🙋‍♀️ A note from the newsroom (me): I missed you last week. The issue was 89% finished when family life staged a hostile takeover. The remaining 11% proved surprisingly difficult. Turns out being a mother, wife, writer, editor, researcher and publisher is a lot of departments for one person.

I'm learning, improving and occasionally discovering the limits of a 24-hour day. Thanks for bearing with me. Management has been spoken to.

🗺️ Open House New York, Google Map All 155 free, no-ticket sites this weekend, with the hours in every pin and subway directions one tap away. Pick a day. Pick a door.

🍂 The 2026 Autumn Guide Leaf walks, orchards, Oktoberfests, concerts in twilight, Halloween, and weekend trips. We hope to surprise you.

🍎 It's Getting Crisp Farm Picking Guide! Apple picking and more farm fun! Addresses, drive times, who's cash-only, who needs a reservation, and the two farms that have no apples this year.

Once a year, New York unlocks the buildings it usually keeps to itself. This weekend is Open House New York (OHNY). Didn't land a reservation in the first 30 seconds? Same. We've got you. There are 155 drop-in sites, no reservation needed, and we took our organizing obsession to the nth degree: every one is on a Google Map. Near Rockefeller Center on Sunday? Hop in line at 610 Loft & Garden, a rooftop garden that's giving generational wealth, with a rare view of St. Patrick's.

Architect Scott Lauer founded OHNY in 2001, after 9/11. As the city locked itself down for security, he wanted to open it back up. He believed design could make our lives better, and that a city is better with its doors open. Since the first weekend in 2003, more than a million New Yorkers and visitors have toured its open houses.

OHNY director Kristin LaBuz calls the weekend "a hall pass to be a tourist in their own backyard."

In the Garment District, a few blocks from Penn Station? There's the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, the nation's oldest community print shop; Tom's Sons International Pleating, Saturday only, which pleats for fashion houses, film and theater; and the Pellettieri Stone Carvers' Academy, the city's only organization dedicated to teaching traditional stone carving, Friday and Saturday. Pick up a chisel and give it a go.

Seven on the west side:

155 doors. All free. No tickets. Zero excuses.

🗺️ Because we love a map, we pinned all 155 drop-in sites on a custom Google Map. On your phone it opens in Google Maps. Tap a pin, hit Directions, and pick walking, subway or bus.

Tap the map's name to filter by day: Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

Pro tip: Add the map to your home screen. On iPhone, open the link in your browser and tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. On Android, tap ⋮ in Chrome, then Add to Home screen.

Yelp just ranked the 100 best pasta places in America, and New York City won seven places on the list, including local favorite Arco Cafe, at 886 Amsterdam (103rd–104th), which came in at No. 39.

Arco Cafe was founded in 2014 by siblings from Nuoro, Sardinia. They wanted to create "a place to experience real Sardinian food — not an Italian-American adaptation, but the authentic cuisine of our island." Sardinia is the Mediterranean's second-largest island. It's also home to su filindeu, "the threads of God," often called the world's rarest pasta. That's a story for another day.

Every morning, the pasta and bread, including focaccia and Sardinian flatbreads, are made by hand. After making the list, Arco posted on Instagram: "We never did it for the recognition. We did it for the people around the table." They mean it literally: every year, Arco brings a Sardinian picnic to the Longest Table Dinner, the annual block party thrown by the 103rd and 104th Street block associations.

Saturday is National Pasta Day. Get the malloreddus, the small ridged pasta in a rich sausage ragù, and finish with sebada: fried pastry filled with cheese and drizzled with Sardinian honey. Or play it safe with the pappardelle ai funghi porcini. Your diet starts Monday.

Everyone's hooting about this. For the first time in modern history, barn owls are nesting in Manhattan, on a water tower on West 75th Street, just off Central Park West. Elisabeth Williams spotted the first one from her patio and named it Scotty. Now Scotty and a mate are raising five or six owlets, depending on which birder you ask.

