Empty Storefronts and the Changing Streetscape:

Part 1: We Got the Supply. Where's the Demand?
Part 2: In Joon, Our Fall
Part 3: Lincoln Plaza Cinemas: Fare Thee Well My Honey
Part 4: Three Restaurants Go Down in One Month
Part 5: A Glorious UWS 800-Person Wave Turns Back the Tide
Part 6, which I hope to post soon, will feature Jen Rubin's story of her family's store Radio Clinic or RCI.

So who is going to Save Our Stores?  Literally, SOS! I mean: who among us is going to the first town hall meeting planned by the new group UWS Save Our Stores?  

Their event "Vacant Storefronts and Visions for Neighborhood Revitalization," will be held Thursday, December 5, 6:30-8:30pm, at the NY Society for Ethical Culture, 2 West 64th Street. The event is free to the public. Doors open at 6pm, and the meeting will begin promptly at 6:30 p.m.  Venue is wheelchair accessible.

We keep experiencing it. Many keep talking about it. Others keep writing about it. But what are we DOING about it?  Surely no one agrees that vast swaths of our avenues should remain void of storefront life?  What's the next big idea? Where will it all go from here? What are the forces at play? 

There are so many questions....  Perhaps we need to craft the answers all as one.

SOS and See You There!  RSVP at UWSSOS.org.

​By Caitlin Hawke

The rest of the year is going to pass by like a flash now that Thanksgiving is behind us. I hope you had a good one and are resting comfortably amidst meals of leftover carb-on-carbs.  And yes, the cranberry relish counts as a veggie.

In preparation for December's competing demands for our attention, there are several dates to pencil in on your December calendar.

• The first is coming this Wednesday, December 4, from our friends over at the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group about how NYC's waterways contributed to the city's development. I hope there will be something juicy about the arrival of the obelisk of Thutmose III that stands outside the Met Museum which came via the shore. Look for my next Throwback Thursday post on this. The flyer for this talk is below.

• On Thursday, December 5, save your evening for a town hall on our vacant store fronts to be held at the Ethical Culture Society.  More to come on that tomorrow but also see this link to the WSR piece..

• On Wednesday, December 11, at 1:30pm, Community Board 7 will be offering up "The Senior Experience" a resource fair for older adults (flyer with location and more information to post shortly)

• And, of course, December 21 for the Block Association Solstice Caroling! The song sheet and meet up details are available on our home page.

More information to come on the above. See below for the BNHG talk on December 4.

See you in the neighborhood! 

By Caitlin Hawke

Saturday is Autumn Festival Day at the New York Buddhist Church on Riverside Drive between W. 105th and 106th Street. 
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Neighbor Cathy Wald shared the flyer below. The New York Buddhist Church sits among the Beaux Arts buildings of Riverside Drive that Dan Wakin featured in his recent book, also known as the Seven Beauties (see prior blog post here). An eighth stood where the Buddhist temple is now.

The church has a lovely line-up with Japanese and Hawaiian food, dance, drum and martial arts demonstrations, a silent auction and more.

Check it out!  It's all part of the fabric of Bloomingdale.

By Caitlin Hawke

At some point, I am going to write long about BAiP. There are a lot of angles about this organization that would make good blog fodder. One of the most compelling is how deep its grassroots have dug in as if it's always been here. Another is how its existence was catalyzed by two block associations pooling resources to make the initiative known ten years ago as it started up. Originally a community tucked inside the community of the Block Association, BAiP has grown to cover well over a half mile squared.

I know college-age students who are envious of the depth and breadth of connections fostered by BAiP's members. That reaction is always sobering to me because no matter how "connected" we all are with technology, nothing replaces the person-to-person experience of sharing meals, books, walks and many other pursuits together right in the neighborhood. It is not an age-group specific yearning. We all need it and we all stand to benefit from knowing our neighbors better for lots of reasons.

