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The Longest, Tuneful Day is 'Estivus for the Rest of Us'

6/20/2021

Join Your Neighbors on the Solstice for Make Music New York

By Caitlin Hawke

Today, Monday, June 21st, Make Music NY rings in its 15th year celebrating the Summer Solstice with music across the five boroughs. For Upper West Siders, this means you have three outdoor 'venues' to choose from including West 103rd Street and Broadway where the music is on tap all afternoon and into the evening. Also, in the nearby West 104th Street Garden at 8 W. 104th Street, you can catch my personal favorite, the Ukuladies at 5 PM.

I always love the long days of June leading up to the solstice, officially ringing in summer. After the year we've had, we deserve a little dancing in the streets and a glorious 'estivus for the rest of us' celebration.

Enjoy! Here's where:

Richard Tucker Park - 65th - 66th Streets, between Broadway And Columbus

6:30 PM - 7:30 PM: New York Mandolin Orchestra

West 103rd Street Open Streets Community Coalition - 230 W. 103rd Street at Broadway

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Chamber Music Center of New York
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM: Esther Crow
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM: Jean Ramirez

West 104th Street Garden - 8 West 104 Street

5:00 PM - 6:00 PM: SoHarmoniums featuring the Ukuladies
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM: Socially Distant Mini-Orchestra
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM: Ethan Mann Trio

Click on the image below for the full NYC listing of showtimes today.

On the Streets Where We Live with Asya and Ted Berger

6/6/2021

In Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the West 102nd & 103rd Streets Block Association

Recalling dear friendships, Ted and Asya Berger tell our origin story.

By Caitlin Hawke

It is a very rare pleasure to meet people like Asya and Ted Berger whose zest for community and sense of history and rootedness in Bloomingdale are as strong as ever. At the March 2021 Block Association meeting, which due to the pandemic, was held virtually, Asya and Ted gave a loving talk about the early days of their lives on W. 103rd Street and the community members -- some larger than life -- who came together to build this association. It was so well received, that we caught up one recent weekend and recorded it for the blog. And so, it is my pleasure to give you this recording of Asya and Ted reprising their slideshow and remembrances. For those of you reading in an email subscription to the blog, click on this link for the embedded video. For those of you who prefer to read, scroll down for the transcript and images.

The Bergers have the gift of making even newcomers nostalgic for a freewheeling time when lives were lived on stoops, chatting up neighbors, and in basements planning for big events with a sole purpose of weaving the fabric of a community.

The Block Association is 50, and you can show your love by making a contribution here.

Enjoy this trip down Bloomingdale's Memory Lane! And remember, if you cannot see the video, click here or scroll down for a transcribed version of their live presentation.

On the Streets Where We Live by Asya and Ted Berger

Len, Asya, Donna, Ted, Cherie, and Our Snow Friend

All of us with our son Jonathan and Mel

TED: We’re so grateful to the Block Association and to Ginger Lief, our great neighborhood resource, for asking us to talk a bit about its early years. We also want to thank Bob Aaronson, Nancy Gropper, and Caitlin Hawke for their technical help in preparing and helping us show some pictures with this talk.

Thinking about these years is somewhat like starting a Proustian Journey. It’s like eating a madeleine and remembering things past. It’s hard to believe it’s been fifty years since a founding group had the smarts and vision to get the Block Association going.

Please forgive us if, as we reminisce, we haven’t given equal time to both 102nd and 103rd St. or West End. We suspect we’ve thought a bit more about 103rd St. because that’s where we live. Forgive us as well if we don’t mention all the people and events we know we should, and we apologize if we get any facts and names wrong. (After all, we’re not historians – and at this stage in our lives, we’re lucky we remembered to show up today!)

We also regret we’ll probably be reading too much, but my tech skills leave much to be desired, and I couldn’t figure out how to turn the computer into a teleprompter.

Also, we apologize for the quality of many very old photographs. I’m not much of a photographer either.

As Asya and I thought about all the years on these streets where we’ve been fortunate to live so long, we’ve been flooded with memories of some of the dearest people we have ever known. To us, this trip down memory lane is not only the story of these streets; it’s the story of people –and how people can effect change and, most especially, how our friendships turned to love and will be forever with us.

We’ve lived on 103rd St. for nearly 57 years.

Right after we were married, we moved to 103rd St. in the fall, 1964 – first renting at 305; then, in 1971, we moved next door to 303 –renting first the ground floor floor-through; then, when we purchased the building with another couple in ’74, creating the duplex where we still live with our current upstairs neighbors, Peter Frischauf and KC Rice, who in 1982 bought their share from our original partners. As you may know, Peter and KC have worked hard on the 103rd St, Open Street Project and the recent terrific celebration of Earth Day.

ASYA: When we lived at 305, one day we were fortunate to meet a neighbor, our beloved Donna Lavine, who lived with her husband Mel in the floor-through next door, where we now live. Little did we know then – on the day we met Donna – how our lives would forever change, how her friendly “hello” destined us to become “family.”

Donna and Mel had moved to the block a few years earlier when he attended Columbia’s Journalism School. He then became a producer on the Today Show. Donna soon introduced us to another couple in the neighborhood, Len and Cherie Tredanari, who had moved to the block in 1954 with their two children, Adriana and Gregory. A few years later, they bought the brownstone at 307 W. 103rd.