This local phenomenon has been making national news. After dark, ornithology enthusiasts gather on Central Park West around 75th to catch a glimpse of the parliament of heart-shaped faces. Join them. David Barrett of Manhattan Bird Alert said, "You will need very strong binoculars if you want to see anything more than a tiny dark blob." You can also watch from home: there's a livestream from a nearby roof.

Opening: 🍝 La Pecora Bianca — 61 Columbus Ave (at 62nd). Opens Monday, Oct 19, in the old Rosa Mexicano space. Two floors, the company's biggest location yet, with pasta made in-house every day and gluten-free pasta on request. Arco, you've been warned.

Opened: 🩻 NYU Langone Radiology — 1980 Broadway (at 67th). Opened Oct 12 in the old Gracious Home space, empty since the store closed in 2016. It's 28,000 square feet of imaging, including a PET/MR machine used to spot dementia and certain cancers. Ten years vacant, and now it can see through walls.

Coming: ☕ Eataly Caffè — 2252 Broadway (at 81st). It has a date: Friday, Nov 6, at 3pm, in the old "You've Got Mail" Starbucks. The first 100 in line get a gift, and there are free mini hot chocolates that weekend from 11am. It's Eataly Caffè's fourth in the city. We told you it was coming in July. You've got mail.

Coming: 🥪 Edith's Sandwich Counter — 186 Columbus Ave (68th–69th). The Brooklyn shop that started as a pandemic pop-up in Greenpoint has signed a lease on the old Francesco's Pizzeria, which ran from 1999 until July. Its BEC&L made the Times' list of 57 sandwiches that define New York. No opening date yet. We said goodbye to Francesco's in July. This is the sequel.

Coming: 🍦 Mimi's — 221 Columbus Ave (at 70th). Self-serve frozen yogurt with a Greek yogurt base, $1.20 an ounce, in a former Corcoran office. It's the chain's fourth Manhattan shop. Lease signed, no date. That's two frozen desserts headed for Columbus. Winter has been canceled.

Coming: 🍨 Bacio di Latte — 341 Columbus Ave (at 77th). Two brothers from Milan started it in São Paulo in 2011. It now has more than 175 shops in Brazil and a string around Los Angeles, and this is its first in New York, in the old Peruvian Connection space. The sign is up. The opening is summer 2027. Gelato people plan ahead.

Coming: 🏋️ Crunch Fitness — 2192 Broadway (at 78th). Taking the old Marshalls, empty since March 2023. At 28,100 square feet, it was the third-largest retail lease on the UWS last quarter. Crunch already has a gym on West 83rd. People have sweated in there before, digging for a coat in their size.

Coming: ⚾ The Riverside Park South turf fields — Riverside Park South (around 62nd). "Within weeks" of opening: two softball and baseball fields, soccer pitches, a basketball court, three pickleball courts and night lighting, the first anywhere in Riverside Park. About 30 years from idea to almost-open. "The new field is tremendously significant to us," says the West Side Little League's president. Pickleball got in anyway.

Could be ending: 🐴 Horse-drawn carriages — Central Park. After about 150 years, they could be on their way out. If it passes, Romanch's Law, named for a tourist killed in a carriage accident this summer, would end them by June 2028. The full Council votes Oct 22, its sponsor says. The horses have not commented.

Closing: 🧥 OSKA — 311 Columbus Ave (74th–75th). Out at the end of October after more than ten years. Everything is marked down and final sale. A layering store, leaving at the start of layering season.

Closing: 🏨 The Plaza — Fifth Ave (at 59th). Across the park and not technically ours, but hard to ignore. The hotel closes in January 2027 for a facade restoration big enough to shut the whole building, for about four years. If all goes to plan, it reopens around 2031. Nobody has said yet what happens to the people who live there or the weddings already booked. Kevin McCallister will have to find another hotel.

Closed: ☕ Blank Street Coffee — 2345 Broadway (at 86th). Closed Oct 10. The chain still has two UWS shops, at 80th and Columbus and at Broadway and 91st. Down to two. We'll stay awake somehow.

