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Nine homes sold for over $4 million on the west side this week alone. The top deal: a five-bedroom, five-bath condo at 211 West 84th, a Naftali Group building called The Henry, for $12.4 million. Formal garden. Rooftop terrace. Spa. Powder room, because apparently five bathrooms wasn't enough. And this was a quiet week. Two weeks ago, 12 UWS condos closed above $4M in a single stretch, topped by a $23.5 million unit at Extell's 50 West 66th. Read the Something to Chew On below and ask yourself what 430 more of these will do to the neighborhood.

Bill and Hillary Clinton had dinner at Verdello NYC 🍕 994 Columbus Ave, near 109th. Wood-fired pizza, southern Italian. A manager described them as "gracious, warm, and a pleasure to host," which is what you say about ex-presidents and also your most well-behaved Airbnb guests. Hillary was in town for the Vital Voices Global Leadership Awards, the nonprofit she co-founded to invest in women leaders globally. The keynote was downtown. The pizza was uptown. Priorities.

Also this week: King Charles and Queen Camilla swung through Manhattan. He fed chickens in Harlem. She gave the NYPL a stuffed Roo doll for the Winnie the Pooh collection's 100th anniversary. Which reminds us: the real bear that inspired Winnie the Pooh? Canadian. Not British. A soldier bought her for $20 at a train station in Ontario in 1914 and named her after his hometown of Winnipeg, a Canadian city so far north it makes the Upper West Side in January feel like the Riviera. Drop that at dinner tonight and see who believes you.

The Knicks closed out the Hawks 140-89. That's not a typo. They set the largest halftime lead in NBA playoff history 🏆 47 points. Led by as many as 61. Won the series 4-2 after being down 2-1 four days earlier. OG Anunoby had 29 points in 27 minutes. Karl-Anthony Towns got a triple-double on four shots, which has only been done once before in playoff history, by Magic Johnson in the '82 Finals. The Hawks opened on a 9-0 run. The Knicks answered with a 43-6 run. Round two is next. We're not saying the word "championship" out loud because every New Yorker knows that's exactly how you jinx it. But the group chat is unhinged right now and frankly so are we.

The DOE spent months trying to close or shuffle three UWS schools. Parents fought it. A PEP member told anyone who'd listen he wouldn't vote for it. And on Monday, Chancellor Samuels pulled all three proposals before the vote. The official line was that the new administration needs more time. The unofficial line is that the votes weren't there and everybody knew it. P.S. 191, the Manhattan School for Children, and the Center School (M.S. 243, which shares a building with P.S. 9 Sarah Anderson at 100 W 84th St) all stay put. For now. The chancellor says he may come back to it. West side parents say: we'll be here.

Closing temporarily: 🛒 Trader Joe's — 2073 Broadway at 72nd. The busiest TJ's on earth. Two levels. Four escalators that haven't all worked at the same time since the Biden administration. Closes May 17 for "several months." The only other TJ's on the west side is at 93rd and Columbus, which just felt a disturbance in the Force.

Opened: 🥐 Orwashers — 66 W 84th St. A second UWS outpost for the bakery that already owns Amsterdam Ave. Takeout only: coffee from Jack's, pastries, bagel sandwiches. No eggs. No lunch. Just carbs and conviction. Open daily, 7am–3pm.

Opened: ☕ Blank Street Coffee — 418 Columbus Ave at 80th. This is the fourth UWS Blank Street. Four. They're calling this one a "3.0 store" 🦢 latte art, swans in your foam, the whole production. We've now reached one Blank Street per ten blocks. At this rate, they'll outnumber mailboxes by fall.

Opened: 💈 The Cutting Edge Barber Shop — 580 Amsterdam Ave (between 88th & 89th). Owner Danny, known as "Danny Barber," left his chair at The Cutting District on Columbus to open his own shop on April 20th. A barber named Barber. You can't write this stuff.

Opened: 🥨 Auntie Anne's & Carvel — 2818 Broadway at 109th. Pretzels and soft serve, one roof, second UWS location. And right next door? A Taco Bell appears to be assembling itself. The 109th Street food court nobody requested is forming on its own, like a weather system.

Opened: 🥪 Upside Deli — 2424 Broadway at 89th (the old Tal Bagels space). Breakfast, sandwiches, salads, smoothies, juices, pastries. The entire "what do you want for lunch" argument, under one roof.

Shut down: 🐀 Mala Town — 929 Amsterdam Ave (between 106th & 107th). The build-your-own hotpot spot scored 85 violation points on its April 22nd health inspection. For reference, an "A" is 0 to 13. Eighty-five. Live rats. Live roaches. Food at wrong temperatures. Raw food cross-contaminated. The restaurant opened less than two years ago. We're not going to make a joke here because… actually, no: Newman would eat there and tell you it was fine.

