Eeyores bookstore, Woolworths, Greens, Morris Bros, Mancy pharmacy, Kandela pizzeria, Leroy pharmacy, The Library restaurant up our block, the movie theater on 89th and bway, Anchor savings bank, H & Hso many memories its crazy. Well, Mike Miller, Id like to inform you that starting a sentence with a preposition (as Historian did) and splitting infinitives (as you did when you said to never start) are both accepted by some of the widely used style manuals. The Upper West Side ( UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. I am still amazed thinking how that now-pristine block was so different. In 1981, I lived on 79th and West End; it was tiny but very comfortable. Its hard to keep up now, tho! And every effort to cure them through large-scale government action only made matters worse, in one of the most potent demonstrations of the law of unintended consequences. 133 E. 65th St, New York. Email me if you want to answer some. I remember The Broadway Nut Shop, outside of which I shook hands with Bobby Kennedy while he was campaigning for Abe Beame in 1965, Steinbergs Dairy Restaurant, next to Irvings Candy store, the Pizza parlor and Serooties? Barbara, that was Sarabeths Kitchen on Amsterdam between 82nd and 83rd. Tuesday Trivia. I remember when Eeyores Children bookstore, around the corner from my apartment building, closed due to declining sales from competition with the newly opened Barnes and Noble megastore on 83rdand Broadway. I was born in 1965 and moved away in 1977 (returned later). A Manhattan townhouse complete with a 33-foot lap pool has hit the market for $17.5 million. I live in my apartment at 102 West 85 since 1986 but I was born on West End Ave in 1947. Learned how to ride my bike down there. I am looking for long-time residents of the Upper West Side to answer some questions about how they think the neighborhood has changed and what they remember. We used to go to and from school on our own. Think about it. Featuring live music nightly, the jazz age is still present in this dimly lit bar, which is a great swanky alternative without the gouging prices. The circle of progress. If you're heading to the Upper West Side to see a Humperdinck fairy tale opera at Lincoln Center, you might just need a drink beforehand. Which makes sense, seeing as the space is decorated like an 18th-century tavern, complete with a portrait of Alexander Hamilton. a retired 31-year veteran NYC high school teacher. 85th St.; 212- 877-0961. Photo of storefronts on Columbus Avenue between 82d and 83rd streets in 1982 by Daniel Weeks. (I hope this continues . That said, its equally good for a drink with a few coworkers, or a catch-up with a friend. POWERED BY. A fellow life-long UWSer and Harvard doctoral student. Retroclubnyc is New York City and Manhattan's best club to celebrate a birthday party, bachelor party, bachelorette party, anniversary party, or engagement party! The Times described it as a block of decaying tenements packed with poor Puerto Rican and Negro families and the gathering place of drunks, narcotics addicts and sexual perverts. It soon became known as the worst block in the city. Mayor Robert Wagner announced a shock attack, an all-out war on the forces of crime, slum blight and poverty on the West Side. What about doing a simple Lexis-Nexis search? My friends lived in the 90s on Columbus and we used to skateboard and hang out all the time. I can just smell the place writing about it. Get some house cocktails at the bar, and if you end up wanting a break from the music (or you come before the music starts), hang out at one of the sidewalk tables out front. Coolsingel Street Cam, Rotterdam. It is bounded by Central Park on the east and the . After my second date, I knew I was going to marry him. I walked home alone from Lincoln Center many, many times and still do without being bothered. Free or royalty-free photos and images. 1. But it was also due to middle-class flight, to people who chose to live free of the menace. Today the Upper West Side is considered one of the richest, cleanest, and most expensive places to live in New York City. People know me from getting out, and introducing myself, instead of planting my face in my smartphone. By Carter B. Horsley. By Craig Horowitz. In their place, smaller clubs like Tunnel opened in Chelsea, and that's when Glam said the "club kids"young, outlandishly dressed people who partied several times a week . I think this was the second time. I was mugged four times before I was 14. Just be aware that the whole place might smell like truffles, since they serve various truffle- and non-truffle-related snacks. According to a 1966 study, out