We all became very close friends. Ted and I were a bit younger than the four of them, and we all really connected. Len and Cherie seemed to know everyone in the neighborhood. They had been involved in an earlier effort with neighbors to get a playground built in Riverside Park between 104th and 105th Sts. They understood the need for do-it-yourself, grassroots organizing and advocacy if you wanted to effect change in the neighborhood in those days.

TED: If you know anything about the history of NYC in the 60’s and 70’s, you may know that West Side was then very different from what it has become. The setting for the musical “West Side Story” is where Lincoln Center is now. What is now known as the Lincoln Square neighborhood was formerly San Juan Hill. The construction of Lincoln Center was an urban renewal project spearheaded by Robert Moses.

Left to right above: The San Juan Hill Neighborhood-West 63rd St.
The "West Side Story,"
"Something's Coming..."

When I was a graduate student at Columbia in those days, the Park at 72nd and Broadway was known as “Needle Park.” You may have heard of the film, “Panic in Needle Park.” The Upper West Side had a reputation of being more like the Wild West when it came to safety. Many blocks and buildings were astoundingly beautiful and very stable; others somewhat dicey. However, it was also very affordable. Our first apartment in the brownstone at 303 W. 103 was $110/month.

102nd and 103rd were really beautiful streets. Tree-lined, anchored by large apartment buildings at the corners, such as the well-known landmarked Master Apartments and the Candela buildings at 865 and 875 West End. Brownstones were in-between; many – like our row of brownstones where we live, built in 1895. The subway and the Park were nearby. We all knew we lived in a special neighborhood, yet we were very much aware we were in the midst of an economically challenged city at the time, with growing crime, racial tensions, and an increasing decline in the general quality of life.

But we really loved the neighborhood!

Technically, Asya and I are not actual founders of the Block Association. Before we became involved, a few neighborhood veterans started meeting and decided, if the neighborhood was going to thrive, the formation of a block association was needed. And so in 1971, the 102nd-103rd Block Association came into being.

Volume 1, Issue 1: Our very first newsletter - May 20, 1971

The first issue of the newsletter reads: “From small beginnings, great things grow. Little more than an idea two months ago, the 102nd-103rd Street Block Association has become a reality.

Originally planned to meet the common need and interests of the people living between Broadway and Riverside Drive and West End Ave, between 102nd and 103rd Streets, the association’s steering committee voted to include 102nd St. The interest expressed by the residents of 102nd St. have been overwhelming and pooling our resources will certainly strengthen the association.”

Existing Committees at that time were formed: Social Committee, Ecology, Safety, Housing, General Membership. The first Co-Chairs were Carol Goldstein and Ed Warner.

We found the above article in the archives of the Block Association’s newsletters (thanks to Ginger Lief!), so we just want to take a moment to mention how the Block Association’s continuing publication of the newsletter – and now our website - have been so vital to our sense of community all these years. We salute all the editors and writers throughout the years who’ve kept up the communication, letting us know what we need to know about each other and our blocks . We especially want to thank our present newsletter group, now spearheaded by Hedy Campbell.

ASYA: But back to the start –

One of the newly formed Block Association’s first victories came in the Fall, 1971 when 11 new trash baskets were placed on all the street corners. Of course, chains had to be attached to discourage stealing.

Because of the common concerns about safety, one of the Block Association’s primary goals was to raise money to hire a security guard for the area. Similarly, in these years, much effort went into raising money to get better lighting in the area.

We want to highlight some events in these early years which brought attention to our blocks and became cornerstones of some of our present activities.

A few years after the Block Association started, a prime strategy emerged to both bring people together and to raise money for the block association’s commitment to guard service - the development of our first ever block party. In those days, block parties and street fairs were not as common as they now are.

After a number of block parties were held, a group of us decided we needed to make an even greater impact. We were determined that our block parties should be something people would remember. We recall forming a Planning Committee of the Block Association, including Len and Cherie Tredanari, Ginger Lief, Jennes Eertmoed, Joe Hussey, John and Liz Berseth, Edna Guttag, Gertrude Ellis, and the two of us.

TED: Organizing these block parties became a great community-building effort spearheaded by board members with other neighbors volunteering as we needed more help. We met frequently to deal with the many details of the event.

The basement of our brownstone served as headquarters. Week after week we created booths, painted signs under Cherie Tredanari’s artistic expertise; we joked and laughed, and always shared a glass or two or three of Tred Red, the homemade red wine, Len Tredanari joyfully made in the cellar of their house at 307.

Indeed, one of the most successful booths at every block party in those early years was the annual one in front of the Tred’s house. Using multiple grills, we grilled many, many Italian sausages with peppers and onions on rolls. As an extra bonus you could sample some Tred Red. Of course, this probably wasn’t legal, so naturally, there was always a long line waiting. We brought in a lot of money.

ASYA: One of our blocks’ major cultural assets at that time was the Equity Library Theater (ELT), a showcase for acting and theater talent, located in the auditorium of the Masters Institute since 1961 through its final season in 1989. (In fact, one of our son’s first jobs was as an usher at the theater when he was 7 or 8.)

The Block Association began a collaboration with ELT for the next few years as we developed our Block Parties. One year we focused the block party on celebrating George and Ira Gershwin who lived on 103rd St. near Riverside. ELT organized an array of talent throughout the day to sing and play a great range of Gershwin songs.

The block party drew a large crowd. People loved it. We were a hit! And we made money too. The Block Association’s reputation started to grow, for both people in the immediate neighborhood and for people in the surrounding area

TED: Here are some pictures from various block parties from 1977-1986.