I've written about David Reich here before, and it's hard to speak of BAiP's 10th anniversary without acknowledging the incredible work that David did, first from his perch as head of this Block Association, and then heading the steering committee that would eventually become the non-profit known as Bloomingdale Aging in Place. As a founder, among many other efforts, he laid down the communications systems that have proven to be BAiP's enduring but virtual infrastructure. Of course David was far from alone in building the initiative, but he was the undeniable organizational engine.

To recognize the decade gone by and recommit to BAiP's mission of creating connections, throughout the fall, its members are finding dozens of ways to mark the birthday as well as to look forward to what is to come.  One of those "BAiP@10" activities happens this week: "How a Community Blooms: An Oral History of BAiP." 

This event is a debut of sorts. You see, a few years ago, one of BAiP's activities groups took up a training in the art of oral history, in a workshop led by neighbor Pat Laurence. Once trained, the group members turned to exploring progressive movements on the Upper West Side and set its sights on compiling an oral history project on BAiP's founders, how and why this organization materialized, and then how the founders oversaw its organization and sought to carry out its mission. There were many people who poured love and sweat into laying down just the right tracks, several of whom have long history with this Block Association. Some of these neighbors were interviewed in two lengthy oral histories over the past two years, with interviewers trying to understand the "special sauce" -- the secret to BAiP's success.

This project is now nearing completion, having documented some of these early voices and perspectives in an archive consisting of audio recordings and transcripts, photographs, a timeline, press clippings, and much more. The collection is open to researchers and producers for future study and/or documentation of progressive, grassroots movements on the UWS that have taken hold. The collection illustrates how community members have come together and assisted one another as older adults. In sum, BAiP represents an early, ahead-of-its-time community response to issues around aging that are now part of the state and national dialogue.
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This BAiP Founders Oral History project comes alive on Wednesday, October 16, 6:30 p.m. at Hostelling International New York, 891 Amsterdam Avenue at W. 103rd Street, in a program presented by the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group and conceived by BAiPers Pat Laurence and Nancy Macagno (who also wears the hat of a BNHG Planning Committee member).

It is free and open to the community.  Come check it out!

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By Caitlin Hawke

On November 7, at 7 p.m., TriBloomingdale's "It's Easy Being Green" group presents the president and CEO of the Riverside Park Conservancy, Dan Garodnick.  Dan will speak about the importance of parks in the bigger outlook on climate. But the parks, like our beloved Riverside Park, are also vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and Dan will dive into that as well. You will find details below. Space will be limited, so RSVP quickly to ItsEasyBeingGreen.UWS@gmail.com.

TriBloomingdale's "It's Easy Being Green" group began a few months ago as the brainchild of neighbors Christine Campbell and Sharon Waskow to bring neighbors together each month to take action on climate change. It is one of several opportunities to engage with neighbors in the TriBloomingdale initiative which was begun in 2014 as a simple concept: take one great neighborhood -- Bloomingdale -- with lots of community-minded neighbors. Add three anchor community organizations -- BAiP, West 104th Street Block Assocation and West 102nd & 103rd Streets Block Association. And you get TriBloomingdale. The idea behind the three organizations joining forces from time to time was to bring a broader group of neighbors together to pursue common interests. We've always collaborated loosely on neighborhood events like the Halloween parade or the two annual yard sales.  And BAiP owes its creation to leaders from both block associations and their members back around 2008.  So it is natural to pool efforts so that members can find ways of getting to know each other.

In addition to this climate group, TriBloomingdale offers the following:

• TriBloomingdale Sunday morning brisk walking group where members walk at a very brisk pace.  

• TriBloomingdale SciFi reading group on third Thursdays where members enjoy favorite classics by writers like Robert A. Heinlein, Terry Pratchett and John Scalzi.

• TriBloomingdale Networking in the Neighborhood on first Friday mornings for Bloomingdale's sole proprietors who work from home and want to enlarge their nearby resources and build their businesses.

