{"id":157942,"date":"2026-03-09T14:48:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T14:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/157942\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T14:48:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T14:48:07","slug":"remembering-uws-politician-and-activist-ronnie-eldridge-mangled-movie-titles-at-lincoln-center-on-an-uws-hamantashen-crawl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/157942\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering UWS Politician and Activist Ronnie Eldridge; Mangled Movie Titles at Lincoln Center; On an UWS Hamantashen Crawl"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The weekend\u2019s warmer temperatures brought some thawing to Central Park\u2019s Harlem Meer, but there was still enough ice to support the weight of the lake\u2019s resident geese Sunday afternoon. Photo by Ann Cooper<\/p>\n

Today is Monday, March 9, 2026<\/p>\n

Today will be warm (high in the 60s) and sunny, and there\u2019s similar weather on tap through Wednesday. After that, weather predictions look a bit like a kid playing with a yo-yo: still hanging on at a high of 60 on Wednesday, down into 50s and 40s Thursday and Friday, back up a bit Saturday, cooler Sunday \u2026 and so on. We\u2019re in that in-between period when winter is fading but spring hasn\u2019t exactly sprung (its official start is March 20). Maybe hold on to your winter coat a few more days before sending it off to the cleaners.<\/p>\n

On this day in 1959, Barbie made her debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York. It\u2019s estimated that over one billion Barbie dolls have been sold around the world since then.<\/p>\n

Notices<\/p>\n

Our\u00a0calendar<\/a>\u00a0has lots of local events.\u00a0Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.<\/p>\n

Community Board 7\u2019s new Public Safety Task Force wants to hear your concerns about public safety issues. You can fill out their survey \u2014 HERE<\/a>. The survey is anonymous and should take no more than five minutes to complete.<\/p>\n

City Councilmember Gale Brewer\u2019s office is looking for volunteers to help with a West Side Street Light Survey, <\/a>to be conducted March 12-19. Volunteers will be asked to walk some neighborhood streets to record where lights are burned out, damaged, or missing.<\/p>\n

And today is your LAST CHANCE to enter West Side Rag\u2019s t-shirt contest. To join the competition, suggest a name for New Absolute Bagels, which replaced Absolute Bagels, but last week hung up a new banner renaming itself 2788 Bagels (after the owner of the original Absolute threatened legal action). To record your name suggestion, go HERE<\/a> and write in the comments at the bottom of the article. We\u2019ll consider all entries recorded by the end of today.<\/p>\n

News Roundup<\/p>\n

Compiled by Ann Cooper\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Ronnie Eldridge. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n

In 1967, Upper West Sider Ronnie Eldridge invited into her brownstone home on West 93rd Street a group of prominent local Democrats opposed to the war in Vietnam. The gathering was a strategy session with the goal of defeating President Lyndon B. Johnson \u2013 a fellow Democrat, but also the man overseeing America\u2019s ongoing war effort. The meeting spawned a movement that led to serious primary challenges to Johnson and ultimately caused him to withdraw from the presidential race.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was all organized in my living room,\u201d Eldridge later recalled, according to The New York Times, which recounted the story in its obituary last week announcing Eldridge\u2019s death, at age 95, on March 4.<\/p>\n

Eldridge worked for prominent Democrats at national, state, and local levels, and for a dozen years she was the UWS\u2019s representative on the New York City Council. In 2002, when term limits prevented her from running again, Gale Brewer, the neighborhood\u2019s current city councilmember, succeeded her. \u201cHer shoes were very big shoes to fill,\u201d Brewer wrote in a remembrance last week. \u201cShe always stood up for progressive principles, and practical ones.\u201d (On the practical side, Brewer noted the city council bill requiring cameras in bank lobbies with ATMs, something Eldridge proposed after being mugged at an ATM.)<\/p>\n

The Forward\u2019s obituary called Eldridge \u201cone of NYC\u2019s toughest political minds\u201d and said that as an antiwar activist in the 1960s she \u201cmade mountains move on the national level.\u201d The Times said she liked to tell people she was \u201cborn political\u201d because her birthday was the same as Franklin D. Roosevelt\u2019s. \u201cI used to send birthday cards to the White House, and the White House used to send birthday cards to me,\u201d The Times quoted her as saying.<\/p>\n

Eldridge embraced feminism, was an advocate for gay rights, and in 1969 temporarily left the Democratic Party to help Mayor John V. Lindsay\u2019s reelection (Lindsay, a liberal Republican, lost his party\u2019s primary that year but won reelection by running as an independent and Liberal Party candidate).<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin the Lindsay administration, she was a trusted sounding board and troubleshooter who pursued her policy agenda relentlessly but disarmingly,\u201d the Times wrote in its obituary. The paper quoted an unnamed Lindsay aide, who said in 1970 that Eldridge \u201chas a very nice way of leaning on you to get something done. She\u2019ll come back each day to ask, \u2018Have you done it?\u2019 She\u2019ll smile, and you couldn\u2019t get mad, but she\u2019ll never let go.\u201d<\/p>\n

A memorial for Eldridge is scheduled for Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at the New York Ethical Culture Society, 2 West 64th Street.<\/p>\n

Read more about Eldridge\u2019s political career and life on the UWS with her husband, longtime New York Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin \u2013 HERE<\/a> and HERE.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Image via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n

Quick, what film won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2023? Maybe you guessed \u201cUpside Down Anyways,\u201d the (nonexistent) film a customer tried to buy a ticket for that year at the UWS\u2019s Film at Lincoln Center. \u00a0Daniel Welch, working in the box office, eventually realized the customer wanted to see \u201cEverything Everywhere All at Once.\u201d A ticket was sold, and then Welch entered the customer\u2019s initial request in a Google doc maintained by the Lincoln Center film staff: \u201cWRONG MOVIE TITLES.\u201d<\/p>\n

