📌 Pinned Missed these? Your neighbors didn't.

🍜 UWS Outdoor Dining + NYT 100 + Where to Watch the Knicks — more than 103,000 of you have used this map. Bonus: a lot of those Knicks-watch spots are running extended hours for the World Cup now, some opening as early as 2:30pm.

🌟 The Summer 10 — nominate a neighbor. We'll tell their stories all summer.

📰 Issue #17: Caps, Gowns, and a Handbag at the Guggenheim — in case you missed last week.

It's a sauna in here. We cracked triple digits, and Central Park, with all its trees and an entire reservoir, still couldn't keep its cool, hitting 100 for the first time in a decade. Brains are melting. Everyone who didn't flee the city for the Fourth is home hugging the AC. The city already clocked 209 heat calls and 151 ER visits on Wednesday alone, so keep a water bottle on you and pace yourself, then get out there anyway. The U18s section is stacked with ways to get the kids out of the apartment without cooking them.

Our favorite trick that we want to see more of on the UWS: Get the FDNY to open your hydrant. We always have the local engine come do ours, and the recipe never fails: a couple of parents to block the road, a speaker jamming music, and every kid on the block losing their minds in the spray. The catch is very New York. To throw this spontaneous burst of summer joy you must be over 18, show ID, fill out a form, and let the firehouse schedule a time to turn it on and off. Nothing says freedom like a permitted hydrant with an appointment. Find your firehouse here.

Do not freelance it. Crack a hydrant open without the city's spray cap and you're blasting 1,000 gallons a minute, tanking the whole block's water pressure and earning a fine up to $1,000. Done right, the water runs cool from underground, the kids are feral and happy, and the whole scene is basically begging for an ice cream truck. Manifest the ice cream truck.

One more: the heat scrambled the calendar. Lincoln Center's Summer for the City pulled its outdoor dance floor tonight and tomorrow, so check before you head over. If you're desperate to escape the apartment, walk up to the indoor shows anyway. We've gotten in on "sold-out" nights more than once. No-shows happen.

Absolutely Bananas. Food Network's Top 10 crowned Magnolia Bakery's banana pudding the #1 sweet in the country, which is wild, because the recipe is six ingredients and half of them come from a box or a can: instant pudding mix, sweetened condensed milk, heavy cream, Nilla wafers, bananas, and cold water, which, yes, is officially ingredient number six. A bowl of pantry staples walked into a room full of pastry chefs with blowtorches and left with the crown.

We ordered a large one for delivery, strictly for research, and finished it strictly for research too. It hits like a song from a summer you can't quite place: cold, sweet, and punching so far above its weight it's almost showing off.

Credit to Bobbie Lloyd, Magnolia's Chief Baking Officer, a title she earned with a dessert that never touches an oven, and an Upper West Sider for nearly 30 years. "Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality," the Dalai Lama said, and Bobbie's version of immortality is a recipe so simple that anyone who can read a label can keep it going. The best dessert in America is our neighbor's, and she's happy to tell you how.

The judges earned their seats:

The full recipe's public if you'd rather make it than buy it. The rest of us will be at Magnolia, 200 Columbus at 69th.

Broadway has a cheat code, and nobody sends it to you. Taking someone to a show should be a night out, not a research project. But say your mom uses a wheelchair, or your kid can't do loud, or your dad stopped catching the dialogue years ago, and suddenly you're cross-referencing seating charts and access notes across a dozen show sites like you're planning a heist.

There's a site for this. Theatre Access NYC lets you pull up any show and see what it actually offers before you buy: step-free entrances and bathrooms, ASL nights, captions, audio description through headphones, hearing loops, the works. It's free, it's been sitting there the whole time, and in a city that will not shut up about theater, somehow nobody mentions it.

If it's noise and lights and not stairs, that's TDF's Autism-Friendly Performances: the real shows, just with the volume down, the house lights up, the strobes cut, a quiet room to duck into, and staff who won't shoot you a look when your kid needs a minute. They've done it since 2011, started with The Lion King. Next one's close to home, an autism-friendly Ragtime at the Vivian Beaumont at Lincoln Center on Sunday, July 26 at 1pm, with Hadestown and The Great Gatsby after.

The fall season's about to go on sale, so save yourself the 4pm phone call and sort it now.

Closed: 🍕 Francesco's Pizza — 186 Columbus Ave (68th–69th). After 27 years the grate is down, the phone rings busy, and a worker inside confirmed what the gutted dining room already said. A regular called it his second kitchen.

