Re: I stay away from the South West corner of W. 71st Street as rowdy teenagers hang around in front of MacDonalds and create a nuisance.. but that would be the pot calling the kettle black. There was Goldens stationery on Broadway, and Maharaja India with its beautiful exterior & mysteriously dark interior. Not a longtime UWS resident (only two years) but I would warn the author against making what appear to be major overstatements. My favorite dart bar in 1982. Vin sur Vingt | Best Things to Do Upper West Side. What else. Think about it. 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. Here is a nice trip down memory lane of the 1980's! 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. Monday's are all you can eat wings . He lived on 75th Bet. The streets were full of prostitutes and Johns cruising for them. Find next available. Lifelong UWSer, born 1970 and raised on 81st between CPW and Columbus. Unfortunately, mom and pop stores have closed. I so miss living there and am trying to now come back from CT where I moved to be closer to Yale for medical purposes. Coolsingel Street Cam, Rotterdam. In 1981, I lived on 79th and West End; it was tiny but very comfortable. 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! If you want to pay college prices for that pitcher of Shock Top, come during Happy Hour (until 8pm every day). . Sounds like Jeannine should take that route. I can just smell the place writing about it. But west end was great, and also 86th was great all the way over to the park. Living outside the neighborhood & city in recent years, I admit, has allowed me a greater perspective on the losses the UWS has undergone. Like Caledonia, the Hamilton has a very serious whiskey selection - although the focus here is more on American whiskey. I grew up The neighborhood has lost many small businesses such as delis, bodegas, pizzerias, barber shops, candy & stationery stores. We had so much fun we all agreed it's one of the best bars in the Upper West Side. I only have one photo taken on the street in the1970s but I do remember alot of the old stores. The 40,000 Jews who lived there in 1960 were primarily secular and in flight from their faith. 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. The bakery was Royale, there were others as well, Eclair, and Blooms. 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 rental apartment upstairs from my mother, with the same layout was recently listed for $9900.00 a month. I dont know what UWS Janet and Denton lived on, but it was dirty, dangerous and scary. 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. Email me if youd like to answer some more questions about life on the UWS. I think it was Sylvis Kitchen but cant remember. Its hard to keep up now, tho! MacAliers Pub was across the avenue. 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. Youre on the Upper West Side, and you want to drink beer. Grew up in Lincoln Towers in the 70s and 80s. 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. Neighborhood volunteers took turns watching out their windows, reporting any crimes to the well-meaning, over-worked and understaffed local police precinct. But it was also due to middle-class flight, to people who chose to live free of the menace. The Ribbon has style and substance and does classic food right. Not all of us move here for a few years. Go on Mondays for live jazz. I think it and she was gone by 1975 or 76. And the biggest, most heartbreaking loss la fortuna, hangout of John and yoko. 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 block in question was 84th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues. The Gin Mill is owned by the same people as Jakes Dilemma, which is less than a block away, and it feels very similar. What about doing a simple Lexis-Nexis search? View Website Earn 3X Points. Not how it was for me, my friends, and their families. (There have been times when police had to be called around 3:30 PM.) And the bakery that was on 72nd between Bway and West End. 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. If you visit Hi-Life Bar and Grill on your birthday, you get the usual complimentary dessert and a t-shirt with "NY" set in a martini glass graphic. In 1964, the year the national crime spiral began, 3,228 felonies were committed. People have bidding wars over apartments that cost millions of dollars. There was also Lamstons on 102 street. I was mugged the one time I walked from Broadway and 80th to Columbus and 80th because I crossed Amsterdam Ave. and went east on the block. 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. An indifferent French restaurant occupies the space that once housed the record store where I bought my first 45 rpm disc of the Cowsills singing the title song from Hair, and standing in front of it I split into two, the 49-year-old in the present and the seven-year-old in the past crossing its portal with a little brown paper bag in hand, excited beyond measure to get its contents home to place the needle on the 45s ridge and watch it slide into the first groove, the sound of the scratches giving way to the opening blast of the Cowsills five-part harmony. 