Update: 📷 The double-parking cameras — Broadway (74th–75th). The DOT pilot cameras watching this block, and part of West 74th, come down this week. Tickets issued: zero. It was data collection only, and DOT hasn't shared what it learned. They saw everything. They just didn't tell anyone.

Update: 🏗️ The Astor's sidewalk shed — 2139 Broadway (75th–76th). It's gone. The 522-foot heavy-duty shed first went up in June 2014, came halfway down from 2021 to 2023, then went back up in full in 2024, covering the whole block and wrapping both corners. No permits show it coming back. Three of the four storefronts underneath are vacant. Twelve years later, Broadway at 75th has a sky.

Update: 🎨 PS 87's Living Mural — 160 W 78th St (Columbus–Amsterdam). Turns 50, and gets a plaque Saturday at noon. Gale Brewer tells the story: a parents' sit-in in February 1976, and artist G. Augustine Lynas covering the graffiti by the front door with a mural. He has kept it up ever since. Fifty years, one artist, still no graffiti.

⛈️ Showers and a rumble of thunder hang around into the early afternoon today, with a high of 76. Then the bottom falls out. Saturday is windy and 55, with gusts strong enough to rearrange your Halloween decorations, and it drops to 41 overnight. Sunday is the pick: plenty of sun and 58. Umbrella Friday. Real coat Saturday.

🐟 Fish, WP Theater, 2162 Broadway (76th–77th), Fri 7pm; Sat 2pm and 7pm; Sun 7pm. A London teen runs an internet sting to find her missing brother, and Melis Aker's comedy gets darker from there. Ages 12+. From $45. Closes Oct 25.

🎭 Human Things, Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, 263 W 86th St, Fri and Sat 7pm; Sun 2pm and 7pm. Tony winner Victoria Clark stars in Joshua Owen's new play about a couple on the rocks. She's out Friday night. From $49 with fees (only a $119 ticket remains for Friday). Runs through Oct 23.

😈 Faust, same church, Fri 7:30pm; Sat 2:30pm and 7:30pm; Sun 4pm. Amore Opera does Gounod in full costume, with English supertitles and a live orchestra. $45. One church, one weekend, a marriage in trouble and a deal with the devil.

🎬 The Devils, Film at Lincoln Center, 144 W 65th St, daily through Oct 22. Ken Russell's 1971 film with Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed, restored on 35mm and finally uncut. Friday's 6pm and 8:30pm are sold out. $19, or $14 at the 1pm matinees, plus a $2 fee.

💃 Urban Love Suite, Alice Tully Hall, 1941 Broadway, 7:30pm. Sekou McMiller's company gives the New York premiere of an evening-length dance that mixes salsa, mambo, house and step to celebrate the roots Black and Latino New Yorkers share. The band is live. It's part of Lincoln Center's Legacies of San Juan Hill festival. PWYW, but sold out online. There's a day-of line at the box office.

🎸 Fred Armisen: Comedy for Musicians But Everyone Is Welcome, Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway, 7:30pm. The SNL alum's stand-up for music nerds. From $53.60, fees included.

🎤 Judah Friedlander and friends, New York Comedy Club, 236 W 78th St, 6:15pm. Frank from 30 Rock headlines the early show. $26.50 with fees, plus a $20 minimum.

🍷 Macbeth, Metropolitan Opera, 1pm. The Balcony is already sold out. Closing night is Tuesday at 7:30pm. From $33.

👻 Ghostbusters in Concert, United Palace, 4140 Broadway (at 175th), doors 6:30pm, film 8pm. A live orchestra plays Elmer Bernstein's score under the 1984 film. From $29. It's not on the UWS, but Dana Barrett's building is: 55 Central Park West, at 66th. Who you gonna call? The A train.

🎤 Gina Brillon and friends, West Side Comedy Club, 201 W 75th St, 8pm. Brillon's Amazon special won a Gracie Award. From $25, two-item minimum, 16+.

💃 Moving Body – Moving Image, David Rubenstein Atrium, 1887 Broadway, noon to 6pm. Lincoln Center's dance film festival fills the Atrium with films about immigrant life. FREE, first come, first served.