Coming: ☕ Eataly Caffè — 2252 Broadway (81st). The Italian coffee-and-pastry chain takes over the old corner Starbucks this fall. Yes, that Starbucks. The "You've Got Mail" one.

Coming: 🥩 Boucherie — 444–446 Columbus Ave (81st–82nd). The French brasserie-and-steakhouse group is combining a dead Starbucks and the old Milling Room into one 222-seat room, landmark glass ceiling and all, aiming for October. That's two ex-Starbucks on this list now becoming somewhere you'd actually sit down.

Opened: 🥕 Carrot — 2169 Broadway (76th–77th). Bowls, wraps, smoothies, and açaí from the Miami chain that started in a 1993 gas station and just dropped the "Express" from its name. Health food, one word lighter.

The country hits a quarter-millennium on Saturday, and for once the marquee events are on our side of the island: up the Hudson, over the river, and up at Grant's Tomb. Here's where to stand (full Sail4th schedule here).

⛵ Tall ships up the Hudson, Riverside Park, Sat 7/4, 9:30am–2pm. More than 40 vessels from 20-plus countries, some as long as 378 feet, sail under the Verrazzano, past Lady Liberty, and up to the George Washington Bridge. No pier, no bag check, no crossing the park to the East River. That window is the whole harbor run, though, so neighbors doing the math put the ships off the UWS around midday and drifting past until late afternoon as they head back down. Bring coffee, claim a railing. FREE

✈️ International Aerial Review, over the Hudson, Sat 7/4, ~10:15am. The Blue Angels lead more than 150 aircraft low along the river, turn in the harbor, and come back for a second pass. Best seats are the water's edge: any open lawn in Riverside Park or the Hudson River Greenway path (the official NYPD screened viewpoints on the West Side Highway are down at 55th and 44th). The city is warning it will be extremely loud and prolonged, so bring ear protection for the kids and the dog, and get there early. FREE

🎺 Concert and BBQ at Grant's Tomb, Riverside Dr & W 122nd, Sat 7/4, BBQ and cake from 11:30am, concert at noon. Juilliard jazz, the Antebellum Marine Band, and President Grant himself holding court (well, Ken Serfass). The overlook is one of the best ship-viewing seats on the island. FREE

🇺🇸 11th Annual Independence Parade, Castle Clinton, Battery Park, Sat 7/4, flag raising 11:45am, parade steps off 12:15pm. This one's ours by proxy: our own Council Member Gale Brewer is the Grand Marshal. The Lower Manhattan Historical Association opens with a flag raising and a fifty-state cannon salute at Castle Clinton, then marches through historic downtown to Fraunces Tavern. Yes, it's all the way at the tip of the island, but it's not every day you get to watch your council member lead a parade (she says she'll be hydrating). FREE

🎆 Macy's 4th of July Fireworks, the lower Hudson, Sat 7/4, show at 8pm, fireworks around 9:25pm. The 50th is the biggest ever: 85,000 shells from barges on both rivers, plus a new laser bit off the Brooklyn Bridge. After years stuck on the East River, the Hudson is back in the mix. The catch: the Hudson barges sit way downtown by Jersey City, so from up here you are looking south, and the lower and clearer your Riverside Park sightline, the better your odds. Keep an eye on the sky, too, Saturday evening carries a stray-storm risk. FREE

🎆 West Side Community Garden July 4th Party, W 89th–90th between Columbus and Amsterdam, Sat 7/4, 5–7pm. The neighborhood's hidden garden marks the 250th with music, watermelon, and refreshments, open to all. A shady, low-volume counter-program to a very loud day. FREE

⛴️ See it from the water (Circle Line), Pier 83, W 42nd on the Hudson, July 3–8, various times. If you'd rather watch the ships and fireworks from the harbor than from a railing, Circle Line runs five options off Pier 83, from a $27 sightseeing cruise once the ships dock (7/5–8) up to a $399 Fourth-of-July fireworks cruise with an open bar. The 7/4 Parade of Sail cruise (8am–3pm) runs $149. Reminder: the ships pass Riverside Park for free.

🥂 Parade of Sail Brunch Cruise, Hudson River, Sat 7/4, boarding 7:45am, sails 8:30am to about 2pm. Front-row flotilla views by the Statue of Liberty, a July 4th buffet, and two hours of bottomless mimosas, for $599 to $699 a head 👀 (code Fireworks50 takes $50 off, two-ticket minimum). Or, hear us out, watch the same ships pass Riverside Park for zero dollars.

