1910: Broadway and West 109th Street |
Seeking Your Unwanted Treasures for Our Rummage Table on May 16th ![]() Your Block Association is calling all neighbors: we want your stuff. Consider this a call to arms for all donations of household goods, great kitchen items, tchotchkes, kids' stuff, and anything else that you may not want but that someone else might snap up. Donations of this sort benefit the Block Association tremendously. Our rummage table brings in several hundred dollars each year to benefit our various projects. So if you don't have time to pull together your own table, let us unburden you of those things that are clogging up your closets, hallways and storage spaces. Please deliver donations to the doorman at 240 West 102nd Street just west of Broadway between 8 a.m. and midnight all week long, or bring them to our rummage table at the Spring Bazaar this Saturday. By Caitlin Hawke Planting Day at Last! ![]() Saturday was the Block Association's annual Spring Planting Day. And what a day it was. Rather than sate you with eye candy here, I should entice you out to the curb to have a look-see. Or perhaps these last days you've already noticed that over 60 men, women and children were hard at work beautifying last weekend. Scroll through the gallery below for a gander. But get out there and examine the earth candy...it will just keep getting better with H2O, TLC and us. Huge thanks to 865 West End Avenue for hosting the supplies. And to all the Block Association members and organizers who came out: Chapeau! By Caitlin Hawke Photo Credit: Celia Knight Sometime after 1904: Broadway and West 98th Street - Subterranean By Caitlin Hawke
A Tree Grew in Manhattan ![]() I have been mulling this post for a while, wrapping my head around a recent offense in our neighborhood. So Earth Day seemed like a good time to get this off my chest. While thinking about this local event, I found myself flipping back decades. Growing up in leafy Washington, DC, I had an urban childhood that was surprisingly suburban. Quiet, charmed, and green. One day, returning home from elementary school, I was greeted by my chastened mother who informed her children that the elm tree outside our bedroom windows had been hit by disease. It would come down. Surely, I thought, she was mistaken. The leaves were green; the massive trunk signaled a being that could endure. But it was true that other trees on our street had been unable to resist some beetle bearing a fungus. Despite its full canopy, our tree was infected, dying. It would be felled. This just left the question of when. And this preoccupied me completely. I was not some precocious environmentally-aware kid. But the thought of losing that tree was like losing a member of my family, and I couldn't digest it. Every subsequent afternoon, rounding the last bend on my walk home from school, I would hold my breath: had the chainsaws done their work that day? And for many days, I was relieved to find it still standing. Until, of course, the day when I rounded that bend and could see the sky; all was different. There was glaring sunlight where shade had been and stacks of wood in the parking strip. Our majestic tree was reduced to a stump. Soon a tree replaced our elm. But I have never looked at this "new" tree without thinking of the one that came before. And decades later, it is starting to look like a mature, shade-throwing beauty. But it sure took time. So when a few weeks ago I learned the news that someone in our midst took an ax to a ginkgo tree on the east side of West End Avenue just south of West 103rd Street, I reeled. Surveillance video recorded a man leaving a nearby building around 2:30 a.m. one March night carrying a hatchet-like tool. In a manic, desperate or appallingly selfish act, this individual -- it seems -- hacked a crude waist-high ring around the tree's circumference. "Ringing" or "girding" in such a fashion causes certain death to a tree since the bark, like our skin, provides a layer of protection from invaders, protection from the sun, and transport of nutrients. Our neighbor with the greenest thumb, Costello Caldwell, has ministered to the tree, protecting the scarred area with plastic and a graft of bark.