If you wish to lead an activity within this tri-organizational initiative or would like to receive more information about any of these activities, please email Caitlin Hawke: chawke@bloominplace.org.  

Come out and try TriBloomingdale!

By Caitlin Hawke

It's day three of the chewfest also known as Goatham, and they've turned out in droves. Not the goats, mind you. The spectators.  You'll have lots of time to go behold the caprine beauties at work. But to tide you over, gentle readers, I give you this gallery of goats.  If you have pictures, email them to me and I will add them:blog@w102-103blockassn.org.

I'd also love several pix of the area in these early days to compare to the postprandial site late this summer. Send me what you've got!

Who knew that we'd get such a kick out of this. I suppose it's the incongruity. Or maybe it's the ingenuity. With everything pointing to A.I, you'd not have blinked if some outdoor version of the Roomba had been deployed. But outsourcing this job to goats? Whoever thought of it deserves a bonus.  And now, behold the beauty.  (Click on the first image to launch the slide show gallery.)

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h/t to photogs N. Schneider, C. Campbell, P. Sperling, D. Zetlan....

By Caitlin Hawke

Neighbors!  Lest anyone forget, Saturday, May 18 is yard sale day, AKA the greatest day on the block. Come, run, hop, skip on over to West 103rd Street from Riverside Drive to West End Avenue to find the great find, eat the yummy homemade treat, get local news, schmooze, amble, and gamble on the split-pot raffle. It's all done by your friends who are volunteering with the Block Association and it's all in the name of our wonderful community. For older adults in the area, be sure to check out the BAiP table and look for some BAiP members and their artwork. And for all ages, look for the Bloomingdale School of Music table and much more!

I dare you to comment below that you didn't have a ball.

​Enjoy!

By Caitlin Hawke

Neighbors, I don't think you'll regret coming out on Thursday evening at the youth hostel for this homegrown story about the now-gone applicance store, RCI, and the time when Mom & Pop businesses filled our streetscape. Hats off to the wonderful folks over at the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group, a neighborhood treasure in and of itself.

I've been writing a lot about Mom & Pops on our blog pages. You can scroll through old posts here.
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By Caitlin Hawke

If you are a regular library goer around here, you know the Bloomingdale branch staff, the ways of reserving online, the seasonal free help with taxes, the exercise classes, the fabulous neighborhood history collection, the children's programs, and much more.

Well, brace yourself! Because that's all going away for fifteen long months while a $3 million improvement project delivers back to the community a branch that better serves the neighborhood with a new dedicated teen room that will allow teens to talk, engage in group study, use computers, or work independently without disturbing other patrons. The project also provides much-needed upgrades to the second floor restrooms and adds new drinking fountains.

BAiP's Hooray for Hollywood's last hurrah at the branch (for now) takes place on Wednesday, February 13, at 4:30 p.m. The topic is Barbara Stanwyck and all are welcome. Details about this talk by Richard Harris are here.

Even if you can't make it to Hooray for Hollywood, do get in there for one last spin this week before the end of Friday, February 15, to say your til-we-meet-agains to branch manager Yajaira Mejia and the great staff who will be flung to various other branches for the term of the project.

During renovations, the nearest branches are:

• Morningside Heights branch at 2900 Broadway between W. 113th and 114th Streets, which will hold Bloomingdale Library's local history files.
• Harry Belafonte branch at 203 West 115th Street between Frederick Douglass and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevards
• St. Agnes branch at 444 Amsterdam Avenue between W. 81st and 82nd Streets, which will offer 1:1 Computer Tutoring and host the Bloomingdale Library's Knitting and Sewing Circle.

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Renovation project updates will be posted here.

To put that 15 months in perspective, if our Republic is still standing, we'll likely know the two parties' nominees for POTUS when the Bloomingdale branch is back up and running.

Time flies, neighbors, time flies.