🩰 Adrian Danchig-Waring's farewell, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater, 3pm. The principal's last performance, with a Pam Tanowitz world premiere made on him and Chun Wai Chan in The Four Temperaments. From $54.

🎤 Aziz Ansari: Hypothetical Tour, Beacon Theatre, 7:30pm. From $165.30, fees included. Yes, really.

🎤 Katie Boyle: Live Special Taping, New York Comedy Club, 6pm and 8:30pm. $30.85 with fees, plus a $20 minimum. Laugh like it's being recorded. It is.

This week: The No. 2 pencil makes its case.

A track coach decided that since races are timed, his sprinters should spend the season mastering stopwatches. Starts, stops, perfect splits. By championship season, they were excellent timekeepers. Unfortunately, none of them qualified.

That's neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath's parable, and the premise behind his book, The Digital Delusion (one of my top three reads this year). A stopwatch measures the running. It doesn't make you faster. He argues we're making the same mistake with computerized tests: confusing the tool with the skill.

Naturally, New York bought everyone a stopwatch.

Last spring, every third- through eighth-grader took the state English and math exams on a computer for the first time, completing a rollout that began in 2024.

Now, more than half the City Council wants the pencils back. In a letter led by Bronx Council Member Eric Dinowitz, they're asking the state to allow paper exams again.

The contradiction is fairly spectacular. Schools are being told to reduce screen time, while the state requires children to demonstrate what they've learned on a screen. So schools spend more time preparing them to use one.

But there's a rather inconvenient detail: kids appear to test better on paper.

Horvath calls it the mode effect: the same knowledge can produce different scores depending on the testing medium. In one study he cites, two matched groups of fifth-graders learned the same material for a semester. The paper-tested group improved roughly 14%. The computer-tested group declined about 5%.

Same lessons. Different pencil.

Horvath even took his argument to the U.S. Senate. Comparing the Nation's Report Card with when states switched to digital testing, he found a troubling pattern: scores that had been climbing began falling after the switch. Reading, math, fourth grade, eighth grade. An impressive level of consistency, unfortunately in the wrong direction.

Correlation isn't causation, but it's hardly a ringing endorsement.

Surely more screen practice fixes this? Apparently not. Horvath says one familiarization session helps, but additional practice offers little benefit, and excessive screen time is associated with worse scores. His advice: teach the material, then give kids one to three short sessions with the testing software.

Revolutionary stuff. Prioritize learning over locating the Submit button.

Dinowitz also wants students to underline passages and write essays by hand. At this rate, someone may suggest they read a book.

Both West Side Council members, Gale Brewer and Shaun Abreu, signed the letter. The state is reviewing the request, with the next testing window running April 5–May 14.

Plenty of time for Albany to decide whether a pencil is still an acceptable piece of technology.

Last issue's poll: "The UWS gets $1 million to fix things. What would you fix?"

Two out of three of you went straight for the bathrooms. Albany heard you, sort of: the state just put $3 million into the restrooms at Dinosaur Playground in Riverside Park at 97th. That's three times your budget, for one set of restrooms. Cross your legs. The work could take two and a half years.

🐦 Birding Bob's bird walks, Central Park, at the height of fall migration. Saturday and Sunday, 7:30am and 9:30am from the Boathouse (74th and East Drive), plus weekday walks. Just show up. $10 cash, $20 on Sunday, and the 7:30am crowd gets the 9:30am walk free. The birds start early. So do the birders.

🌸 The 91st Street Community Garden turns 45, Riverside Park, Serpentine Promenade level between 90th and 91st, Sunday 1pm to 3pm. The Garden People throw "45 Years in Bloom: The Garden We Share," and everyone's invited. FREE. Rain date Sunday Oct 25.

🧘 Free fall classes at the Riverside Field House, 102nd St: Bodyroll Monday 10am, yoga Wednesday 9:30am, mat Pilates Thursday 11am. FREE.