of 150,000 residents, 105,000 were white (of whom 40,000 were Jews); 26,000 came from Spanish-speaking homes; and 18,000 were black. That's right, another Infatuation review for yet another location of The Smith. I worked from 1972-77 at various Cake Masters locations from 72nd Street to 99th Street. Hanging out with kids from the projects as well as kids from riverside drive and Central Park westwas all one nice big mix. Thanks! I lived on the UWS from 1972-1994: 85/WEA, 79/Columbus, 82/Amsterdam, several other addresses. When we came outside onto west 81 street the person who was supposed to meet us and take us home had not shown up. Les Routiers on 89th 5) There was a little magazine stand on the west side of street around Columbus and 83 or 84 was it called Johnnys? I dont agree with the statement that no one went above 72nd if they could help it. Either way, it's there, and it's good. I also remember that the Upper West Side was a true neighborhood, and I remember the slow and then really fast gentrification of the neighborhood in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Several times a year the 79th Block Association shut down the street and organized a street fair. Some of that was due to the destruction of housing not only by the citys own slum-clearance policies but also by the ravages of rent controls that led to the abandonment of hundreds of thousands of apartments. I do remember cake masters on 99 street, party cake on 110, teachers, the gold rail, the American restaurant on 85 & Broadway. This is a consistently crowded restaurant on the Upper East Side that works for everything from date nights to fun group dinners, but the separate bar area up front is also useful when you're just looking for drinks. Of the 35 brownstones that lined the block, only seven remain today. Citerellas always had their fun fish display in the window. I live on W 71 myself. The Cozy Bar (The Dead Poet) So pleaseif youre going to write something about this neighborhood that means so much to so many of us, please dont generalize and please check your facts! The Continental Baths!!! What else. The Dakota Bar - Upper West Side Romance is definitely in the air at the trendy Dakota Bar which is located on Manhattans' chic Upper West Side. I remember The Jaunting Car Inn next to the Ritzs deli between 71 and 70th on Columbus. I lost the gold watch my father gave me for my college graduation. The owner was bought out by the Love Store chain, then the pharmacist went to work at a Duane Reade. The area continues to be among the nations most integrated. These are the moments, large and small, recounted by 36 writers, artists, fashion designers, musicians and more who. This was my dads favorite hangout, as they were a rival of Rizzolis in art books and such. The destruction and construction took years, leaving behind rubble that became at-hand weaponry for kids and gangsters and boarded-up tenements that became crime sites and drug dens. (There werent many rich people on the Upper West Side then, a situation much altered today.) We came to wonder if New York was a place that stunted human possibility instead of expanding it.. . I love that my beloved UWS is a desirable place to live but NOT at the expense of those who came before, struggled, survived and created this complicated, beautiful neighborhood. Apologies for coming to this conversation rather late but felt compelled to share my experience of the UWS. The Nickel Bar all the pre-AIDS era gay bars that made the UWS a gay mecca to rival the Village, and that drew lots of interracial couples to move in and renovate buildings. At least when talking about fairly genteel nabes as we are here. 2023 West Side Rag | All rights reserved. For more photos of UWS storefronts in 1982, click here. Download Upper West Side Nyc stock photos. You can drink one at the L-shaped bar in the corner, or you can grab a little table along the wall. Sometimes for the food. They have a bunch of beers on tap that you definitely wont find on the shelves at Whole Foods, and the dark space works well for a low-key drink with a couple friends. That said, it isnt a gimmicky spot where you pretend to be an early American settler. If you want to pay college prices for that pitcher of Shock Top, come during Happy Hour (until 8pm every day). Two of my favorite restaurants, The All State Cafe, also, on w. 72nd and Nikos at 76th & Broadway were, sadly, priced out of existence. Remember Winnefred Frocks on bway in the 70s. I grew up Local artists sold their wares and the kids tried not to kill themselves in the slightly deflated Moon Bounce. Friday's location on the Upper East Side. Conservatives