By Caitlin Hawke

Ok, for folks who park on the street, this post might get your Irish up. It entails the eventual loss of three parking spaces on Central Park West.

That's the bad news.  But the good news is that what I am about to report is a story of grassroots efforts to increase safety and improve aesthetics of "Strangers' Gate" -- the W. 106th Street portal to Central Park.

Thanks to neighbors' efforts, in particular to transportation advocate Peter Frishauf with help from Henry Rinehart, in mid-January Community Board 7 passed a resolution to improve access to this entrance to Central Park by opening the curb and prohibiting parking immediately outside it. Department of Transportation signage should be updated soon so that the approach will look like the photo below instead of the view in the photo above.

This will protect pedestrians who flow through Strangers' Gate, affording them better visibility of traffic on Central Park West and giving drivers a much better chance of seeing exiting and entering park goers.

I love the name of this gate and was vaguely aware that many of the park's entrances bear names. In fact, there are twenty named gates. Each honors a special population of New York City in an early nod to the fact that this vast green space was to be 'the People's Park.'  You might have been entering the park at W. 100th Street all these years and not have realized that that is Boys' Gate. Of course, anyone can go through it. But if you want to use Girls' Gate, you're going to have to go clear around to E. 102nd Street. Or you can pop down to the Dakota and enter through Women's Gate.

The key to the 20 gates is below.

The bitter irony of naming the gates for different NYC populations is that in creating Central Park, land was taken by eminent domain, and the African-American neighborhood known as Seneca Village was demolished in 1857. You won't see a Seneca Gate on the list below, but the rich history of Seneca Village is becoming better known.

The story has been told in recent plays and films, by creative writers, historians and archeologists. I will be posting more about it over the month of February. But while thinking about our newly visible Strangers' Gate, I wanted to pause and think about those who are largely invisible, those who were dispossessed of their homes, whose community was razed, and whose story was mostly lost -- all in the push to create a park that is a stranger to none of us.

Choose any of these 20 gates and enter this urban sanctuary with a thought toward Seneca Village on your way in.

By Caitlin Hawke

​I usually reserve this rubric, 'Seen in the Neighborhood', for unexpected but pleasing things I stumble on in Bloomingdale. This time, not so much.  It's more about things not seen in the neighborhood, such as: your mail, your holiday packages, old-style mailboxes.

The good news is that the USPS has finally -- as of some weeks ago -- gotten around to swapping out most of our pulldown-lidded mailboxes with ones that have thin letter slits instead. The hope is to thwart all the "check fishing" that thieves are doing with glue traps. This way of intercepting checks is not unique to NYC, it's happening in lots of places. But, frankly, I thought the response was not terribly swift.

Putting a letter in the mail is something we all should be able to take for granted, especially in the wealthiest country in the world. In the letter goes, and delivered it gets.

Long gone are the times of multiple daily letter deliveries. And yes, modern technology has supplanted the need for much mail. And yes, too, I recognize that most mail is unwanted. But that's another story.

It boils down to this: when you mail something, you shouldn't have to ask yourself whether it will get there intact or get there at all.

But I think a lot of us are asking.

Just as these new mailboxes appeared, in unrelated incidents neighbors suffered a spate of lobby thefts. The holidays bring nothing if not packages, big and small. UPS, FedEx, USPS are regularly double-parked while drivers dip into buildings with armfuls of boxes. Because the carriers have huge volume to contend at the end of the year, many will resort to dropping your deliveries without a signature, right inside your lobby whether it is attended or not. That can be great if you can't be there to receive your package. But less great if someone slips into your building and gets to your package before you.

And that's what the M.O. seems to have been. At high delivery times, one or several interlopers were working the streets, slipping into vestibules and lobbies and ferrying out packages of all sorts.

This was happening up and down W. 102nd Street. I noticed signs along the south side of W. 102nd Street with a message to the thief in question, blaring that they had him on security cam footage. If you had a package stolen, maybe you'll comment below about where and when it occurred.