⚓ Tall ship tours at Pier 86, Intrepid, W 46th & 12th, Sun 7/5–Tue 7/7, from noon. Once the parade is done, a few of the ships dock at the Intrepid for walk-aboard tours, including the Amerigo Vespucci (Italy) and Capitan Miranda (Uruguay). Reservations required, ages 5 and up, no strollers on deck, and Sunday's Vespucci slot is already gone. The free thing you have to book. FREE

🧭 Where every ship is docked, across the harbor, through Tue 7/7. A neighbor, Gowri Shankar, built a directory of where each tall ship is berthed this weekend, and Council Member Gale Brewer's office passed it around. Hunting a specific flag, or the 378-foot Peruvian one? Start here. FREE

🎵 The Star-Spangled Banner, first edition, NYPL for the Performing Arts, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, through Aug 31. One of only 11 surviving first printings of the 1814 sheet music sits in a glass case by the circulation desk. It is billed as a "Pariotic Song," because the engraver fumbled the anthem's own subtitle before it was even the anthem. Around the corner: 250 records that shaped American music, turntables included. FREE

📜 A rare 1776 Declaration of Independence, New York Historical, 170 CPW at 77th, open all weekend. A previously unidentified printing, newly credited to New York printer Samuel Loudon, is out of the vault for the 250th, and the museum is open all three days to see it. Friday and Saturday evenings, Songs of America brings free live music to the Tang Wing with Jazz at Lincoln Center (DJ Kultured Child and Birsa Chatterjee on soul jazz). Downstairs, New York Historical's DiMenna Children's History Museum keeps the youngest historians busy. Admission applies; PWYW Friday 5–8pm, and families free with code FAMPASS26 through 7/31.

🥵 An Extreme Heat Warning runs through Saturday at 9pm: 99 today, 98 on the Fourth, then a real break Sunday down to 83 and cloudy. The catch is the sky at night, a stray thunderstorm is possible Saturday evening (fingers crossed for the fireworks), with steadier rain moving in Sunday. Drink water, find shade, and check the radar before you commit to a lawn.

🎞️ The Master on 70mm, Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center, Sat 7/4 8pm, Mon 7/6 9pm, Wed 7/8 3pm. Paul Thomas Anderson's 2012 drama, with Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman at their best, on a 5-perf 70mm print as part of Film at Lincoln Center's 70mm run. 137 minutes of grain the way it was meant to look. $24 to $27.

🧊 And for the grown-ups, air conditioning with a cocktail. Once the kids are down and the apartment's still an oven:

Here's what the whole city is relearning: the bars that packed out for the Knicks are the same ones packing out for the World Cup. Different sport, identical screaming. We mapped every UWS sports bar back in June for the Finals, and that map, now past 103,000 views, is your soccer cheat sheet too. But since the neighbors have been sounding off, here's where they say to go:

Prefer it free and outdoors? AMNH runs its own watch parties inside the museum, and the city has 40-plus free "soccer streets" screenings across the boroughs. FREE

And for the game as cinema: Film at Lincoln Center's Penalty Flicks is an all-soccer outdoor series at Hearst Plaza, Thu 7/9–Sat 7/18 at 8pm: Pelé, Offside, Diamantino, Shaolin Soccer, Infinite Football, and, sure, She's the Man. FREE

Half of you said at home, in the AC, in peace, which, given what the thermometer is about to do this weekend, now reads less like a vibe and more like a survival plan. A fifth are at a bar yelling with strangers, another fifth are, apparently, at the Museum of Natural History, and one lone voter answered "The what cup?", which might be the most peaceful position in the city right now.

Now, this week's thing to chew on: it's a rough week to own a car up here, and Sanitation is coming at you from two directions.

First, the shame sticker is back. The City Council passed a bill from our own Council Member Gale Brewer bringing back the bright "This Vehicle Violates NYC Parking Regulations" stickers Sanitation slaps on cars that don't move for alternate-side. Shelved for a decade, now back with a $65 fine, though the real weapon is the sticker itself: it's a pain to peel, and the peel is the point.

Second, the spots themselves. A new city study says the UWS could lose about 1,500 parking spaces over the next several years, as roughly 30,000 citywide get handed to locked "Empire Bin" trash containers, the ones meant to get garbage bags off the curb and starve the rats. We take one of the biggest percentage hits in the city. The study's own math says displaced drivers here will pay around $270 more a month to garage a car, and its own answer to that is, more or less, that people up here can afford it. Which is a bold thing to put in an official document.