sometimes invoke the Upper West Side in their lists of petri-dish-like leftist enclaves along with Cambridge and Berkeley, but despite its homogeneous radicalism, it didnt then and doesnt now offer much in the way of interesting, unexpected, or comical ideological excess. Go to George Keeley. Police flooded the area. But Malachy's a fixture on West 72nd Street off Columbus Ave. since the late '80s is the kind of place people like "because it's old and ugly," insisted Mike Mishkin, owner of . They've generously opened up their lobby by transforming it into a cafe and bar inspired by the aesthetic of speakeasies of the 1920's. You'll be lead upstairs to a fancy little space with luxurious seats and bespoke cocktails. There was also Lamstons on 102 street. There is a scene played for laughs where Marsha Mason gets mugged in broad daylight on a tawdry looking Columbus Avenue yes a a movie, but it was absolutely blamable at the time. Retroclubnyc is NYC's top dance club and nightclub playing the best dance music from the 70s, 80s, and 90s thru today including classic disco, freestyle and house music. Get the latest in beer, wine, and cocktail culture sent straight to your inbox. I well remember the Woolworths on Amsterdam, but am at a loss to recall just when it was demolished. And Silk Road. The Ribbon has style and substance and does classic food right. The big open room is filled with tables, and the service is about as friendly as we imagine it would be in a neighborhood pub in Ireland. Theres a bar in the middle of the room, some banquette seating, and a few tables - plus floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on 72nd Street. About fifty of us stood across the street and watched, as though we were attending a wake. Columbus and Amsterdam avenues were to be avoided though we had to cross them to hang out in Central Parkmostly by the fountain. This is genuine urban renewal, which rose from once-rank soil after the soil was, finally, properly tended and tilled and brought once again to life. A map was created of all gay bars and gay spaces from 1859 to now. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. I lived on W 73rd b/ Columbus & CPW from 1974-1987 and saw SO many changes the gentrification got to be too much, so I moved up to 108th Street. The middle class was split between the professionals of the New York intelligentsiamedia and intellectuals and academics and psychoanalystsand more down-to-earth educated folk, public school teachers and union officials and social workers. Here is a nice trip down memory lane of the 1980's! There was a very nice gelato place in the late 1980s, but its name eludes me. I lived on 79th street from 1976 to 2011 in the rent-stabilized apartment I grew up in, and over that time I have seen the neighborhood change drastically. Eventually the projects were built, but by this point the displaced residents of West 84th and others like them had been moved like chess pieces around the New York City board to other neighborhoods, worsening them. Let me correct myself for Sarabeths Kitchen was between 79th and 80th Streets on Amsterdam across from Macs. We dont mean this as an insult to the land above 59th Street, but The Owls Tail is the sort of place you expect to find downtown. If you want anecdotes, thats one thing; Im happy to provide them. This big bar on Amsterdam Ave feels like the kind of place you might have gone junior year, complete with foosball, pool tables, and, yes, intense games of beer pong. Nestled on the Upper West Side, Bodega 88 features many big screens behind the bar and smaller individual screens at every booth. But in 1972 and 1973, Charlie Chop-off had so little resonance beyond the blocks near me that when I made mention of it in a short story I read to my eighth-grade classin a school on the Upper West Sidemy classmates hadnt heard of it. A little more than a decade later, my sisters shared an apartment in a midrise next door to what had been Lyfords brownstone. Jimmys penis had been cut off. In Lyfords celebrated 1966 account of the Upper West Sides decline, The Airtight Cage, he writes of the airmail that landed in the backyard of his brownstone on 92nd between Columbus and Central Park West from the windows of the row of tenements on 93rd street: My first introduction to airmail was a bag of rotten food that landed in my back yard a week after I bought the house.. . I love all the varying opinions and experiences. Long gone is the divine Eclair Bakery on W. 72nd St. and the Royale. But this is the case in most major cities going through development and change. 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