Email me if you want to answer some. Im coming into this conversation very late but I have lived in this neighborhood all my life.since 1953. -CALL it what you wishneighborhood rebirth, urban renaissance, the latest emergence of city chicbut whatever you call it be sure to label it Columbus Avenue, the new Columbus Avenue. They had several boutiques and I spent a lot of dough there over the years, The folded in the early 90s I think. Terrible, just terrible. I live in my apartment at 102 West 85 since 1986 but I was born on West End Ave in 1947. 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. Just be aware that the whole place might smell like truffles, since they serve various truffle- and non-truffle-related snacks. 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. Use this guide to find all the best bars in the neighborhood. After fire damage temporarily shut down the place earlier this year, e's Bar is back in business, boasting new banquettes and the . However, the Upper West Side has a higher percentage of housing that falls between $500 and $6000 per month, while the Upper East Side has more housing above $9000. The Loft sounds right. It would dominate news coverage in the country for weeks, if not months. Where Fairway is there was DAgostinos, and a really good drug store, was it buy right or loves? Bring a few relatives you havent seen in a while. I lost the gold watch my father gave me for my college graduation. A fellow life-long UWSer and Harvard doctoral student. I can just smell the place writing about it. Lecters was a tiny linen shop on the west side of Broadway owned my Mel Lecters parents till he inherited it and turned it into a yuppies dream shop! I know Im not imagining it existed. I won a Halloween story writing contest at Eeyores ($25 gift certificate) and was a delivery boy for Video Connection. 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. You can drink one at the L-shaped bar in the corner, or you can grab a little table along the wall. 85th St.; 212- 877-0961. I am still amazed thinking how that now-pristine block was so different. 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. 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? He lived on 75th Bet. I worked at Sweet Asylum in the early 80s and have tons of memories about the old neighborhood: everything from the charred remains of Santeria rituals on the big rock ACROSS from the 79th st. RSD playground to routinely getting mugged. 4) Someone else mentioned it, but Ill second a nod to Teachers and Teachers, Too. I lived on the UWS from 1972-1994: 85/WEA, 79/Columbus, 82/Amsterdam, several other addresses. Chloe 81 Night Clubs Dance Clubs Bars 6.7 Website Amenities: (212) 677-0067 While any such demolition of livable housing stock would be greeted with cries of horror today from poverty advocates and landmarking experts, the policy was stronglyadvocated by neighborhood clergy, who had high hopes that the struggling poor could make a better life in public housing. If you want to pay college prices for that pitcher of Shock Top, come during Happy Hour (until 8pm every day). 1470 First Ave. (between 76th & 77th St.) North East Bank. 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. 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. I only have one photo taken on the street in the1970s but I do remember alot of the old stores. Three conservative synagogues in a 15-block radius from 100th Street to 86th Street had fallen into decrepitude and near-dormancy. Despite the name, Dive 75 isnt actually that divey. 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. First of all, the TV situation here is pretty great - each booth has its own screen, and then there are multiple big screens over the bar. I remember the shoe repair shop between 71st and 72nd on Columbus, and Books, Pictures, and Things, and then Betsey Johnson replacing it. Via. Silly me. Please enter your email address. I have lived on the UWS side (I rent) and I have no plans of moving to a big house in the burbs. Outside the Apthorp there were streetwalking prostitutes. Theres one long room with a couple of TVs for watching sports, and youll also find both daytime and late-night Happy Hours. A Manhattan townhouse complete with a 33-foot lap pool has hit the market for $17.5 million. 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. Its a good spot to eat some bangers and mash, and its perfect for when you want to sit on a barstool and watch sports with a Guinness. I dont agree with the statement that no one went above 72nd if they could help it. The Upper . Imagine such a thing today. Before wine bars, bank branches, and sushi restaurants took over the East Village, there were hole-in-the-wall clubs like 8BC, a gallery and performance space on Eighth Street between Avenues B and C. Opened in 1983, the place was over by the end of 1985. I dont recognize the neighborhood at all. Find next available. I remember The Red Baron and Food City and Victors Cafe Its a great spot for a big group hang, and if you live in the area, youll probably wind up knowing at least one bartender by name. In 1983, a sociologist named Richard Shafer told the New York Times, The West Side is a neighborhood that always seems to embarrass the fashionable. Its most attractive streets were and are no match architecturally or decoratively for the boulevards of the East Side, Fifth and Park Avenues. I would agree that the author should be careful not to stereotype new residents as unfriendly and uninterested in the neighborhood. As we mentioned, the UWS has no shortage of sports bars - but Blondies is our favorite. West of Broadway was less rough, but Broadway was Pay-A-Broadway after 9pm as if there was city-approved zoning for street walkers after 9. woolworths was on the high 60s on amsterdam just south of the jewish temple that is still there. The bakery was Royale, there were others as well, Eclair, and Blooms. Finally, the kind of restaurant the Upper West Side has long been starved for. You can see the dots on the map of Manhattan, and the peak is still in the 1980s in terms of the most bars. 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. . Dinner on the Upper East Side with a former president of the United States. There was a pastry cafe with tables up in a little loft where the swatch store is now on 72 and Columbus. I am currently working on my graduate school thesis and have decided to write about how the Upper West Side has changed in my lifetime. One doesnt walk a block without seeing a yarmulke; the three conservative synagogues are alive and buzzing with congregants; the neighborhoods gans, day schools, and yeshivas are educating some 4,000 children; a dozen kosher restaurants and two kosher supermarkets profitably serve an increasingly observant community. Its about equal parts bar, restaurant, and lounge - and it looks sort of like a place where lawyers would hang out on a Friday night in a 90s sitcom. Doubtful. West Side Story restaurant on 95th And The New Yorker theater. I also went to IS 44 and was blessed with being part of the Lab School which was the vision of Mr. John Gatto. What they will not have to learn, as my sisters and I and our wealthier friends did, is how to accommodate and make normal an ever-present sense of everyday menace. I grew up 29 Second Ave. (between 1st & 2nd St.) It is bounded by Central Park on the east and the . Unfortunately, mom and pop stores have closed. I am offended by the tone in this article. And Silk Road. I see this constantly in the rude & dismissive behavior of folks on the street, in the new stores, especially towards the older folks. MacAliers Pub was across the avenue. The very idea that it might once have been considered the citys worst is very nearly science-fictional today, as it bustles with high-end baby strollers pushed by parents hurrying to homey restaurants on Amsterdam or Columbus or making their way to Central Park. Monday's are all you can eat wings . What else. The Upper West Side of my youth was in no way a fabled or especially notable area. Start your risk free trial with unlimited access. Apologies for coming to this conversation rather late but felt compelled to share my experience of the UWS. With a drink in one hand, a cigar in the other, and various critical parts of his body glued to a dark-haired woman with whom he is ostensibly dancing, Michael Barrett looks . a retired 31-year veteran NYC high school teacher. at least up until the 90s. Booked 14 times today. 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! Don't Miss A Drop. 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