It's going to be brutal out there, so here's the heat-day playbook for the small ones. The rule of the weekend: air conditioning or water, nothing in between.

🦕 AMNH, 200 Central Park West, open daily 10am–5:30pm. When it's 100 degrees, the museum is cold, cavernous, and built for letting a kid run semi-feral under the blue whale. New this summer: Goal Zone, an all-ages soccer play space with a kick-speed scanner, foosball, and a wax Messi to pose with, plus the Invisible Worlds immersive room. General admission is pay-what-you-wish for NY State residents; Goal Zone and Invisible Worlds each need an add-on ticket. And the fountain out on the Arthur Ross Terrace runs all summer, free to splash through before you even head inside.

🖼️ The Met, 1000 Fifth Ave, kids' entrance on 81st, open daily. The other cold, cavernous move, and worth the crosstown bus when it's blazing. The 81st Street Studio is a hands-on art space built for the littlest ones, and the Met's family guides turn the galleries into a scavenger hunt for the bigger kids. Pay-what-you-wish for NY State residents.

⚽ Crossbar, 250 W 86th (Broadway & West End), daily. A soccer cafe with an actual indoor mini-field, air conditioning, Devoción coffee, and jersey-shaped cookies. Kids burn it off on the turf, you get a real coffee, and whatever World Cup match is on is on. Peak use of a heat wave.

🎨 Play Street Museum, 805 Columbus Ave (100th), sessions daily, reserve ahead. An indoor, air-conditioned play museum for the under-8 set: a pretend town square with a doctor's office, pet shop, fire station, and a giant train table. $35 per child, $10 per adult, and book a session in advance. (Weekends often go to private events, so check first.)

🛟 Harbor Hooray! at CMOM, Children's Museum of Manhattan, 212 W 83rd, through Sun 7/5. Maritime making tied to the tall-ship weekend: float-or-sink boat experiments, recycled-paper ship sculptures, and nautical flag-making, all indoors and out of the sun. With admission.

💦 Hippo Playground, Riverside Park at 91st, dawn to dusk. The hippos are the sprinklers. The big ones throw sky-high spray for older kids, the little ones trickle for toddlers, and a bubbling boulder rounds it out. Deep shade from the honey locusts. Bring towels. FREE

💦 River Run Playground, Riverside Park at 82nd, dawn to dusk. A little concrete "Hudson River" runs down the middle and fills when the sprinkler's on, fenced so nobody floats away. Shady and free. FREE

🎭 Or just go to a show. The littles love the Gazillion Bubble Show (New World Stages, 340 W 50th; 70 minutes, all ages), and after 19 years it closes for good in September, so catch it now. Tweens and teens get The Play That Goes Wrong (same building; a murder mystery where the set collapses on schedule). And AMAZE Magic (same building; ages 5 and up) is Jamie Allan's magic show with an actual story. Pro tip: the TKTS booth at Lincoln Center sells same-day and next-day matinee seats at a discount, right in the neighborhood.

🎨 Color Factory, SoHo, daily. Not the UWS, but a good way to burn a hot afternoon somewhere air-conditioned: 16 hands-on color installations and a giant ball pit. Discounted tickets online run around $29. Cool off after at Pier 25's playground in Hudson River Park, which has water sprays, sand, and slides right on the river. Cab or bus down depending on your energy and the thermometer, and end on a Mr. Softee.

Don’t forget: The New York Historical discount code FAMPASS26, good through 7/31.

📦 Making Care Packages Goddard Riverside Older Adult Center, 593 Columbus Ave (at 88th)

Tue 7/14, 4:15–5pm · Forty-five minutes, one table, a stack of care bags for Goddard's housing, homelessness, and mental health programs. Ages 8 and up, anyone under 16 brings a grown-up. About the easiest good deed on the calendar.

Be the neighbor you think you are.

Something different this week. The country turns 250, so instead of the usual, three thoughts on the thing we're actually celebrating:

"Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people." — Abraham Lincoln

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise." — Winston Churchill

"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." — Reinhold Niebuhr

📣 SHARE THE WEST SIDER Forward responsibly. Or irresponsibly. We're not picky.

That's the 250th, West Side style: banana pudding out-cooking the professionals, forty tall ships sailing up our own river, the Blue Angels overhead, our council member leading a parade, and a heat index that would make the Founders reconsider the July timing. Happy Fourth, West Siders. Watch the ships, find the shade, check on your people, and we'll see you next week, hopefully a few degrees cooler.

Nominate someone for The Summer 10. Check the map.

— The West Sider