I remember Gleasons, and ONealsand the Flower Shop next to ONeals. Was the place called Amsterdam. You want something obscure, because your horoscope recently told you to try new things. 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. Local artists sold their wares and the kids tried not to kill themselves in the slightly deflated Moon Bounce. We would remember it now as we remember the Son of Sam, and the Washington snipers, and the Hillside Strangler. if youre going to criticize Historian, maybe it would be for being snarky. Now its a zoo. If you want to pay college prices for that pitcher of Shock Top, come during Happy Hour (until 8pm every day). 1. Big Nick's Burger and Pizza Joint at Broadway and 77th Street. East of Broadway was a tough old neighborhood. She made awesome cookies with whole wheat flour. Im pretty sure that Woolworths closed before 1990. They have an enormous scotch selection, a large number of snifters, and plenty of Irish and American whiskey as well. I figured I was unemployed at the time, had nothing to be stolen. 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. (There werent many rich people on the Upper West Side then, a situation much altered today.) I loved visiting the pet dept downstairs there and often dreamt of freeing all the fish and parakeets to Central Park down the block. Broadway has become one huge outdoor mall. Best upper east side bars 80\\\'s in New York, NY. 1) Frusen Gldj. Particularly the buffalo wings, which are some of the best in the city. Retroclubnyc is NYC's top dance club and nightclub playing the best dance music from the 70s, 80s, and 90s thru today including classic disco, freestyle and house music. 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. 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. The Upper West Side of Manhattan is sandwiched in between Riverside Park to the west & Central Park to the east. When I go back (my mom still lives in her rent control spot on 72nd and WEA) I have a real cognitive dissonance. I do remember cake masters on 99 street, party cake on 110, teachers, the gold rail, the American restaurant on 85 & Broadway. Sarabeth was a friend and I too loved her pastries and coffee. Delicious, homey. I remember when the first Starbucks opened on 93rd and Broadway it was around 1996-1997 while I was in collegethats when we knew that the UWS of our time was never going to be the same again. Barbara, that was Sarabeths Kitchen on Amsterdam between 82nd and 83rd. 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. (I hope this continues . All the small stores have had to vacate once their leases were up and the rents were jacked up to unaffordable rents. MacAliers Pub was across the avenue. They took my empty wallet and the little folder containing the invaluable pass that afforded me free access that month to that bus line. Not a longtime UWS resident (only two years) but I would warn the author against making what appear to be major overstatements. Think about it. (The church had become a hangout for drug addicts.) Email me if you want to answer a few questions. 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. I can remember later that the same group opened another trendy bar call Columbus? Zabars was open until midnight. The UWS is a friendly neighborhood if you get out there and meet people. But not a beer that all your friends have heard of. Im trying to jog my memory about a pastry cafe that always had recorded opera music playing and photos of opera singers on the walls I believe it was below 74th and above 66th and between Columbus and CPW. more proof that you dont have to be that old to look back on the past with rose colored glasses. This map of the Upper West Side shows its location relative to the rest of Manhattan. When the mental institutions disgorged their populations, the UWS got more than our share. I always saw it as culturally vital and architecturally beautiful. The statistics for the 24th Precinct offer the most dramatic portrait of the vertiginous rise of crime and its exhilarating plunge. That was true between broadway and central park west. That said, its equally good for a drink with a few coworkers, or a catch-up with a friend. 4) Someone else mentioned it, but Ill second a nod to Teachers and Teachers, Too. And The House of Games. Prohibition is a 20sthemed bar with quality live music every night. Im coming into this conversation very late but I have lived in this neighborhood all my life.since 1953. My high school boyfriend lived on 82nd and Broadway. She shares some memories below, and asks for some of yours. Maybe before you retired you might have offered a no-credit seminar on at-large behavior and minding ones own business. I am also looking for people who have recently moved here and what prompted their decision to move to the neighborhood. and the Pyramid Club (101 Ave. A) become playgrounds for East Village New Wavers. I remember The Red Baron and Food City and Victors Cafe Also if you remember what year the Woolworths on 79th and Broadway closed let me know. The entrance to this Upper West Side speakeasy is right inside Burke & Wills go to the back and open the green leather door. 3) Back in the 80s, H & H Bagels (well known demise some years ago) had lines out the door, and nicer prices for their delicious bagels. 2) Endicott Book Store. I was born (1976) and raised on 92nd St. Btwn Broadway and West End and lived in the same apartment until I was 23 years old. a kosher restauran Josephs, thats just a few. Theres a bar in the middle of the room, some banquette seating, and a few tables - plus floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on 72nd Street. 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. Living outside the neighborhood & city in recent years, I admit, has allowed me a greater perspective on the losses the UWS has undergone. I would love more stories. They had delicious burgers. Based on the Canadian movie of the same name, this bar and grill has great food specials, a full bar, and laidback vibe. 