The truth is, this goes on all year long, not just at holiday times.  So make sure you tell your shippers that you want to sign for your package if you've positively, absolutely got to receive it. If not, you might find yourself in a special limbo where the package tracking system shows it was delivered, the carrier says he or she dropped it off, but you never saw it! Claims have to be made and replacement shipments are not guaranteed.

But wait, there's more. Just last week, neighbor David Olshefski posted the picture below online. It seems that within the Cathedral Station post office on W. 104th Street, there's been an ongoing issue of letters and packages being ripped or cut open with money and goods removed.

David tells me that Danny O'Donnell's office is looking into this trend and has a staff member collecting photos like the one below for an investigation. If items in your mail have been stolen or you are experiencing inexplicable incidents of mangled mail, take a photo and/or describe the incident and email it to Liam Galligan in Danny O'Donnell's office: galliganl@nyassembly.gov.
​
This kind of data could help the USPS determine if patterns emerge that can narrow in on the "pain point" in the chain of possession.

I've always had a soft spot for the postal service. I love my carriers and have found their service to be unfailing. But if we want to keep these jobs, keep the postal service, and fend off the much-menaced-by-Amazon sci delivery drones that we joke are the future, USPS is going to have to tighten controls inside and outside.

And while we're fixing this, could we also get "Microsoft" to stop calling us from some far off country every day to tell us we have a virus on our computer?

Thanks, that would be grand.

H/t and thanks to David O. for this photo and contact information in the O'Donnell office.

By Caitlin Hawke

Neighbors, as many of you already well know, there's been a true blue spectacle of a miracle come true. 

Our beloved West Side Rag got in there first to cover a familiar sad song and then, heroically, to amplify the message of a couple New Yorkers who'd thrown up their sashes, mad as Hades, screaming "I'm not going to take it anymore."

It all started just a few short days ago when WSRag writer Carol Tannenhauser and publisher Avi Salzman put out into the ether a melancholic story the likes of which we've read time and time before. Death by a thousand cuts of Mom & Pops gone down. This time it was Westsider Books, longtime purveyor of used books at Broadway and 81st Street, putting out the last call and walking over to the light switch to call it a day.

What ensued was just plain amazing to watch in real time. Bobby Panza, inspired by a line in Carol's article, fired up a crowdfunder page on GoFundMe. Local philanthropist Sally Martell fueled the endeavor with a jump-starting $10K donation; the Rag got in there with its great coverage (major hat tip to Avi for being the pillar of UWS communications), and then other press outlets and booklover fora amplified the message thanks to Bobby.  In what seems like a blink over $50K was raised from 818 (and counting) donors from near and far at an average donation of 64 bucks.

That's right. You heard me. A line in the sand was drawn. A few angels lofted up on their wings. And a veritable flood of good-willed neighbors and bibliofolks stopped 'taking it' and started a grassroots blaze of love for...wait for it...used books. Books! Old New York. Simple, old-time, hardworking merchants. Honest trade. City texture. Cultural color. Apparently, we, together, hold these truths to be self evident.

That 50K enables the store's owners to live another day, to bridge to the future, and to remain. For now.

Old Bloomingdaler Christopher Ming Ryan got in there like he did for Joon Fish Market (covered in Part 2 of this series) and captured it on film with Evan Fairbanks in yet another beautiful mini-documentary. (If you are an email subscriber of this blog, to see it you have to go to the blog post title above and read this post online). 

Readers, that is what I call an excellent day in the neighborhood. But we're not off the hook. Lights go out up and down Broadway every month. And if we are not putting our boots on the ground and crossing their thresholds to support them, we have no right to be perturbed.

Put down your tablets and laptops and go drop some cash at our hardware stores, cobblers, delis (if you can find them), small restaurants and specialty stores. Tell them you love them with your business. Tell our city officials that commercial storefront vacancies are intolerable and antithetical to thriving cities.

