Manhattenhenge, as seen on July 11 from Amsterdam and West 79th Street. Photo by Deborah Hautzig.
Today is Monday, July 20th, 2026
The forecast calls for partly sunny skies and a high of 82 — a big improvement over last week, when the temperatures were sweltering and the sky was hazy with the smoke from Canadian wildfires. The rest of the week also should be fairly comfortable, with highs in the upper 70s to mid 80s; the only rain in the forecast is tomorrow, when there’s a possibility of a stray thunderstorm.
On this date in 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong opened the hatch of Apollo 11’s lunar landing module, climbed down a ladder and became the first person ever to set foot on the surface of the moon. “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind,” he told the world over a staticky audio transmission. The word “a” in that famous quote is in parentheses in the official NASA transcript, because it’s not clear whether he actually said it (as he’d intended to do) or forgot it in the excitement of the moment. Scientific analyses of the tape over the years have come to differing conclusions.
Notices:
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
Calling all cooks (and creative non-cooks)! Do you have a favorite family recipe? If so, we’d love to know about it, and also about the story behind it. Our inspiration: Yvonne Vávra’s June 27 column about a mysterious grocery list, in which she wistfully said that she wished the neighborhood had a community cookbook like the East Village’s, filled with the recipes that UWSers can’t live without. “I want our Upper West Side apple cakes that have been in our families for generations, and I want them now!” she wrote. “I’d even try your potatoes and fat in honor of our culinary heritage.” Judging from the enthusiastic responses in the comments section, you agreed with her — and suggested the Rag ought to take a stab at putting something together. We thought that was a terrific idea — perhaps not a cookbook right away, but at least the possibility of a cooking column to see where it takes us. If you’d like to contribute, send us your recipe (info@wsr.com) tell us why it has a place on your table, and we’ll take it from there. (No recipes from copyrighted cookbooks please, unless you’ve made it your own and clearly identify the original source.)
The documentary Wild Inside, which tells the story of Flaco the owl‘s escape from the Central Park Zoo and subsequent year of freedom, premieres Wednesday with a free outdoor screening at the park’s Great Hill, which stretches from 103rd to 107th streets. Bring a blanket — it’s lawn seating — and “doors” open at 7:30 p.m., with the screening itself beginning at 9 p.m. Rain date is Thursday, and if outdoor movies aren’t your thing, you’ll be able to see it at Manhattan’s IFC Center in Greenwich Village beginning on on Friday, July 31. More information — HERE.
Please consider donating to the Rag! As we’ve noted on a couple of different occasions recently, the Rag is in a period of transition, as we seek non-profit status. We know we’ve had our hand out a lot lately, but your donations really do help; they go to pay our writers while our non-profit paperwork winds its way through the bureaucracy. If you’d like to support us, the link is — HERE.
News Roundup
Compiled by Laura Muha
Jacob Soboroff. Photo by Bodyoaken, via Wikimedia Commons.
Jacob Soboroff, senior political correspondent for MS NOW, recently paid a visit to the UWS for a segment of “Prediction Markets,” a regular feature in which he asks random people to make predictions about current events.
In the past, he’s canvassed shoppers at the Grand Central Market in Los Angeles, and attendees at the opening of the Obama Presidential Library in Chicago; this time his destination was the 97th Street Greenmarket on Amsterdam Avenue, where he asked shoppers, among other things, who would win the Maine senatorial race, whether Taylor Swift or Bad Bunny would get more Emmy nominations — and what they thought President Trump would slap his name on next.
“New Yorkers never, ever disappoint,” said Soboroff, who called the segment “one of my favorite Prediction Markets yet.”
Watch it (and see what UWSers predicted) — HERE.
Photo by Alain Durand via Wickimedia Commons.
Thirty years ago last Friday, TWA Flight 800 exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the South Shore of Long Island, killing all 230 passengers and crew members on board.
Among them was UWSer Lois Van Epps, whose friends — including actor Joe Mantegna — remembered her on NY1 on the anniversary of her death.