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. Of the 35 brownstones that lined the block, only seven remain today. In 1998, that number had dropped to 2,000; last year, in 2009, only 987 felonies were committed there. The little space is long and narrow, with a bar up front and a few tables in back, and it works for anything from date night to a drink with your parents. Imagine such a thing today. Upper West Side Geography. No one rememers Charevari, they had a couple of stores, Al buen gusto, Merit Farms, Columbia Savings bank, El Farro, Columbia Savings, the lending library and card shop that is now Giacommos, Gristedies, Bartons Candy Store, the movie theater on Bway between 72-73. Chloe 81 Night Clubs Dance Clubs Bars 6.7 Website Amenities: (212) 677-0067 And I briefly lived on 85 street in the early 70s , so I was there a lot. Nestled on the Upper West Side, Bodega 88 features many big screens behind the bar and smaller individual screens at every booth. If you dont feel like staring into pint glasses and wondering about fermentation processes, you can play darts or foosball instead. Within 18 months, several more "singles bars" were opened on 1st Avenue. 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. 12 Lost Gay Bars of New York City Michael Ryan. People were afraid to ride the graffiti-streaked, crime soaked subways. Photo of storefronts on Columbus Avenue between 82d and 83rd streets in 1982 by Daniel Weeks. That room and the first-come first-served bar area both have lots of TVs playing games at high volume, but what really sets Blondies apart from other sports bars is the food. And Big Nicks. Memories of the old days. My first date with my husband was in November 1984, at Teachers, on Broadway in the mid-80s. Cocktails are pricey ($12-16) but it's just too fun to miss. The whole thing about the terrible 1970s (and even 1980s) is vastly over-rated. I was mugged four times before I was 14. I was also hailed from second story windows in Times Square by topless prostitutes. Best Bars in Upper West Side, Manhattan, NY - The Dead Poet, Arthouse Bar, The Owl's Tail, Amsterdam Ale House, Dive 75, The Upside, Pekarna NYC, Dublin House, George Keeley, The Milling Room Living in the precincts of ones own past means that its fears and terrors are immediately accessible as well. At the time, I was going to high school a block away and walked every morning past the tenements from which the airmail had been dropped on Lyfords yard. I live on 80th and Columbus, and 79th and Amsterdam was the most dangerous corner in the precinct. By 1990, there were 5,641 felonies. This reminds me that the loan sharks and drug dealers never left the city, only they now dress in corporate suits and lobby for loopholes in D.C. instead of paying off morally corrupt citizens in dilapidated buildings. Im trying to remember the name of the bar/restaurant that opened in the late 70s/1980 on the corner of 79th and Columbus with the funeral parlor next door (in the space where Laura Ashley once was located) and in the old building before the skyscraper apartment building went up. Via (Photo credit: Steven Siegel) A man wearing a placard on Times Square, around 1980. Named after the famous landmark apartment building nearby, The Dakota Bar possesses a vibrant energy all of its' own. 1. Bring a date or meet some friends here, and if anyone gets hungry, get a few small plates like meat, cheese, and oysters. 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. And within those classes there was division as well. I live on W 71 myself. Why? (There werent many rich people on the Upper West Side then, a situation much altered today.) 2 All-American Burger Kai L./Yelp 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. Today the Upper West Side is considered one of the richest, cleanest, and most expensive places to live in New York City. Police flooded the area. 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? And so commenced the razing of scores of buildings, beginning in February 1963. .I could not get the police or the sanitation department to stop the airmail so I collected it. I was born and raised on same block, in same building since 1969. The food was all American dishes, and I used to go there for dinner all the time. And The New Yorker theater. Here's a spindly, stand-alone piece of the High Line that has since vanished . I miss them! Source. Photograph: Paul Wagtouicz. I worked from 1972-77 at various Cake Masters locations from 72nd Street to 99th Street. Was the place called Amsterdam. A rush hour scene at the New York City subway. (I hope this continues . The Continental Baths!!! Maybe before you retired you might have offered a no-credit seminar on at-large behavior and minding ones own business. Where Fairway is there was DAgostinos, and a really good drug store, was it buy right or loves? Sarabeth was a friend and I too loved her pastries and coffee. . Use this guide to find all the best bars in the neighborhood. Sure there were some muggings (mostly stealing our bus passes) but nothing serious. Mostly, its just a nice little bar with brick walls and a short menu of snacks, and its a good spot for a date or a low-key cocktail after work. Free or royalty-free photos and images. I am also looking for people who have recently moved here and what prompted their decision to move to the neighborhood. The citys population shrank by nearly a million people between 1960 and 1980, with 300,000 gone from Manhattan over the course of those 20 years. 