🌷 A new garden at the 95th Street entrance, Riverside Park. Years of dead limbs, debris and trash came out, and more than 100 native plants and four cherry and redbud trees went in. It's a Riverside Park Conservancy project, paid for by neighbors and a grant from the building at 222 Riverside Drive. Plant now, brag in April.

🧪 Potion Commotion Design, Children's Museum of Manhattan, 212 W 83rd St, Sat 10:30am; Sun 2pm. Decorate a potion bottle with gems, wax and ribbon. Included with admission.

🎃 Mini Pumpkin Patch, CMOM, Sat and Sun 11:15am and 2:45pm. Kids 4 and under hunt for tiny pumpkins in a bin of dirt. Included with admission.

🚒 FDNY Open House, four west side firehouses: Engine 76/Ladder 22, 145 W 100th St, 11am to 1pm; Engine 74, 120 W 83rd St, Ladder 25, 205 W 77th St, and Engine 47, 502 W 113th St, 1pm to 3pm. Tours, demos and fire-safety tips. FREE, "of course," says Gale Brewer. Say thank you. Cookies probably wouldn't hurt.

🩰 Ballet Emotions, New York City Ballet Family Saturdays, David H. Koch Theater, 11am. Big feelings, beautiful dancing, and not a tantrum in sight. Ages 5+. From $29. One of our family's favorite outings.

👕 Poncho Paint Party, CMOM with The Museum at FIT, 2pm. Wearable art, no sewing. Included with admission.

🎻 CMS Kids: Building Blocks of Music, Rose Studio, 165 W 65th St, 11am and 1pm. A relaxed hour of chamber music for ages 3 to 6, ending with an instrument petting zoo. $25, and lap kids need a ticket too. The 3pm is sold out, and 11am is getting close.

📖 Sunday Story Time: Welcome to Broadway, New York Historical, 170 Central Park West, 11:30am. Carolyn Sloan reads her new picture book about musicals, and three Broadway actors perform. Ages 3 to 6. Free with admission.

🧚 Dance with the Fauns and Fairies, CMOM with American Ballet Theatre, 10:30am and 11:30am. Moves from Ashton's The Dream. Included with admission.

🎪 PS 452 Fall Festival, 210 W 61st St, 11am to 4pm. Bounce houses, an obstacle course, arcade games and food trucks, open to the neighborhood. Kids $30, or $45 with lunch and a drink.

🐶 Movie Monday: Frankenweenie, Riverside Library, 127 Amsterdam Ave, Monday 3:15pm. FREE.

🕸️ Cozy Stretchy Web and Dress Up Drawings, CMOM, Tuesday to Friday. Weave a giant web, then draw yourself in a Halloween costume. Included with admission.

🟠 Halloween Perler Beads, St. Agnes Library, Tuesday 3:30pm. FREE.

🧟 Spooky Movie Nite: Lisa Frankenstein, Riverside Library, Tuesday 3:15pm. For teens. FREE.

🫠 Slime Making, Bloomingdale Library, 150 W 100th St, Wednesday 4pm. FREE. Wear something you don't love.

🎃 Teen Art Club: Pumpkin Painting, Bloomingdale Library, Thursday 3:30pm. FREE.

Reminder: All Children's Museum of Manhattan programs are included with museum admission, which starts at $17.

💵 Get paid to talk about Lincoln Center. Lincoln Center wants people 65 and over who live, or go to community programs, within 20 blocks for a 90-minute focus group: Monday 2pm to 3:30pm, Thursday 10:30am to noon, or Monday Oct 26, 2pm to 3:30pm, all at Lincoln Center. Those selected get a $100 gift card. Email [email protected] or call (212) 876-3375. Finally, someone's paying for your opinions.

🏀 Knicks ring and banner night, Madison Square Garden, Tuesday. The championship ceremony starts at 6:30pm, then the opener against the 76ers at 7, with LeBron James making his Philadelphia debut. On NBC and Peacock. No UWS bar has posted a watch party yet. If yours is throwing one, tell us.