“I’m not sure I’d be an actor today if she hadn’t been part of my life,” said Mantegna, who met Van Epps in the 1960s when he was a student at an Illinois high school where she was teaching. She encouraged him to pursue acting after seeing him audition for a student production of “West Side Story.” “[H]er encouragement and support … in terms of what I was pursuing, had a huge impact on me continuing on and joining the drama department at that school [and going] on to the junior college,” he told the station.
Van Epps, who was en route to France to visit friends when she died, lived on the UWS but commuted daily to Edgemont High School in Scarsdale, where she taught English and drama.
Susan Barniker, a French teacher who carpooled with Van Epps, said that going to work, they never dawdled, but coming home, Van Epps liked to indulge her sense of adventure by taking back roads. “[S]he would get off one of the bridges and wander through the areas of northern New York. I saw things I had never seen before.”
Fellow English teacher Hannah Hyle told NY1 that when she thinks of Van Epps, she thinks of “happy things.”
“It’s not just what you’ve lost, it’s what you’ve had,” she said. “And … we had a lot of good times.”
Read/watch the full story — HERE.
Horse-drawn carriage. Photo from WSR archives.
Editorials from not one, but two mainstream news sites are pushing back against a law to ban horse-drawn carriages, which currently is being considered by the City Council.
The New York Post editorial called such a ban “true cruelty,” for both the drivers and the horses themselves. “The idea that forcefully-retired equines will live out peaceful lives at pastoral sanctuaries is pure ‘fantasy,’” the editorial said, quoting a veterinarian who testified on the bill at a hearing last week.
Meanwhile, amNY’s editorial writers urged the City Council not to rush into the ban, but to first explore all options.
Both editorials appeared last week after the City Council’s Health Committee heard public testimony on the bill, named Romanch’s Law after 18-year-old Romanch Mahajan, who died after falling from a carriage in Central Park in May. The bill would ban carriage horses, but also includes a provision to help “retrain” the drivers for other work.
The Post wrote that the testimony by the teen’s family was heart-wrenching. But, the editorial pointed out, the teen’s death was the only one in the industry’s 160-year history, compared to 133 deaths who have died in e-bike accidents since 2019. “New York City sees other deadly accidents all the time — without prompting a rush to outright ban cars, construction work or e-bikes. And the testimony from those in the industry — the ones who’d lose their livelihoods, not to mention, in all likelihood, their horses — was powerful, too.”
amNY, meanwhile, brought up another bill introduced by City Council Member James Gennaro, which would not ban horse-drawn carriages, but which would impose stricter regulations on the industry, including mandating that horses be tied to hitching posts when not in transit.
“We think that the City Council ought to seriously consider giving Gennaro’s bill a shot, as a one-last-chance measure for the horse carriage industry,” the publication’s editorial board wrote. “At the same time, we also believe the Council should simultaneously test an idea previously pitched in the horse carriage debate: replacing horse-drawn rides with electric replicas of classic vehicles to chauffeur tourists through the park.”
Read the Post op-ed — HERE and the amNY op-ed — HERE.
In Other UWS News
Patch reports that it was another good week for the UWS luxury real estate market, with seven deals closing at over $4 million. Details of the top sales are — HERE.
Speaking of luxury real estate: DesignMilk.com, a lifestyle and design site, featured the remodel of an UWS penthouse that required all the large custom pieces to be lifted to the top floor by crane because the building’s elevators were too small for them. See the results of the remodel — HERE.
Tom Cruise was supposed to be the guest of honor at a showing of The Odyssey at the AMC Lincoln Square last week, but he missed it after a thunderstorm disrupted his travel plans. By the time he got there the movie was over — so he got the theater to give him a special screening — and invited AMC employees to join him, Entertainment Tonight reported. Read about it — HERE.
ICYMI
Here are a few stories we think are worth a look if you missed them last week — or a second look if you saw them. (Note that our comments stay open for six days after publication, so you may not be able to comment on all of them.)
People From all Over Are Traveling to the Upper West Side to Watch a Movie: Here’s Why
Upper West Side Historical Photo Challenge No. 31
‘Stranger Things’ Star Leads Acting Lesson for UWS Elementary School: Watch It
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