And then bask in the glory of this miracle come true. The miracle is you.


With thanks to Bobby, Sally, Avi, Carol, Chris, Evan and to the owners of the 818 feet that were put firmly down punctuating the collective cry: "no more!" My heart is full of love for you all. And to the owners and staff of Westsider Books, long may you ride.

Above I am embedding the film that Chris and Evan made. More of Chris's labors of love may be viewed here: https://www.facebook.com/DisappearingNYC.

And I leave you with the "Lagniappe du jour" courtesy of Barry M.

By Caitlin Hawke

Last week, I left you with one version of a 2018 recap (if you missed it, you will find it here). Now, I want to look forward.

My father has a very particular, clean-and-dry 1950s style sense of humor. Throughout my childhood, he would ghostwrite wry insider predictions for the year to come for the New Year’s newsletter of a Congressman who shall remain nameless. Before he submitted them to be published under the Congressman's name, we would gather with my mother and siblings in the kitchen as my father read his cheeky premonitions aloud, cracking his own self up as we all laughed through the list. It’s a tradition that I miss.

So, in that spirit and with great admiration for my dad's humor, here now are my top ten predictions for Bloomingdale in 2019.

10. The long-mired construction of the W. 103rd Street brownstone will miraculously be expedited and completed in 2019, and in 2022 will be purchased by Senator-elect Ocasio-Cortez for use as her NYS HQ.

9. That Bloomingdaler Samantha Bee will take on the story of the Ginkgo of West End, giving it full Full Frontal treatment and sentencing the perp to a lifetime soundtrack of the soft-thudding sounds of ripe ginkgo berries falling on pavement and to a year's worth of meals that taste the way ginkgos smell.

8. That Henry Rinehart, formerly of Henry’s, will return to the restaurant business by transforming the old Abbey Pub into a swank new speak-easy and the password for entry will be “Bennie the Bum.”

7. That an important, show-stopping sculpture will be erected in the Broadway median at 106th Street opposite Straus Park — a long lost work that the American Venus, Audrey Munson, posed for in her old age, giving lie to the adage that youth is beauty, and turning that crossroads into the Mecca for Munson mavens the world over.

6. That instead of the hotly-lit plasmas delivering ads to us as a captive audience on the subway platform during our interminable waits, the MTA will instead feature gorgeous old pictures of the neighborhood celebrating the history of Bloomingdale curated by our own Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group.

5. That the granddaughter/son of the erst-while and missed owner, Jessie Salha, of Cafe Amiana, also known as Au Petit Beurre, will return in glory to the neighborhood and transform the now ridiculously-long-vacant HSBC space into a glorious plant-filled, warmly carpeted, electronic-device-free cafe with backgammon and chess sets for patrons young and old. It will become the new town square and a gold mine for the young entrepreneur, and greedy landlords throughout the catchment will rue their decision to leave storefronts empty when the way forward to everyone's good fortune was just sitting here all along.

4. That the DOT, in all its wisdom, will realize that their inability to cope with systemic flooding at curb cuts during winter melt is actually an asset; and with little extra effort (and less salt) they will turn these unjumpable puddles into full-fledged skating rinks simply by diverting the flow across the entire street. It is my further prediction that the great West End Avenue rinks will be subject of a takeover action by the Trump Organization in a vicious branding dispute which will last until global warming renders the legal action moot.

3. That soon a new app will make street parking profitable, not for the city but for the car owner, by allowing drivers to contract with the hit Falun Gong spectacle “Shen Yun” to place magnetized ads on your car doors, hoods and roofs, turning your alternate-side of the street jig into a lucrative new-economy gig causing you to leave your day job and no longer need a car.

2. That the Metro theater will finally come alive again as Bloomingdale’s — yes, the department store — finally opens an uptown branch in Bloomingdale, a long overdue hat tip to our naming rights and clearing up all confusion that we came first.