Besides the Gershwin-themed Block Party, we also remember another outstanding one, “Turn of the Century NY” where neighbors came in costume.

Our block parties continued to bring in the revenue we needed. Moreover, they were important community events bringing us all closer. Admittedly, these were big productions that required a lot of volunteer effort.

There were some other Block Association program/fundraising highlights we remember in these early years.

In 1973, Fred Fried, who lived in 875 WEA, presented a slide lecture, “How the West Was Won.” Fred, a Smithsonian Fellow and NY historian and author, told the history of the West Side from 1810 to the present.

In 1975, Gretchen Cryer, our neighborhood award-winning theater artist and writer who lives in 885 WEA, produced the “Best of the West.” This musical showcase brought together celebrated performers in the neighborhood and on the West
Side for the benefit of the Block Association.

The Block Association also produced a successful Cookbook in the late 70’s, gathering recipes from residents in the area.

ASYA: Another equally important community-building event that started perhaps 40 years ago is our now famous Halloween Parade. Originally it was a small event so the kids in the neighborhood would have an opportunity to show off their costumes. We seem to recall the Halloween Parade was Cherie Tredanari’s brainchild. A few tables were set up on WEA between 875 and 865; members of the block association board handed out doughnuts and apples. The kids then circled around showing off their costumes. Everyone in costume won a prize.

Over the years, as the number of kids grew larger and larger, it was a challenge for the judges to have enough categories so that every child could be recognized. As the event grew, more apples and doughnuts were needed; people agreed to bake cakes and cookies. Cherie and I spearheaded a crew to assemble packages of treats long before the event itself. Then, along with others such as Mildred Speiser, we sat at a long table, distributing the treats so everyone came away with something.

Cherie

Jonathan as Peter Pan and ready for the Halloween Parade

The Parade!

.As we all know, our Halloween Parade has become one of the signature events of the Block Association. Eventually 102nd St. was blocked off so more people could mingle and assemble before and after the parade.

TED: As you may have gathered, our beloved friends, Len and Cherie, were mainstays of our neighborhood. Len, who liked to think of himself as the Mayor of 103rd St., knew everyone. Cherie adored this neighborhood and took enormous pride in what she and Len had done to make this area more liveable and friendly. The day her sculpture was installed on the median strip at 106th and Broadway, where it still remains, may have been one of the proudest days of her life. How appropriate it is that with the Block Association’s leadership, a memorial bench on the upper level of Riverside Park near 103rd St., overlooking our streets, was dedicated in their honor in recognition for all they did for all of us. The plaque below reads, "Len and Cherie Tredanari – For what they gave our neighborhood…They love life, family, friends, food, wine, art, and this park --- Always, Our Treds."

ASYA: During these beginning years of our Block Association, other block associations started to form on the Upper West Side. Soon we were all starting to talk to one another about common issues. As a result, the first steps were taken to form the area Coalition of Block Associations above 96th St. We discovered the name “Bloomingdale District” was used to refer to part of the Upper West Side – from 96th St. to 110th St and bounded on the east by Amsterdam Ave. and Riverside Drive. Its name was a variation of the description given to the area by the Dutch settlers, likely “Bloemendaal,” a town in the tulip region.
Accordingly, the Coalition was named the Bloomingdale Area Coalition, and we started getting more attention from elected officials, city agencies, and the police precinct.

As indicated earlier, in the early 70’s when the Block Association was formed, certain streets were really rough. The lower part of 103rd St,, between West End and Broadway, then had two of the worst SRO’s (Single Room Occupancy) buildings in the city. The past glory of the Marseilles Hotel had deteriorated significantly and parts of it burned-out. The Alexandria had become a haven for drug dealing and crime.

The Block Association was determined to do something about this. Accordingly, when we learned that the West Side Federation for Senior Housing (WSFSH) might possibly be interested in developing the Marseilles into senior housing, we decided to try to help to make this happen. WSFSH needed funds to engage legal support for this transition. Accordingly, the Block Association committed itself to a grassroots fundraising campaign to help. We organized teams of people to be at the subway each morning and evening asking for donations towards this effort. People also did this going door to door in their apartment buildings. The funds raised and the support of the Block Association were vital to the eventual successful transformation of the Marseilles.

Hotel Marseilles

"...an ideal stopping place"

Hotel Alexandria

Another partnership which has had a significant impact on the Block Association developed when the Lynwood Nursing Home on 102nd St. was sold to become the Saint Luke’s Halfway House which opened in 1974. Initial nervousness soon abated as the Block Association and the Halfway House worked hard to strengthen our relationship and collaborations. Residents at Saint Lukes have been supportive throughout the years of many of our Block Association events.

TED: Over these 50 years the Block Association has been a constant, despite the transition of many buildings from rental apartments to coops, despite the many changes that happened in our neighborhood, despite how often the streetscape on Broadway has changed!

When we first came to the neighborhood, on the northwest corner of 103rd St., for example, Mr. Abolafia had a wonderful flower stand there for many years. Directly across the street, where Subway used to be and where the Purple Circle Nursery School will soon be, there was a coffee shop, the Red Chimney. Where Janovic’s was until recently, there used to be Lamston’s, our local five and dime store that sold everything. On the West Broadway block between 102nd and 103rd, there was a Chinese restaurant, the Harbin Inn. Some of you may recall the fact that the Tredanari’s son, Gregory, opened a cheese and pasta store and restaurant where Café du Soleil is now located.

