Beginning Wednesday, August 5, MTA New York City Transit will provide new overnight bus service for customers between Manhattan and Brooklyn, and between Manhattan and the Bronx. The new M99 will operate run every 20 minutes from approximately 1AM and 6AM, between East New York in Brooklyn and the West 42nd Street pier in Manhattan. The new Bx99 will run every 20 minutes from approximately 1AM and 6AM, between Woodlawn in the Bronx and the West Village serving the east and west sides of Manhattan, crossing Midtown along 57th Street. Please visit mta.info/overnight for more information and use the MyMTA app or call 511 to plan your trip.
It’s a day to clean-up, sweep-up, weed and paint! Join your friends & neighbors in a safe and socially distanced park clean-up event on Saturday, August 8th from 9:30am to 11:00am in Marcus Garvey Park. Socially distanced means limited capacity (20 spots left as of this afternoon). Reserve your spot on the Facebook Event Page. All volunteers mush sign in between 9:15 and 9:30am, meeting at the Drummers Circle (Madison Avenue side near 124). Marcus Garvey Park Alliance will provide gloves and tools. Masks are required. (Suggestion ~ bring a bottle of water). Register now and see you there!
Carto has a map of NYC building heights where red is tall, and blue is short:
As you would expect, the lower half of Manhattan is mostly red, and Brooklyn is mostly blue.
If you zoom in on our neighborhood, you’ll typically see a mix of red and blue, with the projects being almost purely red areas:
Zooming in even more, you can see how the taller brownstones along Madison Avenue between 126/127 are taller (by one story) than the brownstones on 126th Street:
The new storefront opened on August 4th, and is serving up hot donuts to weary Harlemites.
Their latest NYC outpost is at 319 West 125th Street and it features the city’s very first hot light. The shop will serve these right-off-the-line doughnuts at a production rate of more than 100 per hour.
Up until recently, the Penn Station Krispy Kreme, which opened in 2009, was the chain’s only store in New York City. As part of their expansion, they recently opened locations in FiDi and just south of Bryant Park at 37th Street and Sixth Avenue. The international chain is planning an immersive flagship store in Times Square, complete with the world’s largest hot light, stadium-style seating where guests can watch the doughnut-making process, and even a “glaze waterfall.” Locations are also planned for the Upper West Side and the Bronx.
For their new Harlem location, Krispy Kreme opened inside a historic building built in 1910; in the 1950s, it was the famous saloon and jazz club “The Baby Grand.” This store employs 45 newly hired team members and managers and offers all the Krispy Kreme classics like the iconic Original Glazed® doughnuts, a full doughnut menu, and hot and cold coffees. It’ll be open Sunday to Thursday from 7am to 10pm and Friday to Saturday from 7am to 11pm, and the store will offer local delivery.
The Library of Congress has a great short of horse racing on Harlem River Drive. Note the Aquaduct Bridge with its full complement of masonry arches before the center arches were replaced with a steel span to permit boat traffic:
Note the people on the Aqueduct Bridge, taking the parade of wealthy families and their horses.
The day after Hurricane Isaias is one of disbelief in many communities. Today I saw a huge tree down at Park Avenue and 120th Street:
This will undoubtedly impact the use of the sports field that the tree fell into and may impact this school’s opening plans unless the tree is removed and the fence repaired soon.
The mayor has said that the COVID driven outdoor dining program will return next summer, on June 1st.
“I wanted to say it now because I want people in communities to look forward and see that we’re going to keep coming back strong. I want the folks who own the restaurants to know that they’re going to have that additional revenue going forward. The folks who work in the restaurants to know that whatever else we have to weather, we have seen that this experiment worked,” said the mayor.
That seems kind of late in the season. Many people would be happy to dine out earlier in May, for example and our local restaurants will need every dollar they can get. Let’s hope outdoor dining does return, but earlier than the mayor’s plan.
