At the same time, 86th & Amsterdam was notorious for being crime ridden. Rescued Estates, before the "Crazy Landlord" rented the place to The Bean coffee shop. The business I miss? For an interesting look at our neighborhood,check out the Goodbye Girl on netflix. There were prostitutes and drug dealers on the street. 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. Upper East Side. Another one had South American clothes but the name has vanished from mind. Citerellas always had their fun fish display in the window. 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. The great surprise, perhaps, is that while it is no longer the home of the Jewish intelligentsiain part because the Jewish intelligentsia doesnt exist as it once didit is, if anything, even more distinctively and vibrantly Jewish. I grew up This place gets packed during big weeknight games and all day on weekends, with the booths and tables in the dining room usually reserved days in advance. And the biggest, most heartbreaking loss la fortuna, hangout of John and yoko. I was born in 1965 and moved away in 1977 (returned later). This street is the boulevard of the city, which shapes the central area of Rotterdam. Nostalgia can be a treacherous mistress, because she glamorizes the past and downgrades the present in a way that threatens to make them both intolerable. People have bidding wars over apartments that cost millions of dollars. Email me if you want to answer a few questions. and the Pyramid Club (101 Ave. A) become playgrounds for East Village New Wavers. Yes, Jeannine, there have been major changes in the neighborhood mostly for the better but, alas, I truly miss some of the stores that have fallen by the wayside. The Upper West Side ( UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. a retired 31-year veteran NYC high school teacher. Outdoors at Noz Market. I always saw it as culturally vital and architecturally beautiful. It is the same one in which I grew up four decades ago, and its buildings and landmarks and topography are almost entirely unchanged. I well remember the Woolworths on Amsterdam, but am at a loss to recall just when it was demolished. Does anyone remember the trendy bar in 1981-84 at the corner of 74th and Amsterdam? Contentsshow 1The Mermaid Inn 2Prohibition 3The Owl's Tail 4Bodega 88 5E's Bar 6Vin Sur Vingt 7Dive Bar 8Jacob's Pickles But this is the case in most major cities going through development and change. Via (Photo credit: Steven Siegel) Store signage at New York Times Square, around 1985. I take issue with the notion that people tried to avoid living above 72nd street. . 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. What else. (1982) View Website Earn 3X Points. 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. And The New Yorker theater. About fifty of us stood across the street and watched, as though we were attending a wake. Madison & Vine, an American Bistro and International Wine Bar, has a menu that captures the diversity of America's culinary regions. Download Upper West Side Nyc stock photos. Lost your password? By Carter B. Horsley. 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. Would it be meaningful to a visitor in 2010 to know that Isaac Bashevis Singer lived in the Belnord on 86th and Broadway; that Singers brother Israel Joshua set the final section of his magnificent novel of German Jewry, The Family Carnovsky, at 94th and West End; that the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff spent his final years at 84th and West End? In 1998, that number had dropped to 2,000; last year, in 2009, only 987 felonies were committed there. I was even blessed to attend LaGuardia high school on 135th & Convent Avenue in its glorious Gothic, castle-like home before it moved to its prison-like building at Lincoln Center. Located on the Upper West Side on West 70th Street, the residence is less than a block from. For more photos of UWS storefronts in 1982, click here. Here's a spindly, stand-alone piece of the High Line that has since vanished . I dont recognize the neighborhood at all. If you want to pay college prices for that pitcher of Shock Top, come during Happy Hour (until 8pm every day). The Upper West Side of my youth was in no way a fabled or especially notable area. 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. Within 18 months, several more "singles bars" were opened on 1st Avenue. 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. But on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, my small city, social pathologies began to run rampant half a century ago, long before they broke into the wider culture. 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 . 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. 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. Left for dead, he lived, the only surviving victim of a serial killer who prowled the neighborhood for a year. Its a big French wine bar, and even on weeknights it gets pretty full of couples talking about their siblings and where they went to college. But I had to wear my old prescriptions and couldnt see very well. Ive ben on 76th since 1978. I can remember later that the same group opened another trendy bar call Columbus? The character of this area has changed dramatically as it has become an influx of new luxury and converted-to-luxury Mitchell-Lama buildings, over-priced coffee franchises and domestic employees. He lived on 75th Bet. By Craig Horowitz. I bought an expensive ($90) hoodie, which lasted about 20 years. I dont know what UWS Janet and Denton lived on, but it was dirty, dangerous and scary. They were mugged in the lobby one night after taking a taxi home from our apartment 15 blocks away. Outside the Apthorp there were streetwalking prostitutes. Not everyones experience is like mine. Particularly the buffalo wings, which are some of the best in the city. When I go back (my mom still lives in her rent control spot on 72nd and WEA) I have a real cognitive dissonance. Probably the first high-end shop on Amsterdam Ave. Upper West Sider here. Although the company liquidated in 1991, there are a handful of independently owned stores left around the United States. Memories of the old days. My first date with my husband was in November 1984, at Teachers, on Broadway in the mid-80s. Yes, it was a wild an wooly time. Sounds like Jeannine should take that route. If you are interested in answering a few questions email me at: jeannine.j@gmail.com. 