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've always been a pretty good cook, and I could make these very good dinners in this tiny kitchen. (I had mussels, he had short ribs). I also remember that the Upper West Side was a true neighborhood, and I remember the slow and then really fast gentrification of the neighborhood in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. You should know to never start a sentence with but. 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. Does anyone remember a small bakery/kitchen on West 83rd between Columbus and Amsterdam. To hell with nostalgia. I was also hailed from second story windows in Times Square by topless prostitutes. And the biggest, most heartbreaking loss la fortuna, hangout of John and yoko. Today the Upper West Side is considered one of the richest, cleanest, and most expensive places to live in New York City. Restaurant 222 - on 79th St. McGlades, a tavern across from ABC, it's a Starbucks now. Rescued Estates, before the "Crazy Landlord" rented the place to The Bean coffee shop. Lets not forget about the orginal frozen cappuccinos on Columbus Avenue before Starbucks. a retired 31-year veteran NYC high school teacher. Aside from the Museum of Natural History overlooking Central Park and the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial overlooking Riverside Park, the area lacks notable monuments. Get a table or some bar seats at Dive Bar, a dimly-lit spot with over 30 beers on tap (most of which are available by the glass, growler, and pitcher). 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. 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! Food City was also where I dreamt of having my first jobs first as bagger, then aspiring to cashier. I now live on the upper east side, but will always remain true to my rootsthe West side is the best side! After my second date, I knew I was going to marry him. If you're heading to the Upper West Side to see a Humperdinck fairy tale opera at Lincoln Center, you might just need a drink beforehand. Via (Photo credit: Steven Siegel) Store signage at New York Times Square, around 1985. My children, who are very young, will know, as my sisters and I did, the oddity of being both entirely privileged and yet significantly poorer than most of their classmates and friends. It was bummy but it was awesome. Back in the days prostitues freely roamed Broadway, drug addicts shot up in our basement, wed look out our living room window And see prostitues making their deals. Also The Golden Pan restaurant, Levy Bros Stationers, Universal Health Center, the New Yorker Theater and, upstairs, the New Yorker Bookshop. .I could not get the police or the sanitation department to stop the airmail so I collected it. Tuesday Trivia. 1. e's Bar 511 Amsterdam Ave., nr. . The UWS was terrible then. New York, in general became much safer when Rudy Guilliani became mayor, and even more so under Mayor Bloomberg. Where else could you get Spanish-Chinese food? Sure there were some muggings (mostly stealing our bus passes) but nothing serious. I remember the shoe repair shop between 71st and 72nd on Columbus, and Books, Pictures, and Things, and then Betsey Johnson replacing it. Yes, it was a wild an wooly time. My car was broken into 3 times in my first year here. Homeless? The neighborhood has lost many small businesses such as delis, bodegas, pizzerias, barber shops, candy & stationery stores. It went badly. St. James Gate is very much an Irish pub, but not in a cheesy kind of way. Bar in Upper West Side Add to myNY One of the smaller venues on our list is Bodega 88. I remember Zabars being a nice little store to buy deli and grocery items. John was a amazing teacher and he taught me to love learning! 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. I remember when only the neighbors came out to see the Thanksgiving parade. 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. Abandoned West Side Highway, circa 1980. Today the Upper West Side is cleaner with higher rents and upwardly mobile folk who seem to rent for a couple of years before buying big houses in Montclair or Maplewood. To read a similar account of growing up in the 30s and 40s, click here. I dont think the email in the article works. Sure, it isnt the fanciest bar in the world, and if you order a sazerac here, you might get a weird look - but its a nice little place to hang out with a beer, and theres a sitting area in the back with a couch and some armchairs. Amazing roast chicken at Amsterdams. Attended PS 9 and JHS 44. 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. Tuesday's - you could get a rack of ribs, big salad with lots of fresh blue cheese, and a baked potato for $9.99. jeannine.j@gmail.com. the very chic chain that only was located on the UWS. Citerellas always had their fun fish display in the window. They also have jello shots, so your night here can either be very tame or full of colorful, gelatinous alcohol. But Malachy's a fixture on West 72nd Street off Columbus Ave. since the late '80s is the kind of place people like "because it's old and ugly," insisted Mike Mishkin, owner of . Contentsshow 1The Mermaid Inn 2Prohibition 3The Owl's Tail 4Bodega 88 5E's Bar 6Vin Sur Vingt 7Dive Bar 8Jacob's Pickles Why? 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. Explore the scintillating March 2023 issue of Commentary. While I do not mourn the nabe of the 70s, and I miss the more diverse neighborhood, the mom-and-pop stores, the real neighborhood feeling that has changed. I know Im not imagining it existed. Fancy. Vin sur Vingt | Best Things to Do Upper West Side. Es Bar is one of our go-to spots in the neighborhood, because they do so many things right. A little more than a decade later, my sisters shared an apartment in a midrise next door to what had been Lyfords brownstone. My sister and I used to walk down the street and try to remember what was there before. Pretty good ice cream place in the early 80s. Terrible, just terrible. These days, double-decker tourist buses travel the streets of the Upper West Side, and I cant imagine what narration the guides offer besides pointing out various spots at which the various incarnations of the Law and Order television series have been filmed on location. My rootsthe West Side then, a tavern across from ABC, it & # ;... 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