1. And my number one prediction for Bloomingdale in 2019 is that New Plaza Cinema, the start-up nonprofit group that grew from the ashes of Lincoln Plaza Cinema, will take up residency in the crazy old Turkuaz space, deeding back to the neighborhood its moving-loving future.

Happy New Year, neighbors. And may some of these actually come true.

By Caitlin Hawke

On this blog, I've written a lot about enterprise on Broadway, so much so that there's a whole category at the right where I tag just those posts. (To dive in, you can see, in particular, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of the series I call "Empty Storefronts and the Changing Streetscape.)

Generally speaking, the series has chronicled the uptick in long-empty retail spaces, the loss of Mom & Pops, and the darkening of movie houses. Now I turn to the shuttering in October of three dine-in restaurants in such quick succession that if leaves me wondering if a new trend is afoot.

Either way, gone are Mezzogiorno, Il Gatto Nero and Henry's; all of these folded up shop in October.

Notoriously hard to sustain, eateries represent a key piece of the retail ecosystem. But they are as sensitive to rent and labor increases as any other commerce.  However, unlike the old Broadway shopper's pivot to patronizing etailers, New Yorkers still dine in their neighborhoods.

Take for example, the closure on October 14 of Mezzogiorno (2791 Broadway) which was in the old Indian Cafe space north of W. 107th Street. After a very lengthy, costly renovation, this gentrifier of an Italian spot opened in 2015 just as its owners were preparing to close the chic, decades-old SoHo location. A surprise to all, I think, they looked to Bloomingdale to resettle. I concluded at the time that the rent savings made the uptown operation viable. And yet three years later, it has closed. Perhaps Bloomingdalers didn't care for the higher price point or the flush old regulars didn't find their way uptown. The clock struck mezzanotte at Mezzogiorno, and their 31-year run is now over.

Then, Il Gatto Nero, just a block south at W. 106th Street (2758 Broadway), also closed suddenly in early October "unable to carry on in this economy." It had only been open a handful of months, having replaced the well-received but overpriced-for-what-it-was Macchina. That machine is now a ghost having died young, too. 

Yelp reviews praised each of these places (though there was the legendary takedown or two). And they attracted nods of approval from the Michelin guide, for what that's worth. They just didn't keep us pouring through their doors.

Of the three, the one loss that stings was Henry’s. News came only a week or two before the October 21 closure, when owner Henry Rinehart announced in an email his plans to move on from his Frank-Lloyd-Wrightian restaurant that stood at W. 105th Street for 19 years and bore his name. Henry's replaced Birdland for those of you who recall back to the space's jazzier days. Rinehart’s reason was "a change in personal and professional priorities." The business has now passed to Henry’s partner chef Scott Snyder and his Boulevard Seafood Company, soon to be reviewed in these pages.  You may be relieved to learn that the famous kale salad will die another day since Chef Snyder didn't nudge it off the menu.

Under Rinehart, Henry's was, to many, a Cheers -- the sitcom bar made famous by an ensemble of wry barflies yearning for a 'third place' to take a break from their worries. Hopping bar scene. Sports mecca. Brunch spot. Outdoor cafe. Neighborhood sing-in club. An ample Thanksgiving table away from the hearth or for the weary home cook. A place where if they didn't know your name, at least they acknowledged you as a regular. Henry’s had it all and was a big player in the community. And if that isn't enough, Henry himself was an advocate for healthier school lunches.

I don't doubt that many felt Henry's had its gentrifying side when it first took root. It was always a bit above other local haunts in terms of cost. I noticed that prices crept upward recently. Perhaps to fend off what became an inevitable battle to reap profit out of such expansive square footage. Alas, Henry's is no more.

To paraphrase James Carville, I wonder if what I am observing isn’t along the lines of the temple-thumping exclamation: “It's the rent, stupid!” — similar to the problem with the Mom & Pop die off. But the answer may be more complex. Restaurants might be competing with the availability of high-end prepared foods that come from Whole Foods or West Side Market, or with the quality specialty ingredients home cooks can now find at Trader Joe’s and H Mart, among other groceries.