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. 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. It was hardly an area to avoid. I also like to point it out when kvetchers say the area is too fancy now. You want to watch sports with some friends, and maybe share a couple pitchers of beer - ideally something other than Hoegaarden or Goose Island. Bear Bar (west side) 2156 Broadway (between 74th & 75th St.) Beer Hall. . Amsterdam Ale House The corner of Amsterdam and W. 76th Street has been the site of numerous popular restaurants since the late 1930's. Booked 14 times today. The Upper West Side of Manhattan is sandwiched in between Riverside Park to the west & Central Park to the east. Sarabeth was a friend and I too loved her pastries and coffee. There are so many more as I have lived here since the early 70s. In the same way, standing on a Thursday evening in front of the building in which I was born and raised, I am suddenly in the hazy light of an early Sunday morning at the age of six and managing for the first time to right the bicycle from which the training wheels had lately been removed and then wobbling my way down the block and around the corner and around the second corner and then around the thirdand slamming the bike into a toddler who was wobbling his way forward in front of his building. I remember when the only Mexican restaurant anybody ever hear of was Taco Rico on 72nd. Not a longtime UWS resident (only two years) but I would warn the author against making what appear to be major overstatements. The Loft sounds right. You make it sound like the wild west which it was not. 210 W 94th St, New . And Big Nicks. St. James Gate is very much an Irish pub, but not in a cheesy kind of way. Learn how your comment data is processed. This has always been a congenial neighborhood. 4. On the spot across the street from a friends building, I freeze with the sensation of having, right there, been jumped nearly 40 years earlier by four kids as I got off the city bus from school. Prohibition has live music every night, so its a good option for all kinds of situations, from first dates when you want to avoid awkward small talk to quick solo drinks when youre killing time. Bring a date or meet some friends here, and if anyone gets hungry, get a few small plates like meat, cheese, and oysters. The 24th Precinct has about the same racial and ethnic makeup it did when Lyford published his book in 1966. Go to George Keeley. Some favorite places included Ruskays and Rouelles. 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 Im sure we all remember the coffee shop! 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. There is not a day that goes by when I dont miss woolworths! It went badly. I am also looking for people who have recently moved here and what prompted their decision to move to the neighborhood. 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. If you dont feel like staring into pint glasses and wondering about fermentation processes, you can play darts or foosball instead. Wish my kids could have a similar space to grow up, warts and all. I have lived on the UWS side (I rent) and I have no plans of moving to a big house in the burbs. Finally, the kind of restaurant the Upper West Side has long been starved for. I grew up in. Both RSD and CPW were iffy bcs you never knew who would come out of the park. (212) 861-2290. 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. 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. 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. You can walk down the street . I miss them! So no matter what type of place youre looking for, use this guide the next time you go out on the Upper West Side. The Netherlands consists of twelve provinces; it borders Germany to the east, and Belgium to the south, with a North Sea coastline to the north and west. On the positive side, however, W. 71st St is much safer since the church was torn down and replaced by a high rise apartment building, complete with doorman. Not all of us move here for a few years. 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. I loved that they were open 24 hrs. As Lyford wrote in 1966, a twenty-block site of a multimillion-dollar urban renewal program laying between Eighty-seventh and Ninety-seventh streets and bounded by Central Park on the eastand Amsterdam Avenue on the west was the fulcrum of this massive slum-clearance plan, involving the loss of 6,344 households. 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. Once, after I was punched, my wallet stolen, my glasses (!) Maybe before you retired you might have offered a no-credit seminar on at-large behavior and minding ones own business. I bet your cute daughter will look back at this decade as the magical Upper West Side, like you remember. There were loads of movie theaterstwo on one block between 96 & 97 street called Riverside and Riviera, and the Thalia, Symphony, Beacon (ALL local movie theaters), the Midtown, Loews 83rd street, the Edison, Nemo (both in the 100s) and of course, the New Yorker! In the early '80s, Mimi Sheraton rhapsodized over the apps: " [The] possibilities are extraordinary, whether you choose the puffy, crisp-crusted Alsatian onion tart, the fine juniper-perfumed duck. For the reclamation of the neighborhood proved to have a spiritual component as well. In 1981, I lived on 79th and West End; it was tiny but very comfortable. Sometimes for the bathroom. New York, in general became much safer when Rudy Guilliani became mayor, and even more so under Mayor Bloomberg. 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