On the east side of Broadway between 103rd and 104th was the Edison Theater, a movie theater built in 1913, where for most of its life it showed second and third run double bills, occasionally first runs. In the late 60’s it showed films with Spanish subtitles, then all Spanish films. It was eventually demolished to build the new apartment building there. On the same block, at the southeast corner of Broadway and 104th St., now the location of City MD, is one of the extraordinary architectural treasures of our area, a former Horn and Hardart Automat which closed in 1953 and was declared a NYC Landmark in 2007. The building’s fanciful Art Deco ornamentation was covered over for many years until it was uncovered when City MD moved in.

Broadway certainly changed, but the sense of community strengthened in large part because of the Block Association. It’s been like our own grassroots government, helping to make this area often seem like a small town.

We love knowing that Humphrey Bogart and George Gershwin and the award-winning composer, Charles Wuorinen lived in this area! We take pride that Norman Rockwell lived nearby, on 103rd St., east of Broadway.

But we especially value the Block Association because it’s always thinking about our blocks’ past, present, and future. We love knowing the architectural history of the buildings surrounding us, but we appreciate the Block Association is making sure our streetlamps are working so we can see our buildings. We cherish the many ways the Block Association brings us together. Our continuing Block Parties remain important community events and revenue generators – and yes, they always require a lot of work to organize them!

Besides the Halloween Parade, another signature event has become the Holiday Caroling. For nearly 40 years Anthony Belov has magnificently led with skill and style our Block annual Winter Solstice Caroling, bringing good holiday cheer and the spirit of small-town life to our neighborhood. Annually, we also celebrate our own Rite of Spring, with our own tree-well plantings, reminding us all of the beauty of nature and the importance of our trees. All of these activities shape our sense of community, helping strangers become neighbors and friends, even extended family.

ASYA: From the start we wanted our Block Association to be something special. How grateful we all are that it still remains so! It is the spirit of this community that has always made it something special!

Thanks to all the people over the years who have led the organization for all of us – and thanks to the many, many people who, under their leadership, have generously volunteered their time and energy, creativity, and support which have allowed us to get to this special anniversary moment.

TED: One of my favorite books about New York is EB White’s New York. In it, he says:

“One of the oft-quoted thumbnail sketch of New York is, of course: “It’s a wonderful place, but I’d hate to live there.” I have an idea that people from villages and small towns, people accustomed to the convenience and the friendliness of neighborhood over-the-fence living, are unaware that life in New York follows the neighborhood pattern. The city is literally a composite of tens of thousands of neighborhood units. There are, of course, the big districts and big units: Chelsea and Murray Hill and Gramercy (which are residential units), Harlem.., Greenwich Village.., and there is Radio City, Peter Cooper Village, the Medical Center..,and many other sections each of which has some distinguishing characteristic. But the curious thing about New York is that each large geographical unit is composed of countless small neighborhoods. Each neighborhood is virtually self-sufficient, usually it is no more than two or three blocks long and a couple of blocks wide. Each area is a city within a city within a city.”

No matter where you live in New York, generally you’ll find within a block or two or three, a self-contained city – more or less – with its grocery store, newsstand, cleaners, laundry, deli, flower shop, shoe repair, etc. – because there’s a critical mass who need such services.

Yes, we do live in an extraordinary neighborhood- Yes, it is like a small town.

Our Block association newsletter masthead

Thanks for our 102nd and 103rd St. Block Association for these 50 years! Despite all the changes we’ve seen and lived through in this area, we’ve all been woven into the history and tapestry of these blocks, this Bloomingdale area, and the ever-changing magnificent fabric of this great city we think of as “home.

And, as we all know, there really is no place like home!

And so, we raise a glass of – you guessed it! – Tred Red!- still lovingly made by the Tredanari Family.

ASYA: We salute those who started this Block Association.

We celebrate everyone who has worked so hard to help it flourish. We thank all those have contributed their generosity of coin, time, and spirit to keep it going.

We pass on with pride and honor the legacy of these 50 years of the 102nd and 103rd St Block Association to all those who will follow us in this neighborhood and shape its future.

Thank you all. There really is no place like home!

Tred Red

Len

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Open Discussion on Open Streets

5/31/2021

Join the Block Association on June 15 for a Q&A about W. 103rd St. as an Open Street

West 103rd Street between West End Avenue and Broadway on Earth Day 2021

By Caitlin Hawke

New sign seen at the corner of Broadway and West 103rd Street

Perhaps you've noticed the new sign at right which sits at the corner of W. 103rd Street and Broadway: "Room to Move! Open Streets." Or maybe you joined in the 2021 Earth Day events above.

To quote my favorite octogenerian: "Something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?" Well here's a chance to come find out more. For an open discussion on this NYC designation of W. 103rd Street, join our next meeting on June 15. Below are further details from the board of directors about this Q&A with neighbor Peter Frishauf.

"The Block Association invites you to attend the virtual monthly West 102nd & 103rd Streets Block Association meeting scheduled for Tuesday, June 15th, 2021, at 8 p.m. An IMPORTANT agenda item is a discussion of the NYC designation of West 103rd Street between Broadway and Riverside Drive as an Open Street with the intention of creating an open corridor on West 103rd Street from Central Park to Riverside Park.

The Board of Directors of the Block Association is eager to get your feedback about this designation and how it affects you and hope that you can attend this meeting.