As I say above, restaurants don’t yet seem to be victims of etailers like Amazon, but is something other than rent pressure weighing on the old-style dine-in spots? Is it that the market only bears up to a certain menu price point around here? Or is it just a matter of time before more Serafinas move in, more large restaurants go vacant, or just more turnover occurs?

Fortunately, city council members regularly take up the topic of commercial rents, mindful of all the vacancies. Unfortunately, the needle never moves much. It seems early to say, but we might be seeing a little progress with new legislation sponsored and small business committee hearings held by Ydanis Rodriguez. Councilmember Helen Rosenthal is also a proponent.

Called the “Small Business Jobs Survival Act,” the bill aims to define conditions and requirements for commercial lease renewal negotiations, requirements for lease renewal terms, arbitration-triggering conditions, limits on security deposits, and prohibitions on landlord retaliation.

I’ve been writing about the changing streetscape a lot because some days I feel like we’re in the 11th hour, the 59th minute of what I view as a retail crisis on Broadway. And while restaurants may not be as endangered as Mom & Pop retailers, I truly hope we don't wait until the last minute to solve the economics of Broadway. We can see with our own eyes that the law of supply and demand has been subverted. But it can be fixed.  But sadly not in time to sing for our supper at Henry’s.

By Caitlin Hawke

Spearheaded by neighbors Nancy Macagno and Pam Tice, the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group have pulled together a program "Bloomingdale Blocks" featuring the history of how block associations got started in these parts with help from the Citizens Committee for New York City. Note the groovy detail from our June 15, 1972, newsletter showing the then-directors of this BA looking like they stepped right out of the musical Hair.

David Reich, Mort Berkowitz and Jean Jaworek all will present.Details in the flyer below.

​Come on out on Tuesday and give thanks.

In the meantime, a very happy TG to you all!

By Caitlin Hawke

Thanks go to Celia Knight who sent the photo below of two hearty neighbors on a rainy Saturday. They  joined the Block Association team headed by Mark Schneiderman, head of the ecology committee, to weed, clean, plant bulbs and generally beautify our tree wells.

They came. They saw. They mulched. And our trees are all the better for it.

If you are interested in the state of city trees, on October 24, at 6:30 p.m., Parks & Rec is holding a street tree workshop. You'll find the flyer below.  I wanted to add a lagniappe from SNL this week, a rap ode to trees. But it truly wasn't ready for prime time. Best line: "You can agree that more trees isn't a bad thing, right though?"

#Truth

By Caitlin Hawke

Two weeks from today, on Saturday, September 29, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., West 104th Street between Riverside Drive and West End Avenue becomes the best place to be.  Our yard sale was rained out earlier this year, but our neighbors over on 104th are hard at work making offerings to weather gods and booking vendors for this annual event.

It's a great way to turn your unwanted household items into gold while someone goes off happy to give your junque a new life in a happy home. If you don't live on the block, a vendor space will set you back $60 and a space is big enough to split with a friend. All the details may be found here.

Once you are done vending on 104th, don't throw the rest of it away!  Discover (and thank me later for telling you now) the fabulous freecycling (freegan) community of trashnothing.com.  Part cult, part utopia, part distribution of resources, trashnothing.com is an electronic bulletin board where you can put up "haves" or "wants" for quite literally anything.  Trim your book collection, winnow your pots and pans, give away kid items and clothes. Or post an "ask" for a crockpot, a curling iron, an electric drill. You will be amazed by how this community comes through. And it's all in the name of not letting anything go to waste ever again.  The New York City group has 64,000 members.  Read the boards to get the hang of it, sign in, and get started decluttering today!

Only catch is that everything changes hands completely free.

See you in two weeks on 104th Street!