Once, after I was punched, my wallet stolen, my glasses (!) Last Spring, a year ago this month, I watched as a staple of the neighborhood closed, Food City. Think about it. I moved up here in 1977. The Upper West Side is a great place to live: beautiful prewar buildings, Central Park to one side and Riverside Park to the other, Zabar's.It's one of the most popular residential areas of Manhattan and it's also a hotbed for celebrities. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. Left for dead, he lived, the only surviving victim of a serial killer who prowled the neighborhood for a year. I remember when only the neighbors came out to see the Thanksgiving parade. I can just smell the place writing about it. Rescued Estates, before the "Crazy Landlord" rented the place to The Bean coffee shop. That memory is itself almost certainly a conflation of two moments that occurred months apart, but in retrospect, they blend high exhilaration and low shame, an almost perfect distillation of the bipolarity of childhood feeling. My building is very family oriented. Retro what does it mean? I bet your cute daughter will look back at this decade as the magical Upper West Side, like you remember. . 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. My father, and then my mother ran the Thalia Theatre from the 1930s to the 1970s, so I guess I would qualify as someone who know what the Upper West Side was like before 1976, when no one would live above 72nd street if they could avoid it. I remember way before Charivari when the drugstore was on the corner of 72nd and Columbus, across the street from Merit Farms. Of course we remember Charivari. Also if you remember what year the Woolworths on 79th and Broadway closed let me know. In a striking sentence reflective of the fatalistic attitude of the time, she writes, Crime prevention was, of course, the Police Departments first priority, as preventive medicine was the primary concern of health administrators. Nestled on the Upper West Side, Bodega 88 features many big screens behind the bar and smaller individual screens at every booth. )Lantern (78th and Amsterdam, where Planet Sushi is now). We would remember it now as we remember the Son of Sam, and the Washington snipers, and the Hillside Strangler. Located on Columbus b/n 81 and 82, it was beautiful inside (lots of wood), and I recall when it died out, roughly at same time of a branch of Shakespeare & Company on 81st and Bway, once the Barnes and Nobles opened (at 82nd), which of course still remains. This is exactly what I am looking for. 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. more proof that you dont have to be that old to look back on the past with rose colored glasses. Jacobs Pickles is great if you need an Upper West Side brunch spot or dinner meetup with someone you know will embrace the heavy bar food. #20. By Craig Horowitz. I well remember when the wrecking ball destroyed the beautiful and historic Episcopal Church on W. 71st Street at the corner of Broadway. You dont even need to go to municipal archives. They were mugged in the lobby one night after taking a taxi home from our apartment 15 blocks away. Miss all of the mom and pop shops. If you dont feel like staring into pint glasses and wondering about fermentation processes, you can play darts or foosball instead. We used to go to and from school on our own. The rental apartment upstairs from my mother, with the same layout was recently listed for $9900.00 a month. 2 All-American Burger Kai L./Yelp McGlades, a tavern across from ABC, it's a Starbucks now. This street is the boulevard of the city, which shapes the central area of Rotterdam. On the first morning after I arrived I saw a man murdered in broad daylight in the Village. When? 06/27/16. A neighborhood in which people think nothing of tossing their garbage out the window is a neighborhood both literally and spiritually diseased. At 254 West 54th Street, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager converted a former opera house into the most notorious nightclub of the disco era. The Cozy Bar (The Dead Poet) And I briefly lived on 85 street in the early 70s , so I was there a lot. After my second date, I knew I was going to marry him. Via (Photo credit: Steven Siegel) A man wearing a placard on Times Square, around 1980. Please enter your email address. The whole space is about the size of a subway car, though, so dont bring a big group. This place also does Happy Hour deals every day until 8pm, including half off the whole bar on weekdays and half off beers on weekends. You can get food here until 2am, so keep this place in mind for drinks and a bite after a show at the Beacon Theatre a block away. Via (Photo credit: Steven Siegel) Store signage at New York Times Square, around 1985. Es Bar is one of our go-to spots in the neighborhood, because they do so many things right. Heres the first paragraph. Like the other locations of Vin Sur Vingt around the city, this UWS outpost is a good spot for a quiet drink with one other person or a small group. Prohibition is a 20sthemed bar with quality live music every night. Best upper east side bars 80\\\'s in New York, NY. Tags: Big Nick's Burger and Pizza Joint, East Village Eye, East Village in the 1980s, Lou Reed, New York City 1984, old pizza parlors New York City, Upper West Side in the 1980s, Velvet Underground The whole theater got kicked out of Lowes 84th on opening night for Friday The 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan, it