With Election Day less than a week away, supporters of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property gathered last Wednesday outside the gates of Columbia University to make their views known. Photo by Ann Cooper.
Today is Monday, November, 3rd, 2025

Today’s forecast calls for partly cloudy skies, with the possibility of an afternoon shower; high 60 degrees. The rest of the week is a mixed bag; tomorrow and Thursday are expected to be sunny, while there is a possibility of showers on Wednesday and Friday. Temperatures will be in the upper 50s to the low 60s, with the week’s high of 65 degrees expected tomorrow.

On this day in 1956, “The Wizard of Oz” was televised for the first time. The premiere was hosted by actor Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion, and by 10-year-old Liza Minelli, daughter of Judy Garland. Garland played Dorothy in the film. Thirty-five million people tuned in, starting a tradition: “Over the years, ‘Oz’ has captured an average 53% of all sets in use at the time (30% is considered high),” Time reported of the movie’s first decade on TV. According to the magazine, that made it “the most popular single film property in the history of U.S. television.”

Notices

Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper right-hand corner to check.

Tomorrow is Election Day. For a comprehensive guide to candidates and proposals, as well as to see the ballot and to find your polling place, check out WhosOntheBallot.org, a comprehensive site put together by a team headed by Prof. Esther Fuchs of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs — HERE. The site also includes links to candidates’ policy statements. You also can find your polling place through the Board of Elections website — HERE.

Last week, Community Board 7’s Landmark Preservation Committee voted to deny West-Park Presbyterian Church’s hardship request to revoke the church building’s landmark status; now the matter goes to the full community board, which meets Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at B’nai Jeshurun, 270 West 89th Street. Register to receive a link to the meeting livestream — HERE. The board’s vote is advisory only; the final decision as to the fate of the church will be made by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.

CB7’s Housing & Land Use Committee continues to seek community input on the Extell development planned for the former ABC campus on Columbus Avenue between West 66th and 67th streets. Fill out a survey — HERE.

To find out where leaves are peaking in Central Park, check out the Central Park Conservancy’s fall foliage tracker, which is updated daily by park arborists  —  HERE. (Hint: As of yesterday, one of the park’s most photogenic locations — The Pool, between West 100th and West 103rd streets — was at the height of its autumn glory.) The Conservancy also publishes a digital guide with a curated list of fall activities, available by request — HERE.

News Roundup

Compiled by Laura Muha

Pedestrians jostle for space with police cruisers and other parked (or driving) on the Central Park Bridle Path. Photo by Ann Cooper.

The hot story making the rounds last week stemmed from an investigation by City Councilmember Gale Brewer’s office; after receiving multiple complaints from constituents about the Central Park Bridle Path being used for vehicle parking, her staff headed out to see for themselves. On a single day late last month, they counted 88 vehicles parked along the path, including 24 police cars, five Parks and Recreation Department vehicles and 59 unmarked cars. Brewer’s office included the information in her newsletter, which the New York Post used as the jumping off point for what it labeled an exclusive.

Whereupon Streetsblog reporter David Myer promptly tweeted that he was glad to see the Post covering the story, but was puzzled by the Post’s use of the label “exclusive,” since he’d reported on the issue in 2006, 2018, and 2022.

Regardless of who got it first, there’s no question that the Bridle Path — designed as a recreational trail for joggers, walkers, and horseback riders — has in recent years increasingly been used for parking. “It started out with a very small amount of cars,” a 60-year Manhattan resident who identified herself as “Tamara” told the Post. “Every year, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and now it feels like a parking lot.”

Joggers have complained to Brewer’s office that the parked cars create hiding places for would-be criminals; that the cars often travel faster than is safe, forcing joggers and people with their children in strollers to jump out of the way; and that the weight of all the vehicles on the dirt-and-gravel trail is compressing it.

Brewer has written to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Parks Commissioner Iris Rodriguez-Rosa, requesting an interagency meeting aimed at resolving the issue. “The [Central Park] Precinct Commander is aware and is looking into it,” an NYPD spokesperson told The Post. The story also was picked up by Fox News and noted by Gothamist and Streetsblog NYC.

Read the full story — HERE, watch the Fox News version HERE.

A horse on break in Central Park.

Speaking of Central Park: The fate of carriage horses has been in the news lately, with almost all city officials and candidates for citywide office expressing support for a bill that would eliminate them. The exception? Frontrunner Zorhan Mamdani, who, according to Gothamist, seems to be playing it both ways.

“We have his commitment,” Edita Birnkrant, the head of the animal welfare group NYCLASS, which opposes the carriage horses, told the publication. “It was communicated in writing and in follow-up conversations.”

But John Samuelsen, head of the Transport Workers Union, which represents the city’s roughly 200 carriage horse drivers, told Gothamist that Mamdani promised the union he would keep an open mind. “He has made commitments that he will not go into his four years as mayor predisposed to believing that the horses are treated inhumanely,” Samuelsen said.

In a questionnaire that all candidates were asked to fill out over the summer, Mamdani said he opposed carriage horses. But at a campaign event last week, he appeared to have backed off that slightly. “I echo the concerns of many New Yorkers for whom this is a significant issue,” Gothamist quoted him as saying. “I believe one of the first orders of business would be for me to visit the stables myself, [and] convene an independent panel of medical experts to assess the health of these horses.”

Matt Wing, a Democratic consultant who worked for Mayor Bill de Blasio, told Gothamist that Mamdani would be smart to avoid talking about the carriage horses because “there’s no winning.” While NYCLASS and the union have dug into their positions, he said, “the majority of New Yorkers do not care about it.”

Read the full story — HERE.

A parakeet sitting in the tree. Photo from WSR archives, courtesy of Matt Schick.

Here’s another less-controversial animal story out of Central Park; this one also involving the New York Post, which this time did, inarguably, get the scoop:

For almost three months, birdwatchers have been keeping an eye on a female parakeet, which apparently either escaped or was set free by its owner, and took up residence with a flock of swallows living near Seneca Village. Though the bird was doing well, and the swallows seemed to have accepted it, birdwatchers knew something the bird did not: Cold weather was coming, and as a species that’s native to Australia, it was unlikely to survive once freezing temperatures set in.

Birders JP Borum and Sean Mintz spent hours trying to trap the tiny green bird, whom they dubbed Mei Mei — Chinese for “little sister” — but even though she was becoming slower and weaker from the cold, she always managed to escape.

Finally, last Wednesday, Borum managed to drop a net around the parakeet as it foraged near the Winterdale Arch. “It was kind of like a ring toss, but it landed all around her and I immediately secured her so she couldn’t crawl out,” Borum said.

The bird, who appears to have mites and may also need antibiotics, will spend 30 days quarantining in Borum’s apartment before she can go to a new home, which Borum said she hopes will be the Bronx Zoo’s Budgie Landing.

“New York City is a tough place for any wild creature: predators, poison, and cold weather that a budgie can’t survive,” said Mintz, who chronicled the hunt for Mei Mei on his X account. “Yet for more than two months, Mei Mei beat the odds. She adapted, bonded with a flock of sparrows, persevered, and inspired countless New Yorkers who followed her story. Her rescue today is a relief and a reminder of the city’s capacity for care. Here’s to a long, happy life ahead in a new aviary home.”

Read the full story and see photos — 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.)

80 Vacant Storefronts Blight 51 Upper West Side Broadway Blocks

Meet the Upper West Side’s Bench Bunch

 

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