Broadway Restaurant, a NYC institution on the Rebound

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2024 Update

Sadly, Broadway Restaurant closed for good a few months ago.

June 27 2018 Update

If you’re a friend, associate, or perhaps one of my authors, I may have invited you to meet for breakfast or lunch at Broadway Restaurant, near my office on the upper west side of Manhattan, on Broadway btw 101st & 102nd St. It’s a stalwart survivor of the golden age of NYC coffee shops from the early 1970s, a vanishing breed that’s hanging on even in a time when so many small businesses have gone under. Amid the tumult of yesterday, with a Supreme Court vacancy opening alarmingly, I am excited to announce some positive news from my own micro-locale: the operators of my favorite local diner, the Broadway Restaurant—Chris, Angelo, and Tony—have reopened following the fire their establishment sustained last winter. Here are some pictures from today’s opening, with the building front bedecked in pennant flags.  I’m sure I’ll be having a meal there very soon, so let me know if you want to meet up. I’m happy I can go back to giving them my custom. #community #thirdplaces

Amid the tumult of today, with a Supreme Court vacancy opening alarmingly, I am excited to announce some positive news from my micro-locale: the operators of my favorite local diner, the Broadway Restaurant—Chris, Angelo, and Tony—have reopened following the fire their establishment sustained last winter. Here are some pictures from today’s opening, with the building front bedecked in pennant flags. The restaurant is on Broadway between 101st and 102nd Street, if you want stop in. I’m sure I’ll be having breakfast there very soon!


Original post from March 22, 2018

Happy to see one of the metal shutters raised at the stalwart Upper West Side diner, Broadway Restaurant, with renovations now underway on its fire-damaged interior. The fire happened sometime during New Year’s week, and both shutters have been down ever since. In January, a neighboring merchant told me he’d heard that the owners plan to renovate and reopen, and I’ve been happy recently to see signs of activity. The establishment dates back to the early 1970s at a time when Greek-style coffee shops were common in NYC, though they have become much more scarce over the years. It has been my go-to place to meet clients for breakfast or lunch in the neighborhood. The veteran staff, Chris, Angelo, and Tony, have become friends, along with others who work there, and I’m hoping to see them all again sometime in the Spring.

In case you wonder about the location, here’s some info. They have great reviews on Yelp, including one I wrote:

Broadway Restaurant
2664 Broadway
New York, NY 10025
b/t 101st St & 102nd St

Broadway Restaurant
2664 Broadway
New York, NY 10025
b/t 101st St & 102nd St

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Remembrance Rock, a Veritable Time Capsule at City College, Upper Manhattan

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On a recent bike ride I happened upon Remembrance Rock on the upper Manhattan campus of City College, commemorating students who died in American wars. A lugubrious history respectfully memorialized in public space. A sadly fitting homage, to bring soil from the places where service members died to this spot on the island New Yorkers call home, and mingle it with soil from historic places in the city. A kind of time capsule committed to the ground in 1959, , among the things I’d never known about my own city.

 

 

The full text of the Whitmanesque message can be read easily by clicking here:

#RemembranceRock

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Days Getting Longer & Sunsets Lasting Longer

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For the first time this year in NYC, the sunset fell after 8pm last night, a kind of celestial milestone on the way to the Summer Solstice June 20th. I pedaled along the Cherry Walk and took a lot of pictures down there along the Hudson River, as the daylight ebbed away, amid a prolonged symphony of color and light. Here’s a thumbnail of those photos just now added to my Flickr album that’s labeled GGB/Sunsets/Hudson. Please visit there for a full sampling of images. 

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Exuberant Kids on NY’s Restored High Bridge

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As I wrote on this blog in 2013, New York City’s High Bridge is a pedestrian walkway that “connected the Bronx and Manhattan beginning in 1842, an interboro link across the Harlem River that was built to bring fresh water via the Croton Aqueduct in to Gotham. The span connects 170th Street in the Bronx to 173rd Street in Manhattan. In a deliciously arcane example of NYC geography, [a reporter] points out, that’s ‘West 173rd Street and not East,’ though this is the east side of Manhattan, ‘Because it is technically west of 5th Avenue,’ the east-west midpoint of the island for street-naming purposes.”

When I wrote that in 2013 a full renovation of the span was underway, and a few months ago it reopened to the public. Last fall I pedaled up to High Bridge for my first look at the restoration of the span. Here are some pictures I took that day when I was fortunate to come upon some children playing on the new walkway. 1 Exuberant kids on High Bridge 2 Exuberant kids on High Bridge 3 Exuberant kids on High Bridge 4 Exberant kinds on High Bridge

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Photos from the Wild, Windy Edge of March

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Monday dawned gray, rainy, and chilly in New York City. Yet, by around 3pm a new weather front had blown in from the south—in itself unusual—laced with rising barometric pressure, wind gusts that exceeded 40 mph, racing clouds, whitecaps on the Hudson River, higher temperatures, and bright sunshine that lasted until well after 7pm. I was out on my bike as the weather shifted, and despite getting pushed around like a paper sailboat on a lake, I managed to pedal along the river all the way up to what I call Hudson Beach and the Great Gray Bridge. Here are my best pictures from the hours that I enjoyed riding around and reveling in the elements.

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