was so rowdy, but Id been seeing movies there since it was the Lowes 83rd st, twin. The block in question was 84th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues. the bar next to them. That said, it isnt a gimmicky spot where you pretend to be an early American settler. You can drink one at the L-shaped bar in the corner, or you can grab a little table along the wall. The rental apartment upstairs from my mother, with the same layout was recently listed for $9900.00 a month. And it was where I chose to live when I moved to Manhattan from Canarsie in 1972. New York, in general became much safer when Rudy Guilliani became mayor, and even more so under Mayor Bloomberg. The 24th Precinct has about the same racial and ethnic makeup it did when Lyford published his book in 1966. He struck on 104th and 103rd. November 24, 2013 | 1:16 PM - Updated on June 5, 2022 | 11:30 PM, Womens History: Augusta Stetson and the Church at 96th Street and Central Park West, WEST-PARK CHURCH LEADERS WIN VOTE, PLEDGE TO REVITALIZE BUILDING, WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN: COLD SHADOWS, ANCIENT OBELISKS, A MASSIVE MENORAH, & CHRISTOPHER WALKEN, A TRIO OF JUILLIARD PERFORMANCES ON MONDAY (SPONSORED). A mural on 8th St. at 1st Ave., along the side of what was once the St. Mark's Bar & Grill. Amsterdam Ale House The corner of Amsterdam and W. 76th Street has been the site of numerous popular restaurants since the late 1930's. 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. First founded in Ohio in 1980, the 1950s-style restaurant grew quickly, with about 100 locations at its peak. Booked 152 times today. That one of NYC's best sushi restaurants would also be among its most expensive is mostly expected, but it was surprising when . if youre going to criticize Historian, maybe it would be for being snarky. People have bidding wars over apartments that cost millions of dollars. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. I live on 80th and Columbus, and 79th and Amsterdam was the most dangerous corner in the precinct. The Upper West Side has plenty of drinking options. At the same time, 86th & Amsterdam was notorious for being crime ridden. Pretty good ice cream place in the early 80s. It might have been the most integrated area in the United States. People have bidding wars over apartments that cost millions of dollars. I would agree that the author should be careful not to stereotype new residents as unfriendly and uninterested in the neighborhood. And The House of Games. Tuesday Trivia. I live on 72nd and would guess off the top of my head that it contains around 50 small businesses just between Columbus & West End. Once the Jets are down by 24 and you want to focus on something else, start working your way through the huge menu of bar food. UPPER WEST SIDE Upper West Siders have long known that if they want a good drink and a hopping nightlife scene free of college students and sports bars, they'd have to head below 59th. Also The Golden Pan restaurant, Levy Bros Stationers, Universal Health Center, the New Yorker Theater and, upstairs, the New Yorker Bookshop. There was a very nice gelato place in the late 1980s, but its name eludes me. They had delicious burgers. Email me if you want to answer a few questions. My father was the first tenant of the building and moved in in 1929. 85th St.; 212- 877-0961. The space is about the size of a studio apartment, so we wouldnt recommend bringing a group, but its a decent place to watch sports alone or with a friend, especially before 7pm when drinks are half off. If their children were found playing on the street unsupervised that would warrant a call to 311 or Child Protective Services. I came to NYC for the first time in 1979. Of course, I want to see my beloved neighborhood grow & flourish but why is there such a strong need to push out the very people, shops, & community that created the desirable neighborhood it became? I lived at 219 W 81st (corner of Broadway) from 1962 to 1967, when we moved to Queens because the neighborhood was becoming too dangerous! It is an expensive place to live, but then it always was. From melees to muggings to serial killers to a spiritual revival. Indeed, the diseases afflicting the underclass surfaced on the Upper West Side perhaps earlier than anywhere else, leading to large-scale social experimentation of a sort that would not be practiced today. So much history of the Upper West Side, resided in the strengths and ideas of its working class citizens. Social workers divided the block into three play sectors, with adults playing volleyball, teenagers playing inside at a youth center, and younger children the east end. Six months later, the Times declared that the problem had been managed: Worst Is Over on West 84th Street. The solution was depopulation and destruction: The Department of Real Estate reported that 709 families had moved or been relocated from buildings due to give way for new schools. Only then it was called slum clearance and urban renewal. As first Columbus Avenue, then Broadway, and finally Amsterdam Avenue began to gentrify we were gratified to witness a steadily improving quality of life, but sidewalks teem[ing] with alcoholic homeless and residents knew to be inside their locked apartments by nightfall? Youre on the Upper West Side, and you want to drink beer. Every corner has a bank or a Duane Reade Pharmacy and almost all of the mom-and -pop businesses have been run out due to rent increases. In order to reduce