Peter Frishauf, a neighbor and longtime member of the association as well as an advocate for Open Streets, will be there to answer questions about how this designation occurred and what it means.

To receive a Zoom invitation to the June 15th meeting, please RSVP to AMZoom@w102-103blockassn.org."

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A New Day Dawns in Bloomingdale

1/1/2021

Happy Y2K21

By Caitlin Hawke

Happy New Year, neighbors. Have you ever in your life been happier to slam the door shut on a year?

There is always hope, anticipation, and refreshment in the embrace of a January first. We didn't have the crazy post-holiday hubbub to heighten the anticipation of NYE this year. And of course the Times Square situation was transformed by you-know-what. It's just different.

I chose this lovely NYC rooftop picture as the way to ring in 2021. Taken by neighbor Bill Altham a few years back, the image of a cozy snowfall, perhaps a day dawning -- perhaps waning -- the lights of neighboring apartments scintillating in the crisp winter duskiness, all conjure up the current interior lives of New Yorkers. The ones we've become intimately familiar with as we changed pace under Mother Nature's huge "STOP" sign.

It's a little Hopperesque in the way it telegraphs solitude. This year, we've all been there: seated near the window, looking out in the wee hours, searching for another being, breathing in masklessly from a safe perch, breathing out patiently asking for 'serenity now' as we motor through what was not conceivable to us one year ago today. Yet all the signs were there, and by January 1 of last year, our Annus covidus was foreordained.

It was a tremendously painful year. Our country has collectively decided not to dwell on the unquantifiable losses but to focus on the upbeat news of coming vaccinations. But I take homefield pride in how our neighborhood banded together: masking up, helping each other, supporting local businesses, dining out gamely come wind and rain, gratefully acknowledging essential workers, particularly at 7pm. I have profound respect for every worker in every shop, on every subway train, and on the frontlines. I have profound sorrow for and solidarity with every business owner struggling to make it to the pandemic's end. And respect for any landlord who has forgiven rent or worked with commercial tenants caught in the clutches of the insta-nightmare that befell us early last year.

Most poetic, most powerful, most beautiful, most lasting was how a state of illbeing -- catalyzed by the inequities of covid's toll -- helped power the voices of Black Lives Matter and woke us from our sleepwalk.

We have come to. We cannot go backwards again. We hold these truths to be self-evident.

Welcome to 2021, Bloomingdalers. May it find and keep you healthy. And may our elbow bumps soon transform into handshakes, hugs.

Credit: Bill Altham, 2015: Looking southward over West 104th Street toward Amsterdam Avenue

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Election Day 2020 Arrives

11/2/2020

Rushed Limbo, Bob Dylan, and the Event Horizon

Mother of Muses unleash your wrath
Things I can’t see - they’re blocking my path
Show me your wisdom - tell me my fate
Put me upright - make me walk straight
Forge my identity from the inside out
You know what I’m talking about

~ Bob Dylan
"Mother of Muses" from Rough and Rowdy Ways, 2020

By Caitlin Hawke

Down to the quadrennial wire, I find myself thinking about this day four years ago. Reading the blog post “Finding Strength in Pain” now makes it seem like I knew what would go down in the 2016 contest. But 20/20 hindsight is not exactly a superpower. I surely did not know then. And I don’t know now: what indeed will happen Tuesday and in the weeks to come?

On that election morning, I was already seeking the balm of Bob Dylan and distracting myself with the glow of his Nobel Prize. Even without a single live performance this year — a first that I know of since 1977 — Bob Dylan pierced through the lockdown with explosively creative and beautifully haunting new songs on his album Rough and Rowdy Ways. Seeing the certainty of the Never Ending Tour — and that of all other cultural institutions — shaken and taken right to the brink of existence has been humbling.

The state of cultural institutions pales in comparison to the astounding toll of human lives. But the loss of the industry is a maiming to New York’s identity, and one that we will contend with for years to come if only for the economic impact, which to me is not the most of it. That said, if we’re tabulating perversities such as the silver linings of Covid, I’ll happily add to the list an unimaginable coming boom from our artists experiencing a world on pause. A balm to look forward to.

For Election Day 2020, the pandemic has enhanced the intensity, increasing the stakes and the risks people feel worth taking. The early voting lines in our neighborhood alone and the ambiance of neighbors talking to neighbors in those lines indicate an engagement we’ve never experienced before and put me in mind of the 1994 general election in South Africa, which we watched high on our horse. Little did we know: there but for the grace of voices unheard would go we. Our 2020 lines were more spread out due to social distancing, but the snaking and voter tenacity in the face of potential disenfranchisement rhyme.

I feel as if I am experiencing all of this in a state of Rushed Limbo. I want to see more change, more enfranchisement, more civil society in action. Again, such are the perverse silver linings of this moment in our country — things we shouldn’t have to suffer through a constitutional or healthcare meltdown in order to harness. But perhaps this is just human nature, that action comes at the 59th minute of the 11th hour.

Limbo. Yes, I want the limbo of uncertainty to end. Rushed because I want to savor and let ferment all the powerful potential that’s coalesced in 2020. I want to herald the vindication of all the Colin Kaepernicks who knew. Who tried to tell a country not ready to hear. I want this massive populist potential to be what saves us after three branches of government have neither checked nor balanced one another or our sinking democracy.

The time signature of 2020 defies notational convention. It’s more like a warping than anything else. To borrow from an astrophysical metaphor, I feel like I am sitting just beyond the event horizon of a black hole watching a clock slow down to imperceptible forward momentum. Y2K20 has done all it could to spaghettify us.