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. Also, there are many Duane Reades and banks, but the claim that almost every mom-and-pop business has been shuttered is simply false. You should know to never start a sentence with but. 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 . 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? Columbia university kept the neighborhood more desirable. 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. 80s Night Clubs in New York City, NY About Search Results Sort: Default All BBB Rated A+/A Coupons View all businesses that are OPEN 24 Hours 1. Food City was also where I dreamt of having my first jobs first as bagger, then aspiring to cashier. 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. I live in my apartment at 102 West 85 since 1986 but I was born on West End Ave in 1947. Sometimes for the bathroom. They were mugged in the lobby one night after taking a taxi home from our apartment 15 blocks away. Life is rough on everyone. I went to PS 84 and IS44 (before there were flea markets and before there was a Benetton on every corner). Zabars was open until midnight. When I moved to West 83rd Street, pushers hid their crack vials in the planters outside the building I lived in. I need a hot tip on a small apartment! We were giving up so much of our city, Myron Magnet has written in a beautiful essay on Saul Bellows great 1970 novel of Upper West Side (and Western civilizational) decline, Mr. Sammlers Planet, and how it spoke to his experience as a neighborhood resident. They are socializing, flirting, establishing their creds in a nice middle-class neighborhood BEFORE they have to get on that subway once again and go home to a neighborhood which may or may not be as sparkly-shiny as the UWS and, for anyone between 12 and 25, very possibly gang-ridden and dangerous. Address: 322 Columbus Ave, New York, NY 10023 Image Courtesy Da Capo #6. I have been thinking about this since it was originally posted a couple of years ago. And in this case, I dont mean the universal fearsa closed closet door, a dark hallway, a school bullybut rather the very specific fears that came with growing up in my small city in the midst of the big city at a very specific moment. 06/27/16. West Side Story restaurant on 95th Lyford then dumped the refuse over his fence onto the concrete apron outside the offending tenements so that their superintendent could collect it, bag it, and leave it for the garbage men. You dont even need to go to municipal archives. 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. As we mentioned, the UWS has no shortage of sports bars - but Blondies is our favorite. This live HD webcam overlooks the cityscape and Coolsingel, a major street in the city centre of Rotterdam, South Holland, Netherlands, as shown on the map further down the page. 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. Go to George Keeley. Not the Hollywood stars with a party pad in some flashy glass tower downtown, but the ones who really live here. Yes, it was called Amsterdams and it had great chicken, pork, beef cooked on a wall-sized rotisserie. I see this constantly in the rude & dismissive behavior of folks on the street, in the new stores, especially towards the older folks. On the other hand, nowadays, I stay away from the South West corner of W. 71st Street in the late afternoon, as rowdy teenagers hang around the corner in front of MacDonalds and create a nuisance. A neighborhood in which people think nothing of tossing their garbage out the window is a neighborhood both literally and spiritually diseased. Another location of The Mermaid Inn, another perfect first date spot. I remember Fowad with its racks on the corner of 96th st and a Mexican restaurant across the street with Spanish tile decorating its exterior. Vague memory of the window and lady on 83rd Street. It's just happening. Probably the first high-end shop on Amsterdam Ave. Upper West Sider here. Theres a NY Times article published on June 8, 1979 call Discovering the Pleasures of Columbus Avenue Published a couple of months before I moved to Columbus and 74th where I am now. Upper West Side seen from Top of the Rock. Bring a few relatives you havent seen in a while. That one of NYC's best sushi restaurants would also be among its most expensive is mostly expected, but it was surprising when . Either way, it's there, and it's good. 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. Now its a zoo. Also The Golden Pan restaurant, Levy Bros Stationers, Universal Health Center, the New Yorker Theater and, upstairs, the New Yorker Bookshop. Best upper east side bars 80\\\'s in New York, NY. 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 bar next to them. Come here when you want to watch college or NFL football, and bet pitchers of light beer on the outcomes of beer pong games with friends. 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