traffic congestion in . (There werent many rich people on the Upper West Side then, a situation much altered today.) Hi Life Bar & Grill. But I had to wear my old prescriptions and couldnt see very well. I am happy that they also identify with being true upper west siders! When the mental institutions disgorged their populations, the UWS got more than our share. Located on the Upper West Side on West 70th Street, the residence is less than a block from. Vin sur Vingt | Best Things to Do Upper West Side. I miss the 88 Noodle House, Woolworths, and Sloans. The doormen were alert and ready to menace unwelcome visitors with a baseball bat. I remember Marcys deli on Broadway, the barbershop next door with its old -fashioned spinning stripe pole. It was known for its burgers, hot dogs, and milkshakes. never went in but loved that name was there til the 80s. He murdered and castrated four boys. My building was surrounded by SROs; one on 92nd btwn Riverside and West End, one directly across the street from us and one on 92nd btwn Broadway and Amsterdam. (212) 861-2290. What about doing a simple Lexis-Nexis search? Theres solid bar food, you can get a good cocktail, and the space feels kind of like a long clubhouse with booths, darts, and board games. On the northern end, it borders W.110th street down south to Columbus Circle at W.59th street. This article is so one-side. The owner was bought out by the Love Store chain, then the pharmacist went to work at a Duane Reade. Some memories: I think this was the second time. Bear Bar (east side) 1770 Second Ave. (between 92nd & 93rd St.) Manny's on Second. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Columbus Avenue in the 70's underwent an impressively upscale retail . I have lots of memories of specific shops, and just as many holes in my memory! was racking my brain trying to come up with the name of the pub/restaurant on west side of Columbus b/ 70th & 71st when I came upon your posting. Are the changes to the neighborhood for the better or for the worse? East of Broadway was a tough old neighborhood. The streets were full of prostitutes and Johns cruising for them. The Cherry Restaurant on Columbus Ave. on the corner of 76th St., where the Chase Bank is now, was owned and staffed by Japanese people. There are so many more as I have lived here since the early 70s. Locals knew to be inside their locked apartments by nightfall and you were safe. Dinner on the Upper East Side with a former president of the United States. The Continental Baths!!! Coolsingel Street Cam, Rotterdam. My small city could have been one of those static, increasingly impoverished, blighted places. People were afraid to ride the graffiti-streaked, crime soaked subways. A Manhattan townhouse complete with a 33-foot lap pool has hit the market for $17.5 million. Although, I usually shopped at the one on 109 street, I do remember the one on 79 street. 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. There were great clothes stores also on Columbus on the same street, Parachute was one. Theres also a big stack of board games in one corner, and, with its giant fish tank and mismatched wall decor, the space feels almost exactly like the common area of an off-campus house where six college seniors live. MacAliers Pub was across the avenue. Citerellas always had their fun fish display in the window. Stephen Hanson's uptown "Chinese" fantasy, which he bravely launched on the un-trendy Upper West Side, was the big box that spawned all of the city's pan-Asian giants. Get there early (around 9:00 p.m.) to experience it because it gets a bit crowded near the stage later in the evening. Another location of The Mermaid Inn, another perfect first date spot. 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. but that would be the pot calling the kettle black. Upper East Side. I need a hot tip on a small apartment! They have over 30 beers on tap, many of which are unusual options from relatively small domestic and international breweries, and the space tends to fill up with big groups drinking and sharing bar food. A rush hour scene at the New York City subway. Neighbors watched out for each other, and most of the people who lived there stayed for generations, and most of the stores were family-owned businesses. View Website Earn 3X Points. Restaurants. Theres also a stretch of Amsterdam Avenue full of college bars, where youll find things like beer pong and people tapping on multiple car windows asking if this is their Uber. This has always been a congenial neighborhood. Vinnys! To the commentersemail me if you would like to answer a few questions for the thesis. She made awesome cookies with whole wheat flour. Sometimes for the bathroom. That said, its equally good for a drink with a few coworkers, or a catch-up with a friend. Its a good spot to day drink with a big group, but theres no table service - youll be notified by a buzzer when your order is ready at the counter. The broken windows theory propounded by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in 1983 has entered into the realm of clichthe idea that if you dont replace a broken window on an abandoned building, more of the windows will be broken and the area around them will decay as well. Not all of us move here for a few years. In 1981, I lived on 79th and West End; it was tiny but very comfortable. That said, it isnt the sort of place where you have to whisper and swirl your glass before you take a drink. Hey, Scooter Stan, they are often a pain in the