At this galactic Rubicon, will we snap? Or will we break free from the gravitational pull, claw back to the edge, move away from the event horizon, and see clocks resume their normal speed. And return to the Limbo, not as a state of anxiety but as a living room dance, done with family and friends in close proximity.

What are these dark days I see in this world so badly bent
How can I redeem the time - the time so idly spent
How much longer can it last - how long can this go on
I embraced my love put down my head
and I crossed the Rubicon

~ Bob Dylan
"Crossing the Rubicon" from Rough and Rowdy Ways, 2020

Hang tough, fellow Bloomingdalers. See you on the other side of this event's horizon.

And Now for Something Completely Different, The Lagniappe

The video embedded below is my lagniappe to you -- a balm in the form of Bob Dylan's "Key West" from his recent album. As one commenter on youtube wrote "You could walk alone down a long and winding road, swim across the seven oceans, climb a steep snowy mountain with a smile on your face if you had Bob Dylan singing the song in your ears." I hope you will enjoy it. If you are reading this in your email subscription to this blog, you'll have to click on the blog title to go to the post online and stream the song.

And alas it is true, there will be no Bob Dylan residency on the Upper West Side this year, but you can relive Bob@Beacon (1) here, (2)here and (3)here.

(1)http://www.boblinks.com/112319r.html#2
(2)https://www.westsiderag.com/2019/12/10/an-appreciation-bob-dylan-keeps-coming-back-to-the-beacon-theatre-and-i-havent-had-nearly-enough
(3)https://www.w102-103blockassn.org/blog/bob-on-broadway

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You Put Your Feet in the Street - Want to Keep Them There?

10/21/2020

Join Neighbors on Friday afternoon for the Big Reveal of "W103rd St. Re-Imagined"

By Caitlin Hawke

The year 2020 has thrown just about everything up into the air. We've paused, and in the pause our hyperlocal selves have had time and space to re-embrace our immediate environs. You've enjoyed your roof, your stoop, your sidewalk, your bike, and, when needed, your street as you spilled into the curb to give wide berth to each other. But you've also enjoyed each other, bumping into someone -- anyone -- after days of solitude was the highlight of many a 2020 day.

While not without controversy, the opening up of streets to people undeniably gave pedestrians refuge -- a huge port in the storm of Covid. Perhaps you've noticed that W. 103rd Street has been one of the streets that opened for neighbors -- especially kids -- to enjoy. New York City calls these 'Open Streets' as they are open and safe for walkers, bicyclists, and those in wheelchairs. Cars, delivery, and service vehicles have access, subject to a 5 m.p.h. speed limit. A harbinger of things to come?

There are many neighbors who hope that with all these open streets, we've crossed the Rubicon. Many have been buoyed by this unexpected momentum of prioritizing people over traffic. Of cleaner air and quieter airwaves.

It turns out that the groups Open Plans and Street Plans have been re-imagining a lot about W. 103rd Street, which near Broadway is home to an older adult community -- The Marseilles. Also, in the Marseilles's vacant storefrontage, the Purple Circle early childhood program will soon take up residence. Young and old cheek by jowl and in need of green space. That might also be an engine for the re-imagination of W. 103rd Street.

So here's a chance for you to come learn more for yourself about what's being tossed around. At a socially-distanced, outdoor occasion this Friday, Open Plans and Street Plans will welcome your input and invite you to complete surveys about how you might use W. 103rd Street as a magic-carpet connector from Riverside Park to Central Park.

If 2020 has taught us anything, it's that we have to be prepared for everything! We must be willing to roll up our sleeves to make the society, the city, and the neighborhoods that we want. When coronavirus is no longer a threat, we need to be able to find each other and commune again. We need to seed the next generation of street-level commerce that has been chiseled away by years of our neglect, which I've written about at these links:

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

Incredibly, we saw a remarkable reanimation of Broadway and Amsterdam with the recent outdoor café life, and perhaps there's a whole new business model there for our restaurants. But we do know that block after block of empty storefronts coupled with fewer pedestrians is a bad combo.

The pressure is still very much on for those very businesses who were hanging on pre-pandemic, and who now have been dealt a coup de grace by months of closure. Countless -- literally countless -- are lost and gone forever. Transformation can happen -- and often does happen -- quickly. Or at least tipping points come fast without warning after a long priming.

As we grind through these very hard times, there is so much potential right now to build back the way we want it, to push to the tipping point of our choosing. To demand reform at the commercial storefront level. To support greener streets and more vibrant avenues. To favor the strengthening of the fabric for all to benefit from.

I love this neighborhood and can imagine only the sky as the limit for Bloomingdale.

So mask up, come out on Friday to the SW corner of W. 103rd and Broadway, and tell the folks who are driving this innovative project what you think about their rethinking.

In the morning, you may find a parking space or two transformed into a parklet. And starting at noon, the Open Plans and Street Plans folks will be standing by to hear your take.

Rain date is October 30th. More below.

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Getting Our Civic Houses in Order: Part 3

9/29/2020

Plan How You Will Vote in the November 3rd Election

By Caitlin Hawke

Okay, 2020 has done its more-than-fair share to coop us up. Some of us are returning to the life we love of walking the neighborhood and soaking in the city, masked and somewhat anonymous. We have a governor who is on the qui vive, watching Covid-19 positivity test rates and hospital admissions like the proverbial hawk. He's got one hand on the valve that seals our fate as to whether we walk freely or return to our confinement.