🏛️ Gallery Tour: Revolutionary Women, New York Historical, 170 Central Park West, Tuesday 3pm. $29, seniors $24.

📚 Selected Shorts: The Best American Short Stories 2026, with Viet Thanh Nguyen, Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, Wednesday 7pm. $38 with fees, $24 if you're 30 or under.

🧠 Trivia Wednesdays, The Wolfe, 425 Amsterdam Ave, 7:30pm to 9:30pm. Gift cards for the top three teams. FREE to play.

🇳🇱 Live From New Amsterdam: "America Is Us," New York Historical, noon. A Dutch historian and Russell Shorto on how much of America started in the 1600s Dutch Republic. FREE, register.

📖 Fearless Philanthropy book launch, Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, 30 W 68th St, Thursday 6pm to 8pm. Roberta Brandes Gratz on Edith Rosenwald Stern and Edgar Stern, the couple who reshaped New Orleans. FREE, register.

🀄 Mahjong Night, Mochi Dolci and 222 Speakeasy, 222 W 79th St, 6pm to 10pm. Beginner tables, and someone to teach you. FREE with a $15 minimum. Reserve ahead.

😂 New York Hysterical: The Big History Show, New York Historical, 6pm. History, but funny. PWYW from 5pm.

🎃 Community Halloween Party, Bernie Wohl Center, 647 Columbus Ave, Friday Oct 23, 5pm to 8pm. Goddard Riverside kicks off its arts season with face painting, a photo booth, cupcakes, costumed actors and live music. Come in costume. FREE, register ahead.

⛸️ Skating season is here, and it's already selling out.

The Rink at Rockefeller Center is open now for its 90th season. Daily, 9am to midnight, in timed one-hour sessions. From $22, and the price moves with the date and time. Everyone on the ice level needs a ticket, including whoever's just holding the coats.

Wollman Rink, across the park, opens Saturday Oct 24. Opening weekend, Oct 24 and 25, is Community Days: everyone welcome, FREE both days. After that, adults from $16, kids 4 to 12 $12, 3 and under FREE, skate rental $12. Tickets are on sale now, and three of its first six regular days are already standby only. Got an NYPL card or IDNYC? Wollman's access program gets you in with skates and cocoa for $16, walk-up only.

Yes, it's October. Book anyway.

🍎 Nominate a teacher for the FLAG Award for Teaching Excellence. Any full-time NYC public school teacher, 3-K through 12th grade, with at least five years in the classroom. Each borough's winner gets $25,000 to spend however they like, and their school gets $10,000 for an arts project the teacher designs. Students, former students, parents and colleagues can nominate. Relatives can't. Nominations close Nov 29, and the organizers say plenty of winners started with a single nomination. It might as well be yours.

🦃 Volunteer for Thanksgiving at Goddard Riverside. Registration is open for Nov 25 and 26: serving in-person dinners Thursday noon to 3pm, or delivering meals that morning to homebound neighbors on the UWS. Can't make it? Goddard also takes donated turkeys and bags of cookies. Sign up before your relatives make other plans for you.

Be the neighbor you think you are.

🎹 Chucho Valdés 85th Birthday Celebration, Rose Theater, Broadway at 60th, Friday and Saturday 7:30pm. The Cuban piano legend with Joe Lovano, Terence Blanchard, John Patitucci and Marcus Gilmore. From $42. Saturday's Mezzanine is sold out.

🎺 Juilliard Jazz Orchestra: Count Basie and the Blue Devils, Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 155 W 65th St, Friday 7:30pm. FREE.

🎷 Monk Festival: James Francies Trio with Joel Ross, Smoke, 2751 Broadway, Friday 6:30pm, 8:30pm and 10pm; Saturday 6:30pm, 8:30pm and 10pm. From $25.

🎤 Ekep Nkwelle, Dizzy's Club, Friday and Saturday 7pm and 9pm; Sunday 5pm and 7:30pm. From $55, plus a $25 minimum. Friday at 7pm and both Saturday sets are down to the last seat or so.

🎙️ Simona Daniele Plays Harry Warren, Dizzy's Club, Friday and Saturday 10:45pm. Friday she hosts an open vocal jam, and anyone can get up and sing. Saturday is her Harry Warren set. $15 cover plus one drink, the cheapest ticket at Jazz at Lincoln Center this weekend. Same room, same view, a quarter of the price.

🥃 The Wallace Lounge, 242 W 76th St: Matt Baker and Daniel Glass Friday, Ben Golder-Novick and Friends Saturday, 7pm to 11pm; the Emily Braden duo Sunday, 7pm to 10pm. No cover.

🎻 Charlotte Mayerson's Overlook Concerts, 116th Street Overlook, Riverside Park, Sunday 2pm. FREE.

🎼 Juilliard Orchestra with Jeffrey Milarsky, Alice Tully Hall, Monday 7:30pm. FREE.

🎸 LA On A Dare, The Speakeasy, downstairs at The Gin Mill, 442 Amsterdam Ave, Tuesday 7:30pm. Singer-songwriter Izze Stein. $20.

🎷 The Westside Sessions, The Speakeasy, Wednesday 8pm. Peter Brainin's weekly jazz jam, with Luques Curtis and Gary Versace. No cover.

🌙 Vibe Check, The Speakeasy, Thursday 11pm. A late-night house band mixes neo-soul, hip-hop and jazz, and singers and rappers can jump in. FREE. Night owls, this one's yours.

🎸 The M80s, Wollman Rink, Central Park, Thursday Oct 22, 5pm to 7pm. An '80s cover band plays the rink's overlook, two days before the ice opens. It's billed as Sounds of Summer, rescheduled to late October. Bring a jacket. FREE.

🎺 From Cuba to the Crescent City, Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Rose Theater, Friday Oct 23, 7:30pm. From $67.

🎸 Revelry: King Solomon Hicks, Symphony Space, Friday Oct 23, 7:30pm. $40, and only a handful of seats left.

Dudamel is house hunting. At the Philharmonic's opening gala, he told The New York Times he's been trying out the Upper West Side and Chelsea before choosing a permanent home for himself, his wife, the actress María Valverde, and his son. "I'm trying to see the city to decide where to go. Testing everything from places to food."

Chelsea is very nice. Chelsea does not have Zabar's.

He has a whole tour to think it over. The orchestra is in Europe right now, on its first tour there in a decade.

🎃 Broadway goes car-free Saturday, northbound lane only, 75th down to 73rd, 3pm to 8pm, for a Broadway Mall Association Halloween event. Drive around it. Or don't drive.

🚇 No C train north of 59th all weekend. Saturday and Sunday, the C skips the whole west side. Take the A, D or the 1. MTA planned work

🌙 Weeknights are worse. Monday to Thursday, the B stops at 8:30pm and the C at 9pm. The D is gone from Central Park West 9:30pm to 5am all week, and the overnight A skips every stop from 72nd to 116th. After 9pm, the 1 is your friend.

🅿️ Alternate side is on all week, with no suspensions.

🚉 72nd Street is getting modern fare gates at every entrance, with installation starting this quarter.

🤠 "I'm surprised how many people I see that supposedly live in Texas on the Upper West Side," former traffic commissioner Sam Schwartz told Streetsblog, for its investigation into out-of-state plates. Howdy, neighbor.

🍽️ Yardenne G. sent us one of her UWS favorites, Gazala's. She writes: "I love Gazala's. The food is Druze, from a small Middle Eastern community, and everything is bursting with fresh herbs, spices, and flavor. But what keeps me coming back is how welcome I always feel. There's something special about a place where the food is made with care and everyone feels like they belong. To me, that's New York at its best."

Arco got a national list this week. Gazala's got Yardenne. We know which review we'd frame.

Walk through an OHNY door this weekend? Or spotted the owls? Send us a pic!

That's it for this week. Go be nosy, eat something made by hand, and look up after dark on 75th. We'll be the ones squinting at a blob.

— The West Sider

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