neck. 1) Frusen Gldj. Upper West Side Perfect For: First/Early in the Game Dates $$$$ 424 Amsterdam Avenue, New York Earn 3X Points Caledonia is, above all, a whiskey bar. Photo of storefronts on Columbus Avenue between 82d and 83rd streets in 1982 by Daniel Weeks. Upper West Side march protest, circa 1980. And Big Nicks. Lets not forget about the orginal frozen cappuccinos on Columbus Avenue before Starbucks. Of the 35 brownstones that lined the block, only seven remain today. Now that the doormen from CPW no longer drink at the bar at Pizzeria Uno on Columbus & 81 (which had a cubby hole in the unfinished end where wed leave each other messages and little presents), thats one thing that Im finding difficult to nail in the neighborhood! Sure there were some muggings (mostly stealing our bus passes) but nothing serious. So a volleyball net was erected. It was a rich neighborhood at the turn of the last century and it has gone back to that. That is the ambiguous power of nostalgia, as the jagged recollection of hitting a tiny child with a bicycle still has the power to catch like a rusted nail four decades later and open a fresh wound. QE 2 Club 1980s Central Ave, Albany ny by AlbanyGroup Archive the Elbo Room 1963 Albany NY (1960s) by AlbanyGroup Archive 2 288 lark, albany, ny 1984 1980s by AlbanyGroup Archive 1 jb's theater albany ny by AlbanyGroup Archive ginos collage albany ny . Over the course of the next four years, 20 houses on the block would be demolished and replaced with a high school named for Louis Brandeis and a relocated elementary school. I moved onto W. 71st Street, from W. 113th St. in 1968, so I could walk to the NY State Theatre, where I was a singer with the NYC Opera. I would recommend the author talk to some parents at the local schools to get a sense for the community now. And there was also the simple fact that the small city and the larger city had both grown pessimistic about the ability of authorities to do much of anything to prevent these horrors, so it seemed almost churlish to report on them. The building housed a playground on its roof, a respite for myself and many neighborhood kids. At least when talking about fairly genteel nabes as we are here. I remember The Jaunting Car Inn next to the Ritzs deli between 71 and 70th on Columbus. So they are finally free of their daily captors and, like all kids, act out without thinking of who or what is around. My high school boyfriend lived on 82nd and Broadway. And the biggest, most heartbreaking loss la fortuna, hangout of John and yoko. Today is tomorrow's yesterday . There were prostitutes and drug dealers on the street. It was a great neighborhoodbut you had to know which blocks you should avoid! A short-lived club in the 1980s East Village. Usually the small cities in America that never change are the ones whose best days came half a century or more ago and are now literally rotting away before your eyes, their once-handsome houses mottling, their fences akimbo, their storefronts boarded, their grass untended, their gas stations abandoned on windblown corners. Only in Honolulu, wrote the journalist Joseph P. Lyford, is there a greater confusion of blood, ancestry, language, and culture in as small a space. But though there were racial and ethnic tensions aplenty, and these would grow exponentially as the years passed, the division in the neighborhood was primarily one of classa division between the middle class and the lower class. People make the mistaken assumption that if you are new to a building and have children that means you are new to the UWS and probably a neo-con, yuppie, Wall Street-type, which isnt always the case. Does anyone remember, like i do, the little grocery store on the corner of 74th and Amsterdam, owned by Dom?wonderful man, full of stories and gossip about the neighborhoodwhen the subway fare went up in 74 or 75, he bought me a bag of tokens so that i wouldnt have to stand in line at the 72nd St. station that Monday morning when it went into effect and everyone had been caught unawareDom always looked out for his customersa real UWS personality. i graduated college in 1988 and came back to NYC, and i couldnt believe that my friends that went to work in investment banking all lived in a new building (the westmont) at 96th and columbus. So my small city is the same and yet it is not the same, because it is today, in almost every way, better. All the small stores have had to vacate once their leases were up and the rents were jacked up to unaffordable rents. Unfortunately, mom and pop stores have closed. Funny that someone else just posted. Not many of those in Kansas. There was a reason Verdi park was called Needle Park. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. We neighborhood kids came to call him, with the horrible bluntness of adolescent boys, Charlie Chop-off. So no matter what type of place youre looking for, use this guide the next time you go out on the Upper West Side. Like Caledonia, the Hamilton has a very serious whiskey selection - although the focus here is more on American whiskey. pulled from my face, and my sneakers removed outside the side exit to the Olympia movie theater on 107th between Broadway and Amsterdam, my parents called the police and two mammoth cops showed up and drove me around the neighborhood looking for my two assailants by checking out sneakers. I think this was upper west side bars 1980s first tenant of the Upper West Side has of. 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