So now I round the corner from West 103rd Street onto West End Avenue each day when I return home. And I hold my breath in the hope that this tree remains upright and survives. And should it fail to, I will watch a tree that replaces it grow and flourish in the ginkgo's place. But I will never forget the ugliness that made it so. And I sincerely doubt that I am alone on West End Avenue. By Caitlin Hawke P.S. Don't miss our Spring Planting Day on May 2nd. Details may be found on our calendar. Also that day, our neighbors in the West 80s are organizing the "Love Your Tree Day" for the "greening and cleaning" of the West Side "one tree at a time." More information may be downloaded in the document below. My guess is that we're in the spirit more than ever this year. ![]()
Understanding SCRIE, DRIE, Rent Laws and Other Housing Issues Following the Block Association's recent annual meeting, there are some very good resources about housing that might come in handy for our members below. City Council Member Helen Rosenthal offers clinics on first Wednesdays of the month at 6 p.m. Upcoming topics in May and June include SCRIE, DRIE, Succession Rights, Preferential Rights and Non-Primary Residence. The organization Right To Counsel offers town hall sessions on eviction proceedings. The Office of the Attorney General has resources regarding tenants' rights and shareholders' responsibilities in coop and condo conversions. Below are downloadable flyers with important contact information should wish to have further information. By Caitlin Hawke ![]()
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1920s: Broadway and West 103rd Street By Caitlin Hawke ![]() Originally constructed as a hotel just as the IRT was nearing completion in 1905, the Marseilles is a Beaux-Arts neighborhood gem that was landmarked in 1990. This vintage postcard from 1948 shows the Marseilles in the early 1920s (circa). The Marseilles was designed by architect Harry Allen Jacobs. But you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones? ![]() From the annals of Delayed Reaction, comes this post that's been bouncing around my head. The catalyst that moved me to action is a reference I read on 850 West End Avenue's promotional materials touting the "trendy Upper West Side." There is perhaps a trend here but not in the way they mean. What 850 has become is certainly part of a new wave of "alterate" housing, by which I mean neither traditional rental, nor coop/condo. Let's call it micro living. And you can do it at 850 West End Avenue. The budget traveler might remember this address as "Chocolat", the $40-a-night UWS bargain "hotel and hostel." But a few years back, Chocolat shuffled on. And then it took what seemed like forever for the renovation of 850 West End -- a 6 story building between West 101st and West 102nd -- to be completed. First there was the scaffolding, then the mattresses and all manner of porcelain were hurled out the windows, down chutes, right into curbside containers. Then came the work. Steel beams, hoisted to the roof, concrete, dry wall. More concrete. It was all quite mysterious. And rather ambitious. This was a to-the-studs gut reno replete with swanky roofdeck. Well, sometime last summer, everything started to gel. The renovation was done, the container hauled off, and the the heavy equipment motored to its next gig. Nothing significantly different about the facade tipped neighbors off to the new reality: a short-term, no-fee rental building -- geared perhaps particularly to foreign students -- in full swing. For the moment, a cool $2K will get you a new micro studio, or what could be alternatively thought of as a "studio-ette" or hotel room plus. Here's how the marketing language goes:
In truth, at 130-250 square feet, these "luxury" apartments are souped-up rooms for rent with mini-kitchens (think hotplates, sink and mini-fridge) and baths.
Seems like the property might be ripe for Columbia University to snap up. Given this mega-landlord-to-our-north's dearth of housing for visitors, it would be a no-brainer. Columbia already has a presence here: the 83-unit 2700 Broadway at West 103rd, completed in 2005. I'd venture a guess that there's more ahead for 850 West End Ave. But its marketers should know that "trendy," we are not. Yet. Sigh. By Caitlin Hawke 1910: Riverside Drive and West 103rd Street By Caitlin Hawke Housing Issues: How Can We Help Ourselves Stay Put?There was a time, not so very long ago, when you moved above W. 96th Street and people thought you lived in a hinterland. And now hardly a week goes by without a postcard from a realtor urging me to sell "because there is no inventory." As with almost everything in life, it evokes Bob Dylan for me:
Well, I still care. But times are indeed strange. And things have changed. And one of those things is something everyone can relate to: it's the roof over your head and just plain holding on to it. In this boomtime for real estate, where each news cycle seems to bring a surreal story about micro-apartments or the stream of billionaire foreign investors into our local economy, the Block Association has received so many queries and concerns from members on a wide array of housing issues that it is time to bring some of this dialogue to the surface. Members are concerned about harassment of senior residents by landlords eager to see them push on, zoning variances allowing increased construction height, and a landmarking process that seems to have stalled out. The upcoming March 11th Annual Meeting will be devoted to these topics and a discussion with local policymakers. A charming feature of this annual meeting is the recognition of neighbors of longstanding. Do you know someone who has lived here for 50+ years? He or she qualifies! Please contact Hedy Campbell and let her know. But that gets me to thinking: who among us will be here 50 years from now? Look around because none of us is immune to the market's vagaries. It's a sobering thought. And one worth discussing together. The meeting is on Wednesday, March 11th at 7 p.m. in the Community Room of the Marseilles, 230 West 103rd Street. We'll be electing our board as well, so come on out! The flyer is below. For more information about this event contact [email protected]. By Caitlin Hawke 1940: Riverside Park Looking Toward the BallfieldBy Caitlin Hawke
1900: Broadway Looking North from West 101st Street By Caitlin Hawke
1933: Broadway near West 100th Street By Caitlin Hawke
1910: Riverside Drive at West 96th StreetIf you have even had a brush with social media these days, you have either delved deep into your trove of photo negatives or you've been treated to friends' blasts from the past. I have seen all sorts of photos resurface that ought perhaps to remain buried in their non-digital past. But thanks to the relentless burgeoning of Facebook & Company and with a nod to the rapacious hunger we all seem to have for our younger selves, old photos are flying high these days.