Closed: ☕ Fillup Coffee — 2486 Broadway (between 92nd & 93rd). Last cup poured April 25th after four and a half years. The sign in the window said "too much competition." Four Blank Streets will do that.

Closed: 🖤 Edgar's Cafe — 650 Amsterdam Ave (between 91st & 92nd). Yesterday was its last day. 38 years. The Poe-themed gothic cafe with the arched ceilings and the dim lighting, named for the man who wrote "The Raven" while living near 84th Street. Quoth the landlord: nevermore.

Jacket weather all weekend. Nothing dramatic. Bring one, carry it, repeat.

🚶 Jane's Walk NYC — Fri May 1 – Sun May 3, citywide. Two hundred free walking tours led by people who know things about places you walk past every day and have never once thought about. Named after Jane Jacobs, the woman who told Robert Moses to go build his highways somewhere else, and run by the Municipal Art Society since 2011. The UWS and Central Park walks include a Nora Ephron filming locations tour (yes, that Nora Ephron 🎬 the west side is basically her backlot) and a North Woods sensory walk through the wildest corner of Central Park (sold out, but check for cancellations). All walks are FREE. Rain or shine. No excuses. Browse the full list and register here.

🩰 NYCB: Contemporary Choreography III — Fri May 1 & Sat May 2 (and running through May 20). Koch Theater. Four ballets, four choreographers, zero filler. Ratmansky's Concerto DSCH is the one that makes people who don't think they like ballet realize they like ballet. Lubovitch's Each In Their Own Time is two male dancers and Brahms. Romantic, gorgeous, the kind of piece that makes a room go quiet. Wheeldon's Continuum makes its NYCB debut after 24 years at San Francisco Ballet. And Liang's Distant Cries returns after a two-decade absence. If you're under 30, rush tickets are $30. Nobody at intermission needs to know your fiscal strategy.

🚲 Blessing of the Bicycles — Sat May 2, 9am, Cathedral of St. John the Divine (1047 Amsterdam at 112th). For 28 years, hundreds of cyclists have rolled their bikes into one of the largest cathedrals on earth to get sprinkled with holy water by a reverend. Skaters, scooter riders, and unicyclists also welcome — which means yes, someone has shown up on a unicycle. There's a moment of silence for riders lost this year, and then everyone rings their bells under the vaulted ceilings at once. They pass a helmet instead of a collection plate. The whole thing takes an hour and costs nothing, and it is the most beautifully absurd thing happening on the west side this weekend. Doors open 8:30am. FREE.

Extell just filed permits for a 1,198-foot, 86-story residential tower at the old ABC campus. 80 W 67th, corner of Columbus. 430 units. 187 parking spots. 275 feet shorter than the Empire State Building. On Columbus Avenue.

Here's the trick: the site sits outside the Lincoln Square Special District. Midtown zoning. No height caps. And because Extell owns multiple buildings on the block, they can stack all their unused air rights into one tower. A legal magic trick that turns empty space above short buildings into very real floors above yours. Landmark West proposed a zoning amendment to bring the site under the same rules as the rest of the neighborhood. The city said no. 200 Amsterdam spent years in court for being too tall. This one is nearly double that height and doesn't need anyone's permission. If you run the reservoir and look west, this is what you'll see instead of sky.

Gary Barnett, Extell's founder, a man who has raised capital from Dubai and already built Central Park Tower on Billionaires' Row, has offered 20% affordable, mostly senior studios. Gale Brewer wants 30% and family-sized units. Barnett told CB7: "If that's the starting point, I'm not sitting down." Fight the fight, Gale.

Here's what's worth chewing on. Nearly half the luxury apartments on Billionaires' Row sit empty. Not between tenants. Empty on purpose. They're purchased through shell companies by foreign investors who visit twice a year and leave the lights off the rest of the time. Safety deposit boxes with marble countertops. Extell's own Central Park Tower still had dozens of unsold units in 2023. The west side vacancy rate is 1.14%. So the question isn't whether we build tall. It's whether we let someone bring the Billionaires' Row playbook to Columbus Avenue, and whether those 430 units will be homes or just very expensive storage.

☀️ Summer on the Hudson starts this weekend. Riverside Park Conservancy just announced 400+ FREE events running May through October — live music, movies on the waterfront, fitness classes, nature walks, kids' programming, all along the Hudson from 59th to 181st. This is the west side's backyard calendar for the next six months. Mark it. Full schedule drops here.