We know not what the following weeks will bring.

But we do know that November 3 is galloping in.

Come Election Day, how will you cast your actual vote? Not who will you vote for. How will you get that vote registered. Do you have a plan? Like a great chef, with a mise-en-place first in mind, then in deed, have you envisioned how you will act on what you visualize: physically casting your ballot for POTUS and all the other races in play? Are you going -- first thing -- to your poll the morning of November 3rd? (Do you know where you poll is?! Find it here.) Are you worried about being in a long line, a crowd, exhalate circling? Perhaps you envision mailing in your vote? Did you request your absentee ballot? Do you know if your application for the absentee ballot was accepted? Are you certain you are registered to vote?

There's word from the board of elections that absentee ballots should be mailing out this week. When you get yours, will you mail it in or drop it at a polling place?

A lot of questions! Solace may come in the good feeling that having a concrete plan brings.

You must request your absentee ballot by October 27th, but that is very late in the game given our snail mail system. Why not request it today right here:

https://nycabsentee.com/absentee

We are all eligible to vote with an absentee ballot as we've been affected by Covid-19 or are concerned with the potential of contracting the virus. In your application for an absentee ballot, make sure to check the box for "Temporary Illness". The definition has been expanded to include "a risk of contracting or spreading a disease" such as Covid-19.

Your ballot must be postmarked by November 3rd to count, but get it in early. You never know which gremlin will gum up the works of the ghosted sorting machines.

Perhaps you've already requested your mail-in/absentee ballot. Did you know can track your request to learn if your application (or request) for your absentee ballot was approved and learn whether it's making its way to you? Yup! You sure can, right here:

https://nycabsentee.com/tracking

Make certain to enter your information exactly as it appears in your voter record. Failure to do so may result in a “Record Not Found”.

This does not mean you are not eligible! For further assistance, you can call 1-866-VOTE-NYC or email AbsenteeHelp@boe.nyc.

We spent all spring getting our houses in order. Now is the time to attend to our civic houses. Only 58.1% of our voting-eligible population voted in the 2016 election or some 138 million people, down from 58.6% in 2012 and a recent high of 61.6% in 2008.

Lamentable.

Of course, behind those percentages are literally millions of poll stories of effort and perseverance, of dismay and disappointment, of iron wills and of towels thrown in.

Get ready to vote your hearts out. Stay safe. Stay vigilant. And most of all: make your plan for how to cast your vote.

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Getting Our Civic Houses in Order: Part 2

9/28/2020

Register to Vote by the October 9th Deadline

An edit to yesterday's post: After publishing "Getting Our Civic Houses in Order: Part 1, The 2020 Census," I added the information that while federal U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ruled last week that the 2020 Census count be extended until October 31, 2020, the Trump administration is appealing that ruling. Conclusion: get your count in and fill out the census without delay: www.my2020census.gov.

By Caitlin Hawke

This is Part 2 of a three-part series of posts on civil society since it seems worth wondering when the check and balance of the citizenry has ever been poised to have as big an impact as it will on November 3, 2020. We have gone through the gantlet of a cruel year, and we went through it very much together in New York. I saw you out there in your windows in the darkest days banging on pots. I saw you ferrying groceries and staffing stores as essential workers. I saw you poking your head up and returning to a (masked) semblance of normalcy. And I see you now, ready to hunker down and keep NYC safe for the indoor season. But the cruelty of a once-in-a-century pandemic has put emphatic punctuation on how crucial leadership is in our time of need. Leaders are of our choosing. And we have many times-of-need bearing down on us still. I am looking at you: ravaged New York economy, west coast fires and rapidly changing climate, and vaccine of our deliverance.

Who do you want governing through it all?

Dear neighbors, as if you needed reminding, Election Day Approaches. And it is finally our turn again. Your house may be pristine from months of winnowing, but is your Civic House in order?

For one, are you registered to vote?

Friday, October 9th, is your deadline to register to vote. But don't delay; go to vote.nyc or call 866-868-3692 to verify if you are registered or to obtain registration instructions. Once registered, vote early or request your absentee ballot, also known as your mail-in ballot. Act now or forever hold your peace.

Register to vote here:
www.vote.nyc/page/register-vote

Verify whether you are already registered to vote here:
www.vote.nyc/page/am-i-registered

What else can you? Talk to your family and friends and see if they have their civic houses in order. Share this blog post. Ask them what their plan is to cast their vote.

Tomorrow, you'll see information here about absentee voting. Stay tuned. Stay vigilant. Remain present. But if needed, vote absentee.

For Part 1, see yesterday's post about the 2020 Census. You still have time to tidy up that room of your civic house. Be counted not just for the sake of the NYC and NYS budgets and representation, do it for the historians to come and the future that is unfurling at breakneck speed. The US Census report is a goldmine for researchers and genealogists. And it is a critical tool for equity in our society. 2020 has asked you to look her in the face and accept her painful lessons about what just society looks like. She got us out the door onto the long road. Now comes the time to count every person, seize our enfranchisement by registering to vote (today's post), and make sure your vote is cast (tomorrow's post).

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Getting Our Civic Houses in Order: Part 1

9/27/2020

2020 Census

By Caitlin Hawke

Edit: Post-publication of this blog post, I am adding the information that while federal U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ruled last week that the 2020 Census count be extended until October 31, 2020, the Trump administration is appealing that ruling. Conclusion: get your count in and fill out the census without delay: www.my2020census.gov.