That got me to thinking about crowd sourcing from neighbors pictures our area from the past. We need not go all the way back to renderings of Lenape in Manahatta (but it would be nice if we could find some!). Throwbacks should be any "period" pictures we can find. For starters, I'd love to have some Broadway storefronts from the 1970s, for example...or just a shot of those old gas guzzlers tooting down West End. So, each Thursday that I have something new, I will post a Throwback Bloomingdale image. For the full series, click here. Today's image goes back a century. It is thanks to Camille Colon. And I thought it was a perfect launch image since it shows our neighborhood from its southern edge. For the purposes of these posts, Bloomingdale will be loosely defined as "I'll know it when I see it" but will generally stretch from about 96th to 110th on the West Side. Exceptions made for excellent images. So, were you here in the 1950s? 1960s? Earlier? Do you have great pictures of your street hailing from a bygone decade. Shots of the park, Broadway storefronts, neighbors in bell bottoms? Let's get them up and online for everyone to enjoy. Nostalgia is in. Long live nostalgia. By Caitlin Hawke ![]() A couple of friends from Germany arrived at a dinner in our neighborhood helmets in hand having left their bikes on the street. Horrifed, I queried: where?! Then they described that piece of "city furniture" we all walk by and pay no mind. It's a CityRack, and it is an ideal spot to leave your velocipede if you just can't bring it with you. What do our local restauranteur, Henry Rinehart, and cycling advocate Peter Frishauf know how to do better than most? How to move bureaucracies. I do believe that they are at the root of the installation of those utilitarian but sleekly designed bike racks that are popping up in our neck of the woods. Henry's Restaurant was the first place I noticed these a couple of summers back. And now that I mention it, you, too, will see that the brunch crowd at Broadway and West 105th Street are enthusiastic adopters. There are cycles aplenty lashed to that cold steel. Peter is a more recent victor alongside his neighbors KC Rice and Asya and Ted Berger. First they let their fingers do the walking, I am guessing from Peter's Twitter feed. They simply made an official location suggestion. Lo and behold -- as Bob Dylan and the Band sing over and over in the new, fabulous release of the Basement Tapes -- we now have a two-bike rack right on this block of West 103rd Street between Broadway and West End Avenue. Peter reports that to get a CityRack, DOT often checks to make sure the building wants one. A co-op board or other owners and neighbors can make the request for rack placement. And the best part? No alternate side of the street rigamarole! Plus you can dress it up for Halloween. To request one on the street where you live, either enter your suggested location at the city's website or download a request form here. As the fabulous and much missed Freddy Mercury sang: Bicycle, bicycle, BICYCLE! I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride my bike. I want to ride [and park] it where I like! By Caitlin Hawke Running a Business from Home? Why Not Do Some Networking in the Neighborhood.There's a lot going on in our neighborhood these days in terms of knitting together this community. A fan of this block association as well as our neighboring block association to the north, I am keenly aware of my wish to remain in the city but also to live slightly less anonymously, to know more neighbors and to enjoy a small-town feeling from time to time.
The wild success of Bloomingdale Aging in Place is probably due to its great "bones." It took root quickly in this fertile ground because the block associations have made it their business to connect neighbors over the years. So the new tri-organizational initiative, TriBloomingdale, is an informal attempt to bring members of these three community organizations together in mutually beneficial ways -- something, by the way, that's been going on for some time already. But now it has a couple of concrete offerings, such as the Sunday morning TriBloomingdale Brisk Walking Group, led by Teresa Elwert. The second is a new networking group for neighbors who work from home: Bloomingdale Networking in the Neighborhood (NITN). Our neighborhood is remarkably vibrant by day owing to the large number of folks who work from home or who have flexible schedules. Entrepreneurs, sole proprietors, artists, consultants, you name it. And it seems that somehow connecting this corps of neighbors to share resources and best practices is a brilliant idea: why go to the trouble of schlepping to midtown to network and glean tips when you can do it one or two blocks from home? The potential for such a group is tremendous. So we're launching NITN to see where this idea might lead. Neighbor Harriet Hoffman, an entrepreneur with two businesses that she runs from home, and a skilled, experienced networker, will facilitate the first event. She will schedule the first networking event in the second half of January. If you would like to receive details about that event, please email: [email protected]. Make sure to include your first and last names, type of business, email and phone number. Also, if you think you could assist with organizing this sort of NITN meet up on a regular basis, please include that, too. You just never know where your next best opportunity lies in wait. So sign up, and come out to tell your tales of sole proprietorship, of building your website, hiring your graphic designer or lawyer, navigating your tax forms, and developing your business. You don't even need your Metrocard for this one. Because NITN means networking right here. Hyper locally. Facebook and Linked In: eat your hearts out! By Caitlin Hawke |
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