That three-year-old document is now 27 pages long, according to The New York Times<\/a>, which spoke to Welch and other Film at Lincoln Center box office staff, who keep a running record of \u201cthe delightfully incorrect movie titles given by theatergoers.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s the Lincoln Center customer who asked for a ticket to \u201cAn Economy of a Murder,\u201d but was actually trying to see \u201cAnatomy of a Fall.\u201d A request for \u201cWallace and Hermit\u201d was probably pretty easy to translate to the real movie title: \u201cWallace and Gromit.\u201d But \u201cFamiliar Touch\u201d may have taken more time to decipher as a ticket request for \u201cVelvet Fabric.\u201d And then there was the mangling of dictators by a customer who wanted to see \u201cThe Death of Stalin\u201d but requested a ticket for \u201cHitler.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lincoln Center staff didn\u2019t originate the idea of preserving wrong movie titles; Welch brought it with him from a Massachusetts theater where he had worked previously. A clipboard kept in the box office there contained such errors as \u201cBend Over Pac-Man,\u201d from a customer trying to buy a ticket for \u201cBend it Like Beckham.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Film at Lincoln Center staff, the titles most likely to be mangled by theatergoers are long, wordy ones (think \u201cEverything Everywhere All at Once\u201d) and those with unusual names \u2013 like last year\u2019s Best Picture winner, Anora. So far, the \u201cwrong titles\u201d list has over 30 mispronunciations of that one: \u201cAnita,\u201d \u201cAndora,\u201d Ansara,\u201d Enola,\u201d \u201cEleanor\u2026\u201d You get the idea.<\/p>\n

Read the full story \u2013 HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Photo by Yoninah \u2014 own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n

As the Jewish holiday of Purim began last week, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams paid a visit to three Upper West Side kosher bakeries on a \u201chamantashen crawl.\u201d It was a culinary journey interspersed occasionally with some political messaging.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2026wanted to visit and uplift Jewish owned businesses that very often only get visited in moments of crisis, if they\u2019re subjected to vandalism, antisemitic attacks,\u201d said Jewish Community Relations Council CEO Mark Treyger, who escorted Williams, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA).<\/p>\n

The bakery visits focused on hamantashen (also spelled hamentashen), the triangle-shaped, filled cookies that commemorate the Purim story of the thwarting of a plot to eradicate ancient Persia\u2019s Jews; the cookies are said to mimic the shape of the Persian villain Haman\u2019s ear, or perhaps his three-cornered hat.<\/p>\n

First stop on the hamantashen crawl was gluten- and dairy-free By the Way Bakery at 2440 Broadway, between West 90th and 91st streets, followed by Patis at 676 Amsterdam near West 93rd Street. Though traditional fillings generally involve raspberries, prunes, or other fruit, at Patis \u201can enormous Dubai chocolate-style, pistachio cream puff pastry hamentash was the center of attention,\u201d JTA reported. More traditional versions were on offer at the final stop: Six60One, a kosher grocery store at 661 Amsterdam between West 92nd and 93rd streets.<\/p>\n

Along the way, Treyger told JTA that good hamantashen could be compared with New York. \u201cThe dough has to be crumbly but still resilient,\u201d he said. Then there\u2019s the ample dough-to-filling ratio, which should be \u201cbold, like New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd number three, we don\u2019t fold under pressure,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you bite into it, it cannot fall apart.\u201d<\/p>\n

If there was a favorite, Williams wasn\u2019t going to name it publicly, according to JTA\u2019s account.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, I\u2019ve had three of the best hamantashen in the city at these three spots,\u201d Williams said. \u201cThey\u2019re made a little differently, just like New York City, but they all taste great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the full story \u2013 HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Other UWS News<\/p>\n

CNN interviewed Jack Schlossberg, grandson of President John F. Kennedy and current candidate for the congressional seat being vacated by Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who has represented the UWS for more than three decades. Much of the interview focuses on Schlossberg\u2019s family, the recent death of his sister, and his energetic social media presence. Watch it \u2014 HERE<\/a>.
\nThere were still ice chunks in the Hudson River last week when a paddleboarder was spotted making his way downriver, wearing a backpack but no wetsuit. Hudson water temperature that day was 31 degrees. More \u2014 HERE.<\/a>
\nIn a brief recording that ran on the New York Times site last week, Publisher A.G. Sulzberger spoke about the difficulties facing journalism today, including the Times. He encouraged listeners to support \u201cany news organization that\u2019s dedicated to original reporting.\u201d Listen \u2014 HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ICYMI<\/p>\n

Here are a few stories we think are worth a look if you missed them last week \u2014 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.)<\/p>\n

City Halts Plan To Close Upper West Side Middle School: \u2018Our Focus Must be on Healing\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

New Absolute Bagels Changes its Name After Threat of Legal Action, Manager Says<\/a><\/p>\n

The Secret to Rat Control on the Upper West Side? \u2018It\u2019s All About Food Availability\u2019\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Subscribe to WSR\u2019s free email newsletter\u00a0here<\/a>. And you can Support the Rag\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The weekend\u2019s warmer temperatures brought some thawing to Central Park\u2019s Harlem Meer, but there was still enough ice…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[53356,65228,8073,9,11,10,65229],"class_list":["post-157942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-film-at-lincoln-center","tag-harlem-meer","tag-jumaane-williams","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-ronnie-eldridge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}