This is one of three posts this week about civil society. As a community of citizens, we are -- for better or worse -- linked by our collective activity. I can't recall a time in my life when the check and balance civil society represents had more potential for impact.

So here is part one. We all have two days to complete the 2020 Census. It closes on September 30th. In my innocence, I have always loved the historic censuses -- some on microfilm, some digital -- to search for ancestors and make other inferences for research purposes. The idea of a census that so vastly undercounts our population -- in this so-called advanced and digial era -- smacks at the gob.

Have you been counted? Have yours been counted?

Here's one last push. To make sure you're in there so NYC, NYS, the USA and future historians may all benefit from a full and accurate count, go to www.my2020census.gov. The clock is ticking loudly at this 59th minute of the 11th hour.

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The Second Wave Rolls In

6/3/2020

And It's High Tide in America

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.

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Coronarama

5/28/2020

Neighborhood Photographers Document Life in Lockdown

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.

Live in the Time of Covid-19 - A Gallery by the BAiP Photography Group

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.

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Thunder and Angels Today

4/27/2020

Air Force and Navy to Tip Their Wings to Our Essential Workforce at Noon

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.

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By George, He's Done It!

4/12/2020

The Bloomingdale School of Music Gets the Full Treatment by 'George to the Rescue'

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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The Logarithmic Power of One

3/20/2020

And the Irrepressible Homo Sapiens Not-so-sapiens

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.

@LauraBenanti #SunshineSongs my daughter as Gavroche channeling her best Eliza Doolittle cockney accent! pic.twitter.com/wFi1GXY5PU
— Marianne Zollman (@M2Zollman) March 14, 2020

I love this!! Cc @LauraBenanti #SunshineSongs https://t.co/PDF1bOYgqu
— Brittany Kaplan (@BrittanyLKaplan) March 21, 2020

Letting the sunshine in at the end of our last rehearsal before our school closed on Friday. @LauraBenanti #sunshinesongs □□ pic.twitter.com/5TluZcr9z9
— Sydney Sudmals (@SSudmals) March 16, 2020

Part 2 !!! #HamAtHome #Sunshinesongs #Hamilton pic.twitter.com/B5mjY0IFT4
— Lance Avery Brown (@Lxnce2Times_) March 18, 2020

So, with this virus going around we are not able to perform our show Grease. So thanks to @laurabenanti I can share this performance since we most likely won’t have an audience □❣️ #sunshinesongs #SunshineSongs pic.twitter.com/K0AnxGqZet
— Tay✨□□❤️ (@thrilledlove) March 18, 2020

Instead of having rehearsal that day our director called a meeting to tell us that our production of Rent has been postponed. To end it on a good note we sang Seasons of Love! It was very heartbreaking news but things will get better! #SunshineSongs pic.twitter.com/ggF8UYQ4YL
— ava (@milkitava) March 18, 2020

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Love (and Community) in the Time of COVID 19

3/8/2020

"The Importance of Personal Hygiene Cannot be Overemphasized"

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.

COVID-19 FACT SHEET -->

covid-19_fact_sheet_final_03022020.pdf
File Size:	203 kb
File Type:	pdf

COVID-19 FLYER FOR POSTING-->

covid-19_flyer_print_03022020.jpg
File Size:	1352 kb
File Type:	jpg

RESIDENTIAL BUILDING DISINFECTION GUIDE -->

disinfection-guidance-for-commercial-residential-covid19.pdf
File Size:	231 kb
File Type:	pdf

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This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no fooling around

2/29/2020

Hold Tight, We're in for Nasty Weather

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.

"The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet on the ground, head in the sky
It's okay, I know nothing's wrong, nothing"
~ David Byrne, Talking Heads

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What's Your Senior Experience?

12/8/2019

Find Resources at CB7's Resource Fair for Older Adults on December 11

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).

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SOS on the UWS

12/5/2019

Thursday, December 5, 6:30 p.m.

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.

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Another One from the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group

11/30/2019

December 4, 6:30 p.m. at Hostelling International NYC

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!

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Cultural Festival at the New York Buddhist Church

10/25/2019

By Caitlin Hawke

Saturday is Autumn Festival Day at the New York Buddhist Church on Riverside Drive between W. 105th and 106th Street.

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.

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Community Tucked inside Community

10/13/2019

The BAiP Founders Oral History Project Debuts on Wednesday, October 16

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.

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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An Event from TriBloomingdale: November 7

9/14/2019

Climate: The Positive Role of NYC Parks with Dan Garodnick

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!

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Goatapalooza

5/22/2019

Pictures from Billy Goats Bluff in Riverside Park

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.)

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

Hey 13, That's Bleata Franklin (credit: N. Schneider)

Nap attack! (credit: N Schneider)

They came in droves (credit C. Campbell)

The gals got straight to work. (Credit. D. Zetlan)

Spectating the spectators (credit: D. Zetlan)

A union meeting (credit: P. Sperling)

Safety in numbers (credit: P. Sperling)

You looking at me? (credit: P. Sperling)

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Saturday is Street Fair Yard Sale Day! See You on W. 103rd St!

5/17/2019

Be There! May 18 from 10 am to 4 pm. W. 103rd between WEA and RSD

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!

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The Broadway Where Mom & Pop Once Thrived

4/17/2019

Thursday, April 18 at 6:30 p.m.

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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