📚 What is your kid actually reading in school right now? The DOE quietly launched a tool called the NYC Reads Curriculum Finder and it's the kind of thing you didn't know you needed until you try it. Plug in your child's school and grade, and it tells you exactly what they're learning in ELA this unit — the topic, the questions they're exploring, the types of materials they're using. Then it gives you FREE digital books matched to what they're studying so you can build on it at home. We tried it with a kindergartner and got a full reading list in about ten seconds. This is one of those rare DOE moves where the reaction is just: oh, that's actually great. Try it.

🎹 Tour the Steinway Factory — Sat May 2, 1:30pm. Astoria, Queens. Ages 10+. Here's the thing: Steinway stopped doing public factory tours. They don't let people in anymore. But Cooper Hewitt pulled some strings — possibly the piano kind — and arranged a family tour of the factory where every Steinway has been handmade for over a hundred years. The address? Secret. You get it when you register. Your kid will watch a piano go from raw wood to the instrument Lang Lang refuses to perform without. Whether or not they practice scales when they get home is between you and them. $35 for up to 2 adults, youth tickets FREE. Get tickets.

🦛 Hippo Playground Spring Fair — Sun May 3, 10am–4pm. Riverside Park at 91st St. Oh, you thought you had other plans Sunday? No you don't. Pony rides. Bouncy castles. Petting zoo. Face painting. Cupcake decorating. This is the UWS parenting Super Bowl and it's been running for decades. The whole thing is organized by volunteers, and every dollar goes back into Riverside Park: the summer concerts, the Halloween parade, playground upgrades. Activity wristband $44.52, individual ticket bundles $23.18. Rain date May 18. Your kids will talk about this for a week. You will need a nap by 2pm. Both of these things are fine.

👾 Create-athon: Monsters Everywhere! — Sun May 3, Lincoln Center. This one's for kids, teens, and families who thinks they're too old for spring fairs but will absolutely spend four hours sewing a monster if you frame it right. Lincoln Center's Create-athon series teams teens up with real artists from The New York Sewing Center to design and build custom plush creatures and learn clothing construction. No experience needed. Just show up or grab a Fast Track ticket to skip the line. FREE. If your kid comes home with a handmade monster and a sudden interest in fashion design, Lincoln Center did that.

⛪ Stand Up for West Park — LPC Public Meeting — Tue May 5, 9am. Landmarks Preservation Commission, 253 Broadway, 2nd Floor. The 135-year-old West Park Presbyterian Church at 86th and Amsterdam is one LPC vote away from losing its landmark status and being demolished for condos. This is the building that housed the first kitchen of God's Love We Deliver and gave the Public Theater some of its earliest space. Ruffalo, Johansson, and Damon have all shown up to fight for it. Tuesday's meeting is procedural — no public testimony — but the Center is asking people to show up or watch the livestream because the room matters. Submit written testimony here.

🎶 SummerStage 2026 Lineup Is Live — The 40th anniversary season just dropped and it's stacked. 60+ shows across the city, most of them FREE. Central Park highlights: Laurie Anderson (Jun 26), Spoon (Jul 11), Mavis Staples (Sep 6), De La Soul in Queens, Andrew Bird doing the 20th anniversary of The Mysterious Production of Eggs with a full orchestra (Aug 6). Benefit shows include Blues Traveler / Gin Blossoms / Spin Doctors (Aug 15) and Charley Crockett (Oct 1). Some are already sold out. Browse the full lineup and book now before your favorites disappear.

🌊 Riverkeeper Sweep — Sat May 2, 10am–12:30pm. Riverside Park. Close the screens. Grab the kids. The 15th annual Riverkeeper Sweep is the day you and a few hundred of your neighbors pick up every piece of trash between the Hudson River shoreline and the path you jog on pretending not to notice it. Riverside Park Conservancy provides the bags and gloves. You provide the hands and the moral superiority that comes with spending a Saturday morning doing something that actually matters. All ages welcome. Closed-toe shoes required. Register here.

Be the neighbor you think you are.

Listen up. Goddard Riverside wants nominations for their annual Good Neighbor Awards. Deadline: Sunday, May 4th.

Last year's honorees included the self-appointed "Mayor of 68th Street" and a woman who cooked 400 meals overnight for a neighborhood in mourning. You know someone like this. They will never nominate themselves. That's the whole point.

In a year when the world could use more proof that decent people exist, here's your chance to provide some.

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

That's Issue #9. Twelve million dollars, 140 points, one Canadian bear, and a cathedral full of bicycles. If you read all the way down here, you